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Chlorophyll fluorescence-based control of greenhouse supplemental lighting improves energy use efficiency in lettuce.

Nam S, Ferrarezi RS.

Frontiers in plant science · 13 Jul 2026 · 10.3389/fpls.2026.1854406

Abstract

Plant-driven lighting control has been proposed as a strategy to regulate supplemental light-emitting diode (LED) intensity according to real-time plant physiological status. This study developed a multiple linear regression (MLR) model to predict quantum yield of photosystem II (Φ PSII ) from environmental variables and evaluated its integration into a chlorophyll fluorescence-based biofeedback light control. The model incorporated light intensity, CO 2 concentration, air temperature, vapor pressure deficit, short-term light history, and diurnal effects. In a greenhouse validation experiment, supplemental lighting was regulated using either direct chlorophyll fluorometer measurements of Φ PSII (sensor-based control) or Φ PSII values predicted by the machine learning model (ML-based control), and compared with a constant photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) treatment. Both sensor- and ML-based control stabilized photochemical activity across the photoperiod relative to constant PPFD. Although plant growth did not differ among treatments, sensor-based ETR control achieved the highest energy use efficiency for LED lighting in this study. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of integrating predictive ML models into plant-based lighting control systems and indicate that sensor-based biofeedback control improved the energy-use efficiency of greenhouse supplemental lighting without compromising crop growth.

Code and data availability

The paper's raw phenotyping data (environmental variables, chlorophyll fluorescence measurements, and the MLR model dataset) are not publicly deposited; the authors state the raw data will be made available upon request. No public code, model checkpoints, or data URLs are provided.

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