Magenta solar panels made broccoli 4.5x more efficient at using sunlight

What if the future of farming looked a little less green? In a Swedish experiment, rows of broccoli grew beneath unusual magenta-coloured solar panels, turning a patch of farmland into a test site for a different kind of agriculture. The idea was simple: let crops receive the wavelengths they need while using the rest of the sunlight to generate electricity. The results suggest that the arrangement could make plants surprisingly efficient at using the light available to them, states an online report by The Debrief.A different approach to agrivoltaicsAccording to The Debrief report, the research was conducted by scientists at Mälardalen University in Västerås, Sweden, as part of a broader effort to understand how solar power and crop production can share the same space. It is stated thatAgrivoltaic systems typically place solar panels above agricultural land, allowing farmers to produce electricity while continuing to grow crops underneath.