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Artificial lighting is widely used in controlled environment plant production to enhance plant growth and quality. However, high light intensity with artificial lighting is costly, and often causes increase of leaf temperature and, thus, leaf burn. We investigated the effects of photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) and photoperiod on the growth and morphogenesis of lettuce plug transplants under ambient and enriched CO2 levels. Three days after seeding, the plants were cultured under four PPF levels (100, 150, 200, and 300 μmol·m–2·s–1), two photoperiods (16 and 24 hr), and two CO2 levels (400 and 800 μmol·mol–1) for 18 days in growth chambers. Light source was fluorescent lamps. The air temperature around the plants was kept at 20°C. The results showed that dry weight of the plants increased linearly as PPF and daily integrated PPF (product of PPF and photoperiod) increased under both CO2 levels. At the same daily integrated PPF, higher CO2 level and longer photoperiod led to higher dry weight of the plants. CO2 enrichment increased significantly dry weight of the plants. The ratio of T/R and specific leaf area of the plants decreased quadratically as daily integrated PPF increased under both CO2 levels. The ratio of leaf length to leaf width of the plants decreased quadratically as PPF increased under the two photoperiods and CO2 levels.
Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. cv. Summer-green) plug transplants were grown for 3 weeks under 16 combinations of four levels (100, 150, 200, and 300 μmol·m-2·s-1) of photosynthetic photon flux (PPF), two photoperiods (16 and 24 h), and two levels of CO2 (400 and 800 μmol·mol-1) in growth chambers maintained at an air temperature of 20 ±2 °C. As PPF increased, dry mass (DM), percent DM, and leaf number increased, while ratio of shoot to root dry mass (S/R), ratio of leaf length to leaf width (LL/LW), specific leaf area, and hypocotyl length decreased. At the same PPF, DM was increased by 25% to 100% and 10% to 100% with extended photoperiod and elevated CO2 concentration, respectively. Dry mass, percent DM, and leaf number increased linearly with daily light integral (DLI, the product of PPF and photoperiod), while S/R, specific leaf area, LL/LW and hypocotyl length decreased as DLI increased under each CO2 concentration. Hypocotyl length was influenced by PPF and photoperiod, but not by CO2 concentration. Leaf morphology, which can be reflected by LL/LW, was substantially influenced by PPF at 100 to 200 μmol·m-2·s-1, but not at 200 to 300 μmol·m-2·s-1. At the same DLI, the longer photoperiod promoted growth under the low CO2 concentration, but not under the high CO2 concentration. Longer photoperiod and/or higher CO2 concentration compensated for a low PPF.