DELAYED LIGHT-EMISSION AND FLUORESCENCE RESPONSES OF PLANTS TO CHILLING

Delayed light emission (DLE) of chlorophyll has the same excitation and emission spectra as chlorophyll fluorescence and was formerly called delayed fluorescence. DLE has a much longer time response than true chlorophyll fluorescence and is detectable for times ranging from milliseconds to many minutes. DLE is induced by back reactions of the photosynthetic pathway and therefore requires functional chloroplasts. It is detectable only in the dark following light excitation, yields very low energy, and decays very rapidly. DLE repetitively excited over time, which we term refreshed DLE (RDLE), shows a shoulder and broad peak in our measurements, indicating participation of at least two energy pools. DLE is altered by physiological stresses that affect chloroplasts or photosynthesis, and as illustration, plant species known to be very susceptible or very tolerant to chilling were exposed to chilling temperatures for varying times. RDLE at 0.3 s (the initial shoulder on our curves) rose in response to chilling damage in the susceptible species. The major RDLE peak was greatly inhibited in the susceptible species and showed only small changes in the tolerant species. Fluorescence measurements made on the chilling-tolerant species indicated similar responses and similar coefficients of determination were derived. These results indicate that measurement of precisely timed delayed light emission or of refreshed delayed light emission at a less precisely controlled time can be used to detect chilling stress.