Lighting

There is a need for plant growing media that can support a beneficial microbial root environment to ensure that optimal plant growth properties can be achieved. We investigated the effect of five rhizosphere bacterial community inocula (BCI S1–5) that were collected at three open field organic farms and two soilless farms on the performance of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.). The lettuce plants were grown in ten different plant growing media (M1–10) composed of 60% v/v peat (black peat or white peat), 20% v/v other organics (coir pith or wood fiber), 10% v/v composted materials (composted bark or green waste compost) and 10% v/v inorganic materials (perlite or sand), and one commercial plant growing medium inside a plant factory with artificial lighting. Fractional factorial design of experiments analysis revealed that the bacterial community inoculum, plant growing medium composition, and their interaction determine plant performance. The impact of bacterial amendments on the plant phenotype relied on the bacterial source. For example, S3 treatment significantly increased lettuce shoot fresh weight (+57%), lettuce head area (+29%), root fresh weight (+53%), and NO3-content (+53%), while S1 treatment significantly increased lettuce shoot dry weight (+15%), total phenolic content (+65%), and decreased NO3-content (−67%). However, the effectiveness of S3 and S1 treatment depended on plant growing medium composition.

“We want to integrate our system with equipment that growers already have. There are many people working for horticulture, so a grower needs to work with lighting companies, research universities. They give recipes and recommendations, and the technology comes together with us. We want to make sure that…

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…

Tinted solar panels could allow land to be used to grow crops and generate electricity simultaneously, with financial gains, according to researchers in the UK and Italy. The orange solar panels absorb some wavelengths of light, while allowing those that are best for plant growth to pass through. The…

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…

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…

GrowSpan Greenhouse Structures released their innovative Series 750 Commercial Greenhouse. The greenhouse features an internal light deprivation system that is fully automated. GrowSpan has kept all the benefits of traditional light deprivation systems, but simplified the design. This not only leads to a…

When growing in a commercial greenhouse, all aspects need to be controlled and kept at the optimum levels for plants to grow and thrive. Anything less than optimal will lead to undue stress and will affect the overall quality and yields of crops. Proper lighting is one of the essential elements in a…

It's time for another Fluence research webinar, August 27 at 3 PM CEST, 8 AM CST. In this episode, Fluence experts from the Horticulture Service and Research teams will discuss two crucial experiments - conducted in collaboration with Wageningen University in the Netherlands - that improve our collective…

An old growers' saying has it that 1% more light yields 1% higher production. Scientists have since shown that this is in fact a bit more nuanced: depending on the crop this varies from 0.5% to 1.25%. However, the principle remains the same; during a large part of the year all of the sunlight can…

In an upcoming 30MHz webinar, Aryan Aziezie will bring you up to speed on the Sendot sensor portfolio and the insights their optical sensor technology provides. Sendot has seen some significant results when it comes to capturing O2 and photosynthesis data. Resulting in more efficiency improved production…

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…

Lamp selection when speaking about plant production in the horticulture or floriculture field is a very important decision. Lamps can be a good investment when we ask ourselves the correct questions. When working with artificial lighting we first need to analyze the requirements of our growing system and…

Pure polyethylene (PE) is enriched with several additives to make it a smart application material in protected cultivation, as a cover material for either greenhouses or screenhouses. When this material completely or partially absorbs ultraviolet (UV) solar radiation, then it is called UV blocking…

Choosing the best grow light for your facility is essential to growing healthy plants and getting a maximum return from your investment. One of the most challenging issues that growers interested in purchasing horticultural lights face when researching horticultural lighting is interpreting and understanding the many terms and…

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…

What is a mole of light? How much light will meet my goals? How can I discern if a light plan is going to provide these needed light levels and actually work? How does spectrum influence growth?  “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know," said Albert Einstein. Attempting to research and…

Fluence has expanded its global photobiology research program, which encompasses studies on multiple vine crops, leafy greens and medical cannabis in the United States, Canada, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Tapping into a global network of trusted research institutionsFluence leverages a network…

The Fluence Research Team and Horticulture Services Team are proud to announce the latest webinar presenting their research on the impact of light spectra on cucumber plant development. In this webinar, Leo Lansbergen, Horticulture Service Specialist, will first discuss the technique of growing cucumbers…

Kopp Glass announces a new release of its UV LED Product Database. With hundreds of new UV LEDs available each year, researching and comparing the various options for a project can be tedious and time-consuming. To streamline the selection process, Kopp Glass updated its UV LED Product Database to now…

There has been some discussion online and in presentations recently about the issue of photosynthetic photon flux. The argument goes as follows: Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) is somewhat arbitrarily defined as optical radiation within the spectral range of 400 nm to 700 nm. Exposing plants to…

Pepper, tomato and cucumber crops require consistent levels of light for year round production. There are many things to consider before investing in a lighting solution and understanding your growing environment – and the goals you want to achieve – will help in choosing a system that best suits your…

University of East Anglia scientists have helped find a way to control different plant processes – such as when they grow – using nothing but coloured light. The development reveals how coloured light can be used to control biological processes in plants by switching different genes on and off. The…

Light is a crucial element for plant growth and production. High-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps are considered not very electrically efficient as they generate high radiant heat, and as a consequence, there has been a lot of interest in replacing HPS lamps with new more efficient lighting sources in the…

nanoLambda, a leading spectral sensor company, announced a new version of XL-500, with an extended range from 340 nm to 1010 nm, measuring UV, Visual and NIR ranges all at the same time. The tiny BLE spectroradiometer XL-500 measures and records light spectrum with absolute power values, not only SPD…

Tomato and cucumber seedlings were grown in a growth chamber to evaluate the effects of different cycles of light–dark exposure conditions (T0 (control treatment) (1 cycle of 24 h distributed in 18 h of light exposure and six hours of dark), T1 (two cycles of 12 h distributed in nine hours of light…

In Autumn 2019 Gemüsebau Steiner installed Hyperion LED top lights in their tomato greenhouse in Kirchweidach, replacing the existing 1000W HPS fixtures with LED fixtures in an area of 5,000m2. This was the first 100% LED tomato installation in Germany. More importantly, this was a unique trial comparing…