Estimating chlorophyll content and photochemical yield of photosystem II (Φ(PSII)) using solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence measurements at different growing stages of attached leaves

This paper illustrates the possibility of measuring chlorophyll (Chl) content and Chl fluorescence parameters by the solar-induced Chl fluorescence (SIF) method using the Fraunhofer line depth (FLD) principle, and compares the results with the standard measurement methods. A high-spectral resolution HR2000+ and an ordinary USB4000 spectrometer were used to measure leaf reflectance under solar and artificial light, respectively, to estimate Chl fluorescence. Using leaves of Capsicum annuum cv. ‘Sven’ (paprika), the relationships between the Chl content and the steady-state Chl fluorescence near oxygen absorption bands of O(2)B (686nm) and O(2)A (760nm), measured under artificial and solar light at different growing stages of leaves, were evaluated. The Chl fluorescence yields of ΦF 686nm/ΦF 760nm ratios obtained from both methods correlated well with the Chl content (steady-state solar light: R(2) = 0.73; artificial light: R(2) = 0.94). The SIF method was less accurate for Chl content estimation when Chl content was high. The steady-state solar-induced Chl fluorescence yield ratio correlated very well with the artificial-light-induced one (R(2) = 0.84). A new methodology is then presented to estimate photochemical yield of photosystem II (Φ(PSII)) from the SIF measurements, which was verified against the standard Chl fluorescence measurement method (pulse-amplitude modulated method). The high coefficient of determination (R(2) = 0.74) between the Φ(PSII) of the two methods shows that photosynthesis process parameters can be successfully estimated using the presented methodology.