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VIDEO: Daan Roosegaarde Uses "Light Recipes" To Show How Agriculture Could Be More Sustainable
Dezeen Magazine
Amy Frearson | January 18, 2021
Studio Roosegaarde has unveiled Grow, a 20,000-square-metre light installation designed to highlight the beauty of agriculture while also improving crop growth.
The Rotterdam-based studio, led by designer Daan Roosegaarde, used red, blue, and ultraviolet lights to transform a field into a dynamic artwork.
As well as creating a visual spectacle, the installation serves as a prototype for how certain "light recipes" can be used to increase plant growth and reduce the use of pesticides by up to 50 percent.
Grow is a 20,000-square-metre light installation in a Dutch field
The first ideas for the project came after an early morning visit to the farm. As a self-confessed urbanite, Roosegaarde told Dezeen he had spent very little time exploring the Netherlands' agricultural landscape, so was amazed to experience it first hand.
Despite being a relatively small country, the Netherlands is one of the world's largest producers of vegetables, second only to the United States, and has established itself as a pioneer of highly efficient farming techniques.
"We thought we should highlight the beauty of this agriculture," said Roosegaarde. "These vast fields feed us, but nobody sees it."
Lights turn the crops into a visual spectacle but also helps to improve growth
Shortly after, Roosegaarde became aware of advancements in photobiological lighting technology. Research suggests that certain combinations of light can not only strengthen plant metabolism but also create resistance to both pests and disease.
Although the technology has been used in greenhouses, Roosegaarde saw an opportunity to test its potential at a larger scale.
The "light recipe" combines specific types of red, blue, and ultraviolet light
"A specific ultraviolet light activates the defense system of plants. And what is interesting is that it works on all crops," the designer explained. "So we can reduce the use of pesticides."
Pesticides are known to have a significantly harmful effect on biological diversity, one of the pillars of sustainability. If the farming industry was able to reduce reliance on them, it would be of great benefit to the environment.
These lights can strengthen plant metabolism and create resistance to pests and disease
Studio Roosegaarde created Grow with high-density LEDs positioned at different points around the field.
The devices move up and down, distributing the light evenly across the field. As they move, they create dancing patterns that are hypnotic to watch. "It's very futuristic and also very romantic, in a way," suggested Roosegaarde.
Grow is the latest of several large-scale light installations Roosegaarde has created
The effect is similar to some of the other large-scale installations Roosegaarde has created in the past like Waterlicht, which mimicked the effect of the Northern Lights as a way to highlight a flood plain.
However, the designer sees Grow as a project with a bigger audience. His plan is to take it around the world, with different light recipes formulated to suit different crops.
The designer hopes to promote the role of the farmer as a hero
Roosegaarde's aim is to help to speed up the application of this science, but also to create a more universal appreciation for the important role of farmers, who he describes as heroes.
"I want to design things which make people curious about the future, not sad or mad," added Roosegaarde. "Light is my language. Light is not decoration, it's activation and it's communication."
Grow was commissioned by Rabobank, for the bank's ongoing artist-in-residence programme. The ambition is for the project to tour all 40 countries where the bank operates.
Read more: Design Lighting Netherlands Plants Farms Installations Studio Roosegaarde Technology
Signify and RIAT Pioneer Growing Tomatoes and Cucumbers In A Vertical Farm Without Daylight
Signify (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, and RIAT, an innovative farming enterprise located in Russia, have together pioneered the growing of tomatoes and cucumbers in a vertical farm without daylight.
April 30, 2020
Eindhoven, the Netherlands – Signify (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, and RIAT, an innovative farming enterprise located in Russia, have together pioneered the growing of tomatoes and cucumbers in a vertical farm without daylight. During the research phase in 2019, RIAT achieved a yield comparable to advanced traditional greenhouses using Philips GreenPower LED grow lights.
We already had facilities of sufficient height at our disposal, therefore there was no need to invest in building a glass construction. But as the building had no windows, we needed a high-quality lighting system to fulfill the intensive lighting requirements of tomatoes and cucumbers. In 2019, Signify provided its Philips GreenPower LED grow lighting, helping us to achieve a yield performance comparable to traditional greenhouse operations."
Vladimir Bukharev
Director at RIAT
RIAT’s indoor farm is located in the center of the Ivanovo region, enabling the company to distribute its tomatoes, cucumbers and 19 types of green crops to its own RIAT stores within an hour after harvesting. RIAT has a special technique to fold the long stems, allowing it to grow the 3.5m high plants indoors.
“With a harvest of 2.7 to 3.2 kg of cucumbers per m2 every week, and 1.7 kg per m2 of tomatoes, we started making a profit as of the second year of operation,” Bukharev added. “In addition to that, the quality of the product is very high, there’s hardly any waste and we sell 99% of what is being grown.”
“To mimic nature as much as possible, RIAT has chosen a combination of different kinds of Philips GreenPower LED toplighting and interlighting, bringing light both from the top and right in the canopy where the light is needed the most for photosynthesis. While using different kinds of lights, the light recipe can be adjusted based on the crop that is grown,” said Sergey Khokhrin, business Development Manager CEE/Russia & CIS at Signify.
Signify, in collaboration with several research partners, discovered that the red spectrum in light stimulates growth of plant cells and tissues, while the blue spectrum influences the processes of cytodifferentiation (racemes initiation, bines and root formation, flowering). The combination of red and blue with the addition of white and other colors in Philips LED grow lights creates lighting conditions that are as close to natural daylight as possible. Additionally, RIAT is using bumblebees for pollination, as in traditional greenhouses. The bees don’t experience difficulties due to the absence of natural light.
When choosing a lighting supplier, RIAT tested LED modules from different manufacturers from around the globe. “By using Philips LED lighting modules, we managed to achieve maximum stability and a light output of 18 g/mol. This is why we chose Signify. The area equipped with LED lamps is currently 3,800 m2. Soon, we are going to launch a new area of 700 m2 to grow lettuce which will also be equipped with Philips LED lighting,” Bukharev added.
For further information, please contact:
Global Marcom Manager Horticulture at Signify
Daniela Damoiseaux
Tel: +31 6 31 65 29 69
E-mail: daniela.damoiseaux@signify.com
Signify Corporate Communications and Government Affairs in Russia
and CIS
Natalia Neverskaya
Tel.: +7 (495) 937-93-30; fax +7 (495) 937-93-59
E-mail: natalia.neverskaya@signify.com
About Signify
Signify (Euronext: LIGHT) is the world leader in lighting for professionals and consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. Our Philips products, Interact connected lighting systems and data-enabled services, deliver business value and transform life in homes, buildings and public spaces. With 2019 sales of EUR 6.2 billion, we have approximately 38,000 employees and are present in over 70 countries. We unlock the extraordinary potential of light for brighter lives and a better world. We have been named Industry Leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for three years in a row. News from Signify is located at the Newsroom, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Information for investors can be found on the Investor Relations page.
Indoor Farming: How Can You Ensure Success?
Any business can fail for any number of reasons, but indoor farming is an incredibly delicate organism that depends on many disparate factors being perfectly aligned and in balance
Any business can fail for any number of reasons, but indoor farming is an incredibly delicate organism that depends on many disparate factors being perfectly aligned and in balance. This increases the risk of failure for those unaware of the number of plates that need to be kept spinning in perfect time. This list is not definitive but gives you a good idea of the most common mistakes to avoid.
1. Avoid a Trial and Error Approach to Design
There are multitudes of factors that are naturally managed and balanced with indoor farming. The sun cannot be changed, irrigation to every plant is different as weather patterns can change from moment to moment and even the nutrition in the soil can vary across the area of the field. Planning your farm therefore gives you the ultimate control but also dramatically increases the variables that you can and must consider.
These variables start with the facility’s very layout, such as the size of growing space, plant distribution, airflow and more. Additionally, without having the right models in place to determine the exact light recipe and combination of CO₂, nutrients and water required to grow a successful crop, growers can find themselves wasting time and money on testing phases to try to maximize yield and revenue. Once you have developed a model for your vertical farm, you should then put it through a testing phase on a smaller scale to ensure it is viable.
2. Pick the Right Crop
It’s far easier to develop a profitable and scalable facility if you know the needs of your crop inside and out. That ideally means specializing in one type of crop that you can design your facility around, electing the right growth spectrum and studying that particular plant’s biology to better understand how to optimize irrigation, nutrition, air flow, CO₂ concentration and propagation in order to maximize elements such as taste, nutritional content, visual appeal, potency or shelf life.
Too many growers have tried to hedge against perceived risk by trying to grow multiple crops. By default, it is extremely difficult to have one installation that is optimized for a wide variety of plants, and therefore the returns from each crop are lower than they could have been. The facility then may have to suffer through downtime as the technology is tweaked and optimized for the next crop — eating into profitability and adding unnecessary costs.
3. Location, Location, Location
The old adage that location is half the battle has never been more relevant than in vertical farming today. Vertical farms have a key advantage in their ability to be located close to their customer, whether they are selling to food processors, supermarkets or local shops. Removing the vast transport logistics associated with today’s food supply chain slashes costs and helps appeal to an increasingly conscientious customer. The lack of transport costs also helps counter the higher production costs resulting from higher energy and labor inputs.
At city planning level, there are also many advantages of co-locating a vertical farm with other facilities such as office buildings, shops or residences — which could draw the vertical farm’s excess heat to reduce demands on other sources of energy.
4. Simplify Your Business Model
Proximity to customers and the ability to produce crops year-round at a sustainable rate is a strong advantage in the market, whether you’re growing for the food or pharmaceutical sectors. Therefore, consider the opportunities available through establishing exclusive contracts with customers at a fixed rate that will offer more financial security as you build your business.
5. Be Realistic About Operational Cost
Setup and fit-out costs represent a high initial outlay for any indoor farming entrepreneur, but the ongoing operational costs (energy, labor, inputs, maintenance, etc.) are also significant. Businesses not only need to find creative ways to mitigate these risks (e.g. growing through the night when energy tariffs are lower and the outdoor climate is cooler to assist HVAC systems’ efficiency), but also consider the cost-benefits of different configurations and process flow.
6. Set Prices Based on What Consumers Will Pay
At the 2017 inaugural AgLanta Conference11, PodPonics’ CEO admitted that the company missed out on higher potential margins as it priced its crops to compete with conventional growers, ignoring the price premium that food traceability, pesticide-free growing and local production can increasingly attract from consumers in some markets.
7. The Skills Gap
In many cases, those who have embraced the promise of indoor farming have not been traditional growers but rather tech entrepreneurs, engineers or hobbyists. Vertical farming requires a unique mix of skills to be successful: big data scientists, systems integrators, project managers, engineers, growers and plant scientists all have a role to play in addition to the core functions that any business needs to be successful (financial strategists, marketing and business development, etc.). From the leadership perspective, experience at replicating and scaling a business is critical. Ignoring any one of these functions leaves a serious gap in business capability that could undermine the overall success of the operation.
8. Remember What You’re Selling
In a bid to capitalize on the new technology and growth models offered by vertical farming, some growers have forgotten that their primary focus should be on growing and selling the highest quality food. Instead, they have tried to recoup their investment by trying to commercialize their vertical farm’s technology, process and methodology. Unfortunately, as we have seen, every vertical farm is different with potentially very different needs. The trick is to not to try and do many different things at once, but instead keep a clear focus on doing one thing as well as possible.
Source: www.currentbyge.com/ideas