In the past, biologists have used lux or energy meters to quantify light intensity. They switched to using PPFD when it was realized that the flux of photons in the 400-700 nm range is the important factor in driving the photosynthetic process. However, PPFD is usually expressed as the photon flux per second. This is a convenient time scale when measuring short-term changes in photosynthesis in gas exchange systems, but falls short when the light climate for plant growth has to be characterized. First because it does not take into account the length of the day light period, but foremost because light intensity in the field or in glasshouses changes so much diurnally and from day to day. Scientists have tried to solve this by reporting light intensity measured for one or more sunny days at noon, but this is grasping the light level for only a very short period of the day. Daily light integral includes both the diurnal variation and day length, and can also be reported as a mean value per month or over an entire experiment. It has been shown to be better related to plant growth and morphology than PPFD at any moment or day length alone. Some  energy meters are able to capture PPFD during an interval period such as 24-hours.