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Light Regulation of Plant Growth and Development

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Building LED Light Sources for Plant Research

Spectra of Light Sources Used in Published Experiments

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Planting Seedlings for Light Treatments

In most our our photobiology experiments we grow ~100 ul Arabidopsis seed on a square petri dish or a phytatray (~3000 seedlings). Seedlings are sterilized by first shaking in water with 0.01% tween, followed by shaking in 20% bleach for 10 minutes followed by 70% ethanol for 5 min and at least three rinses in sterile water.  Seeds are resuspended in cooled LMP agarose and plated to minimal media (blackstripe) as in Parks and Spalding, 1999 -- 1 mM KCl, 1 mM CaCl₂ with 1 % DIFCO agar.

The seeds are stratified for 48-96 h and germination is synchronized with a 1 h light pulse (16 umol m^-2 s^-1) and returned to absolute darkness. Experimental treatments are usually delivered between 48 and 96 h. After the given light treatment, plants are harvested at the appropriate time into liquid nitrogen and frozen at -80°C.

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