Investigation of the Photosynthetic Process by Lidar Fluorosensors

Chlorophyll plays a fundamental role in the photosynthetic process of living plants, it is therefore obvious that each phenomenon related to chlorophyll may also be related to the photosynthetic process. Since chlorophyll a shows a strong fluorescence emission in the wavelength region between 67 0 nm and 740 nm it is attractive to analyze the potential of laser fluorosensors in the remote sensing of living plants. While a quite large number of papers were devoted to the lidar remote sensing of chlorophyll fluorescence in phytoplancton only few papers has been devoted to the remote sensing of chlorophyll fluorescence in living plants. A research program in this field was started as a part of a national program on agriculture improvement (IPRA Project), the analysis was carried out in the laboratory by means of a lidar simulator and in fields by means of the lidar fluorosensor FLIDAR-2.