A few weeks ago, following a call from my good friend John Matcham, Innovation Director and product development at Light Science Technologies, working on Food Technology. John is a kind of technical science iconoclast working in horticultural lighting; he works beyond the edges of established science and usually comes up with something that is guaranteed to upset the establishment apple cart, because it actually works. On the back of that conversation and a video of Dr. Bruce Bugbee at Utah State University (repeated here), we published an article titled ‘Challenging the status quo on horticultural light measurement: PAR v. ePAR
Suspecting that there was more to be said, I asked John to expand on the implications for Dr Bugbee’s work. This is what I got back.
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To John Bullock
Do you remember all that time ago I said that light was not just about humans and humans had probably got it wrong? I think your reply was something along the lines of, “I’m going to have to unlearn everything I know about light”. Finally, it has taken a world leading scientist at Utah State who works with NASA to put his head above the parapet.
PAR (Photo Synthetically Active Radiation) is no longer just 400nm-700nm.
It is now EPAR (Extended PAR) 400nm-750nm. It’s not the whole answer by far, but it’s a giant shift in terms of education and academia. McCree’s curve was good for its time, but not anymore.
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Thought you might like this
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UV has a photosynthetic part to play, as I have been saying for years, but the fine detail, for now, means its not yet being included. This is because we are still only looking at light that is “significantly photosynthetic” and EPAR only includes light that can make a “significant difference” in photosynthesis.
The next step, Quantum PAR, is coming; 360-1030nm but maybe not in my lifetime,. But we got something right, John, all those years ago.
Just think how much we could have improved life for animals, plants and even ourselves if the system had listened and not dismissed our early work as madness. “Poor poor Mr Babbage”, comes to mind.
The more this is common knowledge the better. We’ve reached a stage in progressing the understanding of plant science where the McCree curve is now a serious limiting factor. While it was amazing work for its time and even today the results discovered confirm that the new metric is correct. It means that finally there is an accepted new world of work to be done.
While we were stuck with PAR, verification of new data became political. Moving people out of their comfort zone will be an interesting transition. The whole system changes, even for us.
We simply couldn’t verify what is obviously proven as it falls outside the current PAR metric. EPAR will finally open the door to empirical evidence that not only plants but also animals and humans see light differently than we previously thought. We can finally quantify what has previously been dismissed as poppycock.
For a long time we have questioned CIE and how humans behave in certain forms of light, never quite able to close off some of the scientific research, signing them off as “anecdotal” just to leave a door open for someone in the future brave enough to challenge the empirical known. Some research over the last few years has been laughed at, because it’s impossible to prove it under the existing metrics. Widening our understanding of how light affects us all on planet earth will lead to new discoveries in industry, food production and our daily lives. The largest and most urgent changes will need to be in education and academia.
Why teach our children something that will be useless by the time they get to put it into practice? Light Science Technologies has already developed products to meet the new requirements. “Science is not about being right, it’s about getting it wrong and learning from the mistakes and spending the least amount of money getting there”. Finally, it’s time for Science to put the results into practice.
At Light Science Technologies we are growing crops outside in winter, using the sun and minimal artificial light. Creating energy efficient methods of producing safe clean food, without the millions of delivery miles. While we understand what it is we are achieving, previously it was impossible to quantify and scientifically publish with any accuracy, as some of the light we are using was not even measured under the previous metric of PAR. EPAR opens the door at last.
Using artificial light we can already grow plants with greater yields and even change their number of leaves, colour and intensify their flavour. keep them longer in storage reducing waste and the energy used in their production. We can grow plants that harmlessly extract lithium and other precious metals from the soil without the use of dynamite and heavy machinery.
For forty years I have been telling the world that an owl cannot see in the dark. Sir David Attenborough and the BBC among others have even shown it on TV. Yet today our schools still teach that they can. How difficult would it be to simply explain that an owl has better vision than a human and sees better in low light than we do? A human sees around 10million colour hues, while a Chicken sees in excess of 100 million, so why are humans the benchmark?
It’s time for an upgrade that is long overdue. For those that see only darkness in the changes, just think of the opportunities it presents for research and technical developments, making the world a better place, growing more with less. If this was the World Cup, one of the Referees just ran onto the pitch in the middle of a match and moved the goal posts, permanently.
Well done Professor Bruce Bugby et al!
Kind regards John Matcham
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Now: the more I think about what’s going on in the world of plant propagation, the more frustrated I get when it comes to applying known science to lighting and human behaviour. Here’s a simple truth that I’m happy for someone to come knocking on my door and contradict: for everything that we claim to know through scientific research, there is a whole world of experience where science has nothing to say – apart from ‘there’s no evidence’, from which we are expected to infer ‘ . . . so it can’t be true’.
I’m suggesting that we turn this around and say instead ‘there’s no evidence . . . so we have no idea why this should be happening. But we accept that this does indeed appear to be happening’.
And here’s an analogy for you: if we’re playing craps, we expect to see dice with six numbers on them. Let’s say that represents the sum of everything that’s knowable. But we’re being asked to gamble with dice that have five blank faces and only one with a number on it – and that’s badly faded. I wouldn’t bet against the house on those odds, but that’s the way that science has loaded the game.
When Science can come up with an Emotional Meter that explains why we do the things we do, I might be interested, but, then again, probably not.
Magic happens.
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