Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Need For A Common Basis For Defining Light-Use Efficiency: Implications For Productivity Estimation, Anatoly A. Gitelson, John A. Gamon

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

A primary focus of this short communication is to show how the operational definition of light use efficiency (LUE) influences the results and interpretation of the LUE model. Our study was motivated by the observation that multiple LUE definitions are reported in the literature. The temporal behavior of three operational definitions of LUE, based on (i) incident radiation, (ii) total absorbed radiation and (iii) radiation absorbed by photosynthetically active/green vegetation was examined for two contrasting crops (soybean and maize) having different physiologies, leaf structures and canopy architectures. Over the course of a growing season, the behavior of these three contrasting …