The need for sustainable agriculture is more critical than ever, especially with increasing consumer demand for high-quality, nutritious plant products. This growing urgency has spotlighted horticultural crops, including vegetables, fruits, floriculture, and medicinal and aromatic plants, within innovative cultivation systems such as hydroponics, greenhouses, polyhouses, and vertical farming. Despite their promise, the energy-intensive nature of these systems—largely due to lighting and climate control—poses a significant challenge. Emerging research into artificial photosynthesis, which involves creating or enhancing systems that mimic natural photosynthesis, offers new solutions to increase crop productivity, energy-use efficiency, and the nutritional and phytochemical quality of horticultural produce. This includes optimizing light quality, intensity, and duration using cutting-edge technologies like tunable LED systems and quantum dot photonics, along with dynamic lighting protocols tailored to specific plant growth stages.

This Research Topic aims to delve into pivotal questions at the convergence of plant physiology, environmental regulation, and commercial horticulture. Key objectives include understanding how dynamic light environments, such as spectral tuning and intensity modulation, impact growth, flowering, and yield attributes in horticultural crops. It also considers the role of artificial light treatments in enhancing secondary metabolites and improving the nutritional and pharmaceutical qualities of plants raised in hydroponic systems with optimized artificial photosynthesis. Moreover, it seeks insights from physiological monitoring tools like LI-COR systems on plant responses such as photosynthesis and light-use efficiency under a variety of lighting setups. Finally, it investigates the practicality of implementing these innovations at a commercial scale in controlled environments like polyhouses and greenhouses.

To gather further insights in the dynamics of artificial photosynthesis and light optimization within controlled environments, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Effects of LED spectrum modulation (including red, blue, far-red, and UV) on plant morphology, photosynthesis, and metabolite biosynthesis
• Use of LI-COR systems to quantify physiological plant responses (such as stomatal conductance, photosynthetic rate, and water-use efficiency) in varied light settings
• Field trials testing light manipulation strategies in commercial polyhouses, net houses, and greenhouses
• Comparative studies on artificial versus natural photosynthesis, assessing impacts on yield and post-harvest quality
• Advancements in metabolomic and transcriptomic understanding of artificial lighting effects on medicinal and aromatic plants
• Spectral manipulation's influence on photomorphogenesis and flowering regulation in various horticultural crops
• High-throughput phenotyping and crop modeling within dynamic controlled environment agriculture
• Integrating light optimization with nutrient management in hydroponic systems
• Assessing the economic and environmental benefits of scaling artificial photosynthesis
• Experiments or commercial pilots involving LED-assisted cultivation with startups or farming collectives

For this Research Topic, we seek high-quality original research, innovative methods, case studies, and application-driven investigations that contribute to the understanding and commercialization of artificial photosynthesis and advanced light optimization in horticulture.

Are you interested in contributing a manuscript to this Research Topic?

Innovative Horticulture: Harnessing Artificial Photosynthesis and Light Technologies for Enhanced Crop Yield and Quality