Twilight conditions could ultimately lead to higher crop yields
A team of researchers has made a breakthrough in understanding how plants detect twilight and the significant role it plays in their growth. This discovery could have profound implications for agriculture, particularly in optimizing crop yields and plant development.
“We got these surprising findings that twilight has a very relevant effect on key agriculture traits such as flowering time and growth,” said R. Glen Uhrig, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.
R. Glen Uhrig
The study involved simulating twilight conditions in a controlled environment using the Arabidopsis plant, a model organism closely related to canola. By gradually increasing the duration of twilight exposure from zero to 90 minutes, researchers found that a 30-minute twilight period produced the most favourable results. Plants exposed to this duration grew larger, with more flowers and biomass compared to those exposed to shorter or longer twilight periods. This discovery, according to Uhrig, holds great potential for improving agricultural breeding and plant growth.
 Photo by Michael Held |
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The implications are wide-ranging. For crops grown outdoors, breeding plants to be more responsive to twilight could optimize harvest times and boost yields – an essential consideration as climate change challenges global agriculture. Similarly, adjusting lighting conditions to incorporate twilight could lead to better yields for vertical farming or greenhouse operations.
For years, it was understood that photoperiod (the daily duration of light exposure) and temperature were the main environmental factors affecting plant growth. However, studying twilight’s impact had remained elusive due to technological limitations. Advances in technology now allow for more precise simulations of twilight conditions, opening new avenues of research.
Using specialized equipment from G2V Optics, Uhrig’s team created custom LED light settings to mimic twilight in a growth chamber. They then monitored plant growth over time using advanced image analysis and molecular tools.
“We wanted to understand how plants respond to twilight, which is essentially the ramping up of light in the morning and the ramping down of light in the evening, to see how that affects their growth and development,” Uhrig explained.
The study revealed that twilight influences both light detection and photosynthesis in plants, but the duration of twilight exposure appears to affect these processes differently. Uhrig believes that twilight may separate light detection, which influences flowering time, from photosynthesis, which drives growth.
The research team also explored the genetic mechanisms behind these responses by studying a gene-deficient plant line with an altered circadian clock. “Plant growth and development are governed at the highest levels by the circadian clock,” said Uhrig, highlighting that something unique happens during twilight that hadn’t been observed before.
This research could lead to new agricultural practices, particularly in optimizing plant responses to natural light cycles. This would ultimately lead to higher crop yields and more efficient farming methods.
| Staff
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