REVIEW article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Crop and Product Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1640530
This article is part of the Research TopicControlled Environment Agriculture Goes DynamicView all articles
Advances in Light Manipulation in Greenhouse Horticulture: The Innovative Smart Covers
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
- 2Universita degli Studi di Foggia, Foggia, Italy
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Greenhouses play a key role in modern agriculture by creating controlled environments to fulfil specific plant climatic requirements, allowing the extension of the growing season and improving the crop productivity and product quality. Light, in terms of quantity (intensity), quality (spectral composition), and duration (photoperiod), is a crucial factor in driving plant performance in protected cultivation. Solar radiation is significantly affected by the greenhouse framework and cover material. The use of smart materials, including diffusive, photoselective, luminescent, and switchable covers, can positively modify the light intensity, spectrum, and distribution, improving the greenhouse light environment, hence the plant growth, morphology, and metabolism. This review summarises the state of art of research on innovative covers suitable for modern greenhouse horticulture and their effects on plant performance in vegetable and ornamental crops.
Keywords: diffusive covers, photoselective covers, luminescent covers, switchable covers, Photosynthesis, temperature regulation, energy efficiency
Received: 03 Jun 2025; Accepted: 04 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zamani, Duri, Mori and Paradiso. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Roberta Paradiso, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
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