Abstract
Medicinal cannabis ( Cannabis sativa L.) contains various plant specialized metabolites, such as cannabinoids and terpenoids. These metabolites are mainly accumulated in inflorescences and are the primary focus of cultivation. Medicinal cannabis is often cultivated in indoor farming with electrical light, which allows for light intensities to optimize quantity and quality of production. Although it is known that an increase in light intensity results in increased inflorescence yield in cannabis, its impact on specialized metabolites remains unclear. We aim to quantify the effects of light intensity on the yield of specialized metabolites, and to elucidate which plant traits explain these effects, using a yield component analysis. Hereto, we conducted an experiment in a climate-controlled chamber using broad-band white LEDs at three light intensities: 600, 800, and 1000 µmol m −2 s −1 photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD), applied during the generative phase (8 weeks with a 12-h photoperiod) in cannabis cv. ‘Critical CBD’. Yield of specialized metabolites, including cannabinoids and terpenoids, strongly increased with increasing PPFD due to increases in both their concentrations and inflorescence yield. The inflorescence yield showed a proportional increase with PPFD, resulting in a constant light use efficiency. The higher inflorescence dry mass was mainly caused by an increase in total plant dry matter production, and to a lesser extent a larger fraction of dry mass partitioned to the inflorescences. Leaf photosynthesis was higher for plants grown at higher PPFD. This study shows that cannabis can use very high light intensity, resulting in high yield of specialized metabolites due to high inflorescence mass and metabolite concentrations. • Concentrations of cannabinoids and terpenoids increase with light intensity. • Inflorescence dry mass increases proportionally with light intensity. • Higher inflorescence dry mass is mainly due to higher plant dry matter production. • Cannabis is a species with exceptionally high photosynthetic capacity.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record; open copy licensed cc-by. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 7
Claim · model-written summary
Yield of specialized metabolites increased strongly with increasing PPFD
- Taxon
- Cannabis sativa L.
Cannabis sativae0 - Material
- Critical CBDe2
- Treatment
- increasing PPFDe1
- Outcome
- Yield of specialized metabolitese1
- Direction
- strongly increasede1
- Setting
- climate-controlled chambere3
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Medicinal cannabis ( Cannabis sativa L.) contains various plant specialized metabolites”
e1“Yield of specialized metabolites, including cannabinoids and terpenoids, strongly increased with increasing PPFD due to increases in both their concentrations and inflorescence yield”
e2“applied during the generative phase (8 weeks with a 12-h photoperiod) in cannabis cv. ‘Critical CBD’”
e3“we conducted an experiment in a climate-controlled chamber”
Claim · model-written summary
Concentrations of specialized metabolites increased with increasing PPFD
- Taxon
- Cannabis sativa L.Cannabis sativae0
- Material
- Critical CBDe2
- Treatment
- increasing PPFDe1
- Outcome
- concentrationse1
- Direction
- increasese1
- Setting
- climate-controlled chambere3
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Medicinal cannabis ( Cannabis sativa L.) contains various plant specialized metabolites”
e1“Yield of specialized metabolites, including cannabinoids and terpenoids, strongly increased with increasing PPFD due to increases in both their concentrations and inflorescence yield”
e2“applied during the generative phase (8 weeks with a 12-h photoperiod) in cannabis cv. ‘Critical CBD’”
e3“we conducted an experiment in a climate-controlled chamber”
Claim · model-written summary
Inflorescence yield increased proportionally with PPFD
- Taxon
- Cannabis sativa L.Cannabis sativae0
- Material
- Critical CBDe2
- Treatment
- PPFDe4
- Outcome
- inflorescence yielde4
- Direction
- proportional increasee4
- Setting
- climate-controlled chambere3
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Medicinal cannabis ( Cannabis sativa L.) contains various plant specialized metabolites”
e2“applied during the generative phase (8 weeks with a 12-h photoperiod) in cannabis cv. ‘Critical CBD’”
e3“we conducted an experiment in a climate-controlled chamber”
e4“The inflorescence yield showed a proportional increase with PPFD, resulting in a constant light use efficiency”
Claim · model-written summary
Light use efficiency of cannabis inflorescence yield stayed constant across PPFD levels
- Taxon
- Cannabis sativa L.Cannabis sativae0
- Material
- Critical CBDe2
- Treatment
- PPFDe4
- Outcome
- light use efficiencye4
- Direction
- constante4
- Setting
- climate-controlled chambere3
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Medicinal cannabis ( Cannabis sativa L.) contains various plant specialized metabolites”
e2“applied during the generative phase (8 weeks with a 12-h photoperiod) in cannabis cv. ‘Critical CBD’”
e3“we conducted an experiment in a climate-controlled chamber”
e4“The inflorescence yield showed a proportional increase with PPFD, resulting in a constant light use efficiency”
Claim · model-written summary
Higher inflorescence dry mass under higher PPFD was mainly caused by greater total plant dry matter production
- Taxon
- Cannabis sativa L.Cannabis sativae0
- Outcome
- inflorescence dry masse5
- Qualifier
- mainly caused by an increase in total plant dry matter productione5
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Medicinal cannabis ( Cannabis sativa L.) contains various plant specialized metabolites”
e5“The higher inflorescence dry mass was mainly caused by an increase in total plant dry matter production, and to a lesser extent a larger fraction of dry mass partitioned to the inflorescences”
Claim · model-written summary
Higher inflorescence dry mass under higher PPFD was partly due to a larger fraction of dry mass partitioned to inflorescences
- Taxon
- Cannabis sativa L.Cannabis sativae0
- Outcome
- inflorescence dry masse5
- Qualifier
- to a lesser extent a larger fraction of dry mass partitioned to the inflorescencese5
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Medicinal cannabis ( Cannabis sativa L.) contains various plant specialized metabolites”
e5“The higher inflorescence dry mass was mainly caused by an increase in total plant dry matter production, and to a lesser extent a larger fraction of dry mass partitioned to the inflorescences”
Claim · model-written summary
Leaf photosynthesis was higher in cannabis plants grown at higher PPFD
- Taxon
- Cannabis sativa L.Cannabis sativae0
- Treatment
- higher PPFDe6
- Outcome
- Leaf photosynthesise6
- Direction
- highere6
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Medicinal cannabis ( Cannabis sativa L.) contains various plant specialized metabolites”
e6“Leaf photosynthesis was higher for plants grown at higher PPFD”
The same questions in other papers
light · yield · Cannabis sativaPositive and negative results
6 papers in the same direction as this paper · 2 in the opposite direction
- no effect
- positive
- no effect
5 papers more in this group
See all 9 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.