Some considerations on the behavior of plants in relation to solar radiation

Dear readers, agriculture is an activity that is carried out worldwide, therefore, there is a great diversity of crops that adapt to different soil and climatic conditions (soil and climate) in that sense farmers should worry about knowing what are the climate and soil requirements that crops need, such as solar radiation, humidity, rainfall, since these aspects will be reflected in the growth of plants and their productive yield.

In that sense, solar radiation is one of the elements of importance for the growth of plants, since, depending on the intensity of light, the energy necessary for the photosynthesis process will be provided, since, it is well known that these organisms transform the sun's energy into sugars for their growth and development, but not everything depends on sunlight, carbon dioxide and water availability also influence this process. Some researchers mention that, in the absence of light, plants will limit their growth until their reserves are exhausted.

Despite the aforementioned, it can be said that there are plants that can grow under shade, that is, they receive indirect light and others need to be directly exposed to the sun, in relation to this, a phenomenon called phototropism is known, which refers to the tendency that some plants have when they are under shade to lean towards the direction where there is the greatest intensity of sunlight, these plants can be seen lengthening their stem more or bending them in the direction where the direct reflection of sunlight is.

In relation to the intensity of light energy there is also the photoperiod, which refers to the duration of the light and dark period of the day, this factor according to Parker (2000), can influence some phenological stages of crops such as the vegetative and flowering stage, in the sense it can be said that there are plants of short days that adapt very well to the days when the duration of the night is greater. therefore, its light exposure is lower, such as rice, corn, sugar cane, among others, in the same way there are plants with long days that need long periods of light exposure to induce flowering to their reproductive stage, such as wheat, onion, spinach, lettuce, among others, and finally we have plants that are indifferent to the duration of the day / night, such as tomato, among others that their flowering depends on other aspects such as age.

In this same order of ideas, it can be said that the long or short days will depend on the climatic periods or seasons that occur in the year, in summer the longest days could be reflected and in winters the shortest days, then it is an important information that the agricultural producer should know when he wants to establish a specific type of crop such as those mentioned, for example in short days the corn could bloom faster if coupled with it, he has the appropriate agronomic managements.