As Cary Mitchell, a horticulturist at Purdue University told NPR, in the 1990s, “research showed that you could grow lettuce in just red light. If you add a little bit of blue, it grows better.”
As Cary Mitchell, a horticulturist at Purdue University told NPR, in the 1990s, “research showed that you could grow lettuce in just red light. If you add a little bit of blue, it grows better.”
Most plants do. That’s why they’re green - they reflect the photons from the mid range, and absorb the ones from the extremes (red and blue/violet) to actually work their shit. Like this:
![](https://lemmy.kya.moe/imgproxy?src=upload.wikimedia.org%2fwikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Chlorophyll_ab_spectra-en.svg/1024px-Chlorophyll_ab_spectra-en.svg.png)
Picture from Wikipedia.
(I wonder how efficient this would be to power exclusively with solar light. How many layers of plants could we grow, where we usually grow only one?)
Neat! I knew that but the pic is worth 1,000 words.