• Question: Do artificial photons (from lights) photosynthesize plants as well as natural light photons?

    Asked by csdunnett to Meeks, Pete, Stephen, Steve, Tom on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Tom Hartley

      Tom Hartley answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I think the key thing is the wavelength of the light. Mercury vapour lamps work pretty well. Normal light bulbs would not be great.

    • Photo: Marieke Navin

      Marieke Navin answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hey csdunnett. Yep – all photons, no matter how they were created (e.g. lightbulb or sun) are still photons and the plants can’t tell the difference about where they came from. DIfferent photons may have different energies/frequencies but they are still the same particle if you know what I mean!

    • Photo: Stephen Curry

      Stephen Curry answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi there csdunnet –

      Yes – the plants can’t tell the difference – as long as the spectrum of the artificial light is the same as sunlight. In other words, it should contain the same mix of colours. I think you can buy such bulbs for use in greenhouses (they are a bit different from normal light bulbs).

    • Photo: Pete Edwards

      Pete Edwards answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hi csdunnett. Yes – all photons, no matter how they were created are still photons and nothing can tell the difference between photons from the sun or a light bulb or laser etc.. You would have to make sure that your artificial light source had the same spectrum as the sun but the plant wouldn’t notice if this was the case – a photon is a photo is a photon!

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