LEDs

Many growers who invest in LED lighting opt for wide-beam LED fixtures with a high light output. In this way, they aim to achieve optimal light distribution at the top of the crop and to limit investment costs. In high-wire crops, however, it is particularly important that the light penetrates deep into…

Making cultivation results measurable with the aim of creating certainty of results when switching to LED. That is the starting point of the new collaboration between Ledgnd and B-Mex. “By structurally registering crop results in our portal, the effect of LED can be measured and the added value of this…

Hort Americas is currently working on a germination and propagation project of leafy greens and culinary herbs. The project is in collaboration with their demonstration greenhouse partners, The State Fair of Texas and the Big Tex Urban Farms. Big Tex Urban farms provide the labor needed to grow […]

Starting in November, Sollum Technologies’ smart LED lighting solution will be implemented at Allegro Acres, a family-owned greenhouse pepper farm operating in Southwestern Ontario for over 20 years. Their 30-acre production capacity makes them one of the major greenhouse producers in the province.…

Since the introduction of LED fixture 'Monarch' earlier this year, Oreon has been able to illuminate many projects with this high power 1000W LED grow light. This LED fixture has been specially designed to replace a 1000W HPS fixture in the greenhouse 1 on 1 (using the same cabling).  More than six months later,…

Hort Americas is currently working on a germination and propagation project of leafy greens and culinary herbs. The project is in collaboration with their demonstration greenhouse partners, The State Fair of Texas and the Big Tex Urban Farms. Big Tex Urban farms provide the labor needed to grow and…

Four light treatments (W: white light; EOD-B: end-of-day enhanced blue light; EOD-FR: end-of-day supplementary far-red light; EOD-UV: end-of-day supplementary ultraviolet-A light) were designed to explore the effects of end-of-day (EOD) lightings (30 min before dark period) on leaf color, biomass and phytochemicals accumulation in two lettuce cultivars (Lactuca sativa cv. ‘Red butter’ and ‘Green butter’) in artificial light plant factory. EOD-FR stimulated the plant and shoot biomass of two cultivars, and EOD-B suppressed the growth of ‘Red butter’ but induced higher biomass in ‘Green butter’. EOD lightings generated brighter, greener and yellower leaf in ‘Red butter’ at harvest, but the highest lightness and the deepest redness of ‘Green butter’ leaf were observed in the middle growth stage. ‘Red butter’ had prominent higher contents of chlorophylls and carotenoids, while these pigments showed less sensitivity to the interaction of cultivars and EOD lightings. EOD lightings impeded the accumulation of anthocyanin in two cultivars, except EOD-UV slightly increased the anthocyanin contents in ‘Green butter’.

Growers generally have two options when it comes to horticultural LED spectrums – “full spectrum” or “broad-spectrum”, which appears as white light; and “red/blue spectrum”, which can appear as purple or pink light.    

Aquaponic facilities allow the joint production of fish and plants in a reduced space. This hydroponic technique, combined with vertical farming, is not well studied. The main objective of a recent work was to compare basil production between horizontal and vertical decoupled aquaponic systems and assess…

Rebate programs can be a great resource for growers looking to convert their grow lighting to #LED technology, as it can help offset the large costs associated with a lighting installation. Learn more on how to access these programs at --> pllight.com/how-to-qualify… pic.twitter.com/r97cGzlg30

Valoya has expanded its RX-Series line of greenhouse LEDs with two new models – RX500 and RX600. The new models are higher power, higher efficiency versions of the existing RX400 model and can be used as true 1-to-1 HPS replacements. RX500 and RX600 produce up to the staggering 1700 µmol/s of uniform…

Aquaponic facilities allow the joint production of fish and plants in a reduced space. This hydroponic technique, combined with vertical farming, is not well studied. The main objective of this work was to compare basil production between horizontal and vertical decoupled aquaponic systems and assess the utilization of supplemental lighting in a greenhouse environment. Six independent vertical racks were arranged with hydroponic trays at three heights. Three racks were affixed with LED lighting on the lowest levels and three with supplemental lighting on the intermediate level. Immediately adjacent to the vertical systems, two independent horizontal systems containing three trays were constructed to compare basil production. After 35 days of growth post transplanting, the total production per tray and weight, height, number of leaves, and nodes of 20 selected plants per tray were determined. Records of the intensity of illumination photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD)) were recorded at dawn (8:00), noon (12:00), and dusk (18:00) at randomly predetermined positions associated with the 20 selected plants per tray. The total basil production in the experiment was 58.79 kg, with an average production per unit area of 2.43 and 0.94 kg m−2 for vertical and horizontal systems, respectively. Productivity per unit area in the vertical systems was 160% greater than in horizontal systems.

The DesignLights Consortium (DLC) today released the final version of its Technical Requirements for LED-based Horticultural Lighting: Version 2.0, an update that will continue the industry transition from traditional lighting data and metrics to horticultural-specific lighting data and metrics that best…

Verde Compacto, a Mexican start-up, producer of container farms and indoor farming growing technologies, has seen significant demand for their growing systems during the pandemic.  'COVID is driving this market forward because people want to know what is behind their food and their diets. Logistic chains in…

The amount of energy used in agricultural production, processing and distribution is constantly increasing. During the winter months in the greenhouse production industry, the supplemental lighting required to keep up production levels results in high expenditure. Current technology uses broadband…

Brandon Huber, a Ph.D. candidate of Horticultural Science, shared some of his tomato research to help people better understand indoor controlled environmental horticulture and its impact on young plant production. While studying indoor controlled environmental horticulture under the direction of Ricardo…

With the latest advancements in horticultural technology, many growers would rather use LEDs instead of HPS lighting. High quality LED lights are famously more efficient and longer lasting. They emit less heat than HPS and MH bulbs. Used correctly, they even produce higher yields and a more potent…

Growth, Nutritional Quality and Health-Promoting Compounds in Chinese Kale Grown under Different Ratios of Red:Blue LED Lights Chinese kale is one of the healthiest vegetables, rich in health-promoting phytochemicals, including carotenoids, vitamin C, amino acid, glucosinolates, anthocyanin, flavonoids…

A stronger plant, higher fruit weight and more uniformity in growth; these are the results of illuminated tomato cultivation when combining Philips GreenPower LED toplighting compact and SON-T lighting. Thus a hybrid light solution. Both projects were installed at the end of 2019. The growers, the world renowned tomato…

Fluence by OSRAM (Fluence), a leading global provider of energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial cannabis and agriculture production, announced it has partnered with Burnaby, British Columbia-based Quality Wholesale Ltd., a leading garden wholesaler specializing in the distribution of…

LED lighting has been proving its worth in the cultivation of various crops. From tomatoes and herbs to strawberries and cannabis, many growers have already made the switch from HPS (SON-T). One crop that's still lagging behind a bit in this development is the cucumber, where growers still mostly favor…

In Northern Europe, the use of light–emitting diodes (LEDs) is widely adopted in protected horticulture, enabling to enhance plant growth by ensuring needed radiative fluxes throughout seasons. Contrarily, the use of artificial lighting in Mediterranean greenhouses still finds limited applications. In…