Seedling photomorphogenesis as a case study in why we study plants

A long-term effort to understand how blue light controls seedling growth after germination will be presented as an example of research that required and generated interplay between three reasons why we study plants: to better understand living phenomena (basic research), to solve problems facing society (applied research), and to assist either type through technology development. The esoteric and, practically-speaking, pointless question of which blue light receptors act within seconds to inhibit hypocotyl will initiate some loops through auxin transport and high throughput computing to measure maize phenotypes from images.