How Does Light Affect Plant Growth

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Background Information: All living things on this planet are sustained by light. It is said that light is an important component for plants to grow. The light is where plants get energy from to do the process of photosynthesis. This is one of the main reasons why plant requires light, because it needs to produce energy in order to grow. Not all light or plants are the same; they can differ depending on the type. Plants often need light that fall into the light scale of the blue spectrum and this are daylight, fluorescent light and lights that have blue tones which provide the perfect needs for a plant. It regulates plant growth and is perfect for the growth of short plants. Incandescent and halogen lights are red in the tone scale and are not helpful for plant growth. Red light stimulates vegetative growth and flowering but if a plant gets too much of it, then it can suffer from: • Stems leggy or stretched out • Leaves turning yellow, small or thin • Lower leaves will…show more content…
The light intensity of the plant differs on the necessity it has. The plants in tropical rainforests do not need that much amount of light compared to the plants in cold climates or in the South. Flowering plants like orchids require more light intensity than ivy plants for example. Plants are like humans in the sense that they don’t need light all day to survive. They need some amount of light per day but at the same time they need to be at rest in the dark because that’s the moment they use for respiration. If the rest time is not respected, biological problems can occur. The hours of light plants need depend on the type, which are: • Short-day plants: ex. Begonias need 12 hours or less of light per day. • Long-day plants: ex. Vegetables or garden flowers need at least 14-18 hours of light each day. • Day-neutral plants: ex. African violets need 8 to 12 hours of light the entire year for it to be

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