will a plant grow faster if it is exposed to concentrated sunlight?
will a plant grow faster if it is exposed to concentrated sunlight?
In nature, there is often ample sunlight available to plants. From this NIH page:
However, even at the maximum light intensity encountered by photosynthetic organisms (tropical noontime sun, ≈1.2 × 1020 photons/m2/s), each reaction-center chlorophyll a absorbs about one photon per second, which is not enough to support photosynthesis sufficient for the needs of the plant. To increase the efficiency of photosynthesis, especially at more typical light intensities, organisms utilize additional light-absorbing pigments.
In other words, plants are not entirely photosynthetically efficient and do not typically use all of the light available to them. From Wikipedia:
Photosynthesis increases linearly with light intensity at low intensity, but at higher intensity this is no longer the case (see Photosynthesis-irradiance curve). Above about 10,000 lux or ~100 watts/square meter the rate no longer increases. Thus, most plants can only utilize ~10% of full mid-day sunlight intensity.
