Photoinhibition in horticultural crops: an overview of the effect of light quality and signaling in the underlying photoprotection mechanisms

Acclimation to the privilege lighting environment is an important step for survival of newly developed horticultural plants such as for transplants, tissue culture-generated plants and for mature plants when there is a change in the light intensity during the growth period or even during the course of one day. Excess light energy capture without antecedent acclimation imposes photooxidative cellular damage and photoinhibition. Absorption of excess light beyond the capacity for photosynthetic electron transport is harmful to photosynthetic organisms. However, plants are equipped with photoprotective mechanisms to attenuate the detrimental effect of excess light energy on the photosynthesis apparatus. In this review, we discussed how different controlled environment horticulture (CEH) systems presented lots of opportunities for improving yield and quality, and the current understanding of the direct and indirect functional roles of light spectra in the regulation of photoinhibition and photoprotection are discussed.