When the first high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps were introduced in the late 1960s, they were quickly adopted by commercial greenhouse operators as a means of providing supplemental electric lighting. This made it economically possible to grow vegetables and flowers throughout the year in controlled environments.
One disadvantage of HPS lamps is they produce mostly yellow light with fixed spectral power distributions (SPDs). This is not particularly important for plant photosynthesis, as most plants can take advantage of optical radiation within the spectral range of 400 to 700 nm. Horticulturalists often refer to the “McCree curve,” which plots average photosynthesis efficiency versus wavelength for a variety of field-grown crops (McCree 1972).
The problem is that while the yellow light of HPS lamps may be good for photosynthesis, plants have a wide range of photopigments that respond to optical radiation from 280 nm to 800 nm (often referred to as “photobiologically active radiation,” or PBAR). These responses include.