TY - JOUR T1 - Beyond energy balance in agrivoltaic food production: Emergent crop traits from color selective solar cells JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2022.03.10.482833 SP - 2022.03.10.482833 AU - Melodi Charles AU - Brianne Edwards AU - Eshwar Ravishankar AU - John Calero AU - Reece Henry AU - Jeromy Rech AU - Carole Saravitz AU - Wei You AU - Harald Ade AU - Brendan O’Connor AU - Heike Sederoff Y1 - 2022/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/03/13/2022.03.10.482833.abstract N2 - Semi-transparent organic solar cells (ST-OSCs) offer new agrivoltaic opportunities to meet the growing demands for sustainable food production. The tailored absorption/transmission spectrum of ST-OSCs not only impacts the power generated, but also aspects of crop growth, development and responses to the biotic and abiotic environments. The general relationships between these variables are unknown. Here, we grow red oak leaf lettuce (Lactuca sativa), a traditional greenhouse crop, under three different ST-OSC filters and observe little overall differences on productivity in response to the altered light exposure. In contrast, several key traits involving nutrient content and nitrogen utilization as well as plant defense against herbivory and pathogens are modified over the controls under select OSCs. Overall, our genomic analysis reveals that lettuce production exhibits beneficial traits under exposure from select ST-OSCs. ST-OSCs integrated into greenhouses are, therefore, not only a promising technology for energy-neutral crop production as previously shown but can deliver benefits beyond those based on energy-balance considerations.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -