Chlorophyll fluorescence kinetic analysis has become an important tool in basic and applied research on plant physiology and agronomy. While early systems recorded the integrated kinetics of a selected spot or plant, later systems enabled imaging of at least the slower parts of the kinetics (20-ms time resolution). For faster events, such as the rise from the basic dark-adapted fluorescence yield to the maximum (OJIP transient), or the fluorescence yield decrease during reoxidation of plastoquinone A after a saturating flash, integrative systems are used because of limiting speed of the available imaging systems. In our new macroscopic and microscopic systems, the OJIP or plastonique A reoxidation fluorescence transients are directly imaged using an ultrafast camera. The advantage of such systems compared to nonimaging measurements is the analysis of heterogeneity of measured parameters, for example between the photosynthetic tissue near the veins and the tissue further away from the veins. Further, in contrast to the pump-and-probe measurement, direct imaging allows for measuring the transition of the plant from the dark-acclimated to a light-acclimated state via a quenching analysis protocol in which every supersaturating flash is coupled to a measurement of the fast fluorescence rise. We show that pump-and-probe measurement of OJIP is prone to artifacts, which are eliminated with the direct measurement. The examples of applications shown here, zinc deficiency and cadmium toxicity, demonstrate that this novel imaging platform can be used for detection and analysis of a range of alterations of the electron flow around PSII.
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