New online horticultural lighting course available from MSU

Michigan State University Extension is now offering a non-credit, pre-recorded online course on Greenhouse and Horticultural Lighting. It is the second course in the College of Knowledge Online series offered on the eXtension campus, the national Extension website. The first was Root Zone Management, which was first offered in 2013. The course is intended for greenhouse and ornamental plant growers and others interested learning about the fundamental concepts about how plants respond to light quality, quantity and in duration. It provides introductory to moderately-challenging content based on experiments performed at MSU and Purdue University.

The three hours of pre-recorded lecture and video demonstrations are divided into seven units. The first and second units cover the properties of light and its importance for plant growth and development. The third unit discusses how light quality influences stem extension and flowering. The fourth unit teaches students about light intensity and its importance for plant growth. It also covers the factors that affect light availability and how to manipulate and measure light intensity in the greenhouse. Unit four also features four videos that demonstrate how light transmission is affected by the glazing material of a greenhouse, how growers can measure instantaneous light intensity and daily light integral in their greenhouse, and also how to measure light intensity and quality from light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

The fifth unit of the course discusses how light quantity affects plant shoot and root growth and branching, focusing on responses to the average daily light integral (DLI). Unit six covers photoperiod and photoperiodic long-day lighting strategies, featuring the latest research on delivering long days with LEDs. The final unit on supplemental lighting discusses the advantages and limitations of different lamp types, provides guidelines of when to deliver supplemental lighting to increase DLI and the factors to consider when selecting a lamp for your horticultural application.