Abstract
Chlorophyll fluorescence parameter Fv/Fm, an indicator of the maximum efficiency of PS2, is routinely measured in the field with plant leaves darkened by leaf clips. I found that on a sunny day of subtropical summer, the Fv/Fm ratio was often underestimated because of a large F0 value resulted from a high leaf temperature caused by clipping the leaf under high irradiance, especially for long (e.g. 20 min) duration. This phenomenon may overestimate the down-regulation of PS2 efficiency under high irradiance. When leaf temperature was lower than 40 °C, the F0 level of rice leaves under clipping remained practically unchanged. However, F0 increased drastically with leaf temperature rising over 40 °C. In most measurements, no significant difference in Fm was found between rice leaves dark-adapted by leaf clips for 10 min and for 20 min. Therefore, shading leaf clips to prevent a drastic increase of leaf temperature, using F0 measured immediately after the leaf being darkened to calculate Fv/Fm, as well as shortening the duration of leaf clipping are useful means to avoid an underestimate of Fv/Fm.
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Abbreviations
- Chl:
-
chlorophyll
- F0 :
-
basic chlorophyll fluorescence
- Fm :
-
maximum chlorophyll fluorescence
- Fv/Fm :
-
potential efficiency of PS2
- PPFD:
-
photosynthetic photon flux density
- PS2:
-
photosystem 2
- Tc :
-
temperature at the start of F0 sharp increase
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Weng, J.H. Underestimate of PS2 efficiency in the field due to high leaf temperature resulting from leaf clipping and its amendment. Photosynthetica 44, 467–470 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11099-006-0052-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11099-006-0052-3