Is blue light good or bad for plants?

Blue photons are energetically expensive so the most energy-efficient lamps contain the least blue light. Blue photons are not used efficiently in photosynthesis, but blue light has dramatic effects on plant development. We studied the growth and development of soybean, wheat, and lettuce plants under high-pressure sodium and metal halide lamps with yellow filters creating five fractions of blue light (0.5%, 3.5%, 6%, 1 8%, and 26% blue) at 500 micromoles m-2 s-1 and (< 0.1%, 1.7%, 6%, 12%, and 26%) at 200 mol m-2 s-1. The response was species dependent. Lettuce was highly sensitive to blue light fraction and had an optimum dry weight and leaf area at about 6% blue, but results were complicated by sensitivity to lamp type. Wheat and soybean were less sensitive to blue light, but dry mass and leaf area decreased steadily with increasing blue light. Blue light fraction significantly affected specific leaf area (SLA, m2 kg-1) and chlorophyll in lettuce, but had no significant effect on wheat and soybeans. The data suggest that lettuce benefits from some added blue light, but soybean and wheat may not.