Question

Photosynthesis takes place fastest in which color light- blue, yellow ,red, green or white(sunlight)?

Answer 1

Thats a good question.
In red light the rate of synthesis is better because chlorophylls can easily and effectively absorb specifically red light from the white light. ie, Plants, just like us can only tolerate certain wavelengths of light, especially for the chemical reactions of photosynthesis. So we can say chlorophyll pigment absorbs red light the best .Since white light is a mixture of several wavelengths of color and the chlorophyll in green leaves absorbs energies from all visible light except green .Then exposing white light to a plant will result in the fastest rate of photosynthesis followed by red . Green or yellow light will have the slowest rates of phtosynthesis because they are reflected by the pigments of plants.So the answer will be white light.

Now I will explain the reason.

In Photosynthesis, there is a reaction center as you can see the dark colored sphere in the middle and the light green spheres are the antenna molecules.

The antenna molecules do the work of supplying the energy to the reaction center and the reaction center itself also captures photon’s energy to excite the electrons.

The reaction center’s favorite light is red but the antenna molecules also absorb other wavelengths. That is the reason white light leads to faster or higher photosynthesis as compared to red or other light alone.

Hope, now it’s clear…