Long Term Delayed Luminescence in Green Organisms

Long term delayed luminescence of green organisms in the time range between 0.3 s and several minutes (LDL) has been investigated on a kinetical and a spectral basis. A specific influence of various exogeneous parameters such as herbicides or essential elements, different pH values, temperature, preillumination and diurnal rhythms is found. LDL is particularly dependent on nutrinional deficiencies and depletion of essential elements and environmental pollutive components, probably involving both photosynthetic reaction centers PSI and PSII. Therefore, LDL offers itself as a convenient, highly sensitive, specific and non-invasive assay for a number of stress factors in photosynthesizing plants in the field.