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HortiPower Helps You Make Your HPS Lights Smarter
Several greenhouses are choosing hybrid lighting in which they combine LED lights and HPS lights. An issue with hybrid lighting however is that HPS lights are often not individually controllable, but rather by the whole row or group
A commonly used connector in horticulture is the Wieland rst20i3. Both HPS lights and LED grow lights are using this in the greenhouse and vertical farm.
Several greenhouses are choosing hybrid lighting in which they combine LED lights and HPS lights. An issue with hybrid lighting however is that HPS lights are often not individually controllable, but rather by the whole row or group.
With the HortiPower timer, growers are now able to turn the individual HPS lights on and off. The timer has a wifi-chip on board and supports max. 16 amp which means up to 6 grow lights of 600W with 230V.
The timer is controllable with MQTT protocol through the Amazon Web Services (AWS). Power measurement is possible as well.
The timer gives growers the ability to really choose which lights should turn on or off. Growers may use sensors and climate computers to make that decision for them and automation is possible through an API.
Watch a short intro here.
HortiPower | Right Light. Better Growth
HortiPower makes plant-centric lighting solutions for tissue culture, vertical farms and greenhouses.
For more information:
HortiPower
GE Current Expands Horticulture Distribution Network To Support Indoor Growers Across Eurasia
Current’s Lucalox and Arize lighting solutions are available now. Customers can contact their local distribution partner for more information and advice on the best Current solution for their individual greenhouse set-up
GE Current, a Daintree company, has signed three new distribution partnership agreements with Agro Top Garden, Helle-Tech Oy, and Vitro HTS to make its full Lucalox HPS and Arize LED portfolio available to more greenhouse growers across Europe and Asia. The deals inked will provide growers focusing on horticulture, floriculture, and the burgeoning medicinal cannabis market, with easier access to leading lighting technologies, whether they rely on traditional HPS or are looking to transition over to low-energy LEDs to meet net-zero carbon goals.
Malcolm Yare, Business Development Manager for Horticulture at Current, commented, “There are all sorts of variables that combine to create the most productive greenhouse environment, from location and surrounding geography, to weather patterns and the type of crop grown. We want to ensure that greenhouse growers have access to the perfect lighting for their unique set-up. By expanding our network of distribution partners, we can ensure that growers receive expert, localised advice and support to ensure that they get the right Current system to maximise their yields and grow their businesses.”
Agro Top Garden is now the exclusive European distributor of Current’s Lucalox HPS lighting to the medicinal plant market, as well as being a master distributor of the company’s Arize LED portfolio. With a depth of broad horticultural experience, Agro Top Garden advises customers on the best growing media and fertilisers for their flowering plants. Now, with Current’s broad portfolio at its disposal, the company will also be able to advise cannabis growers on the most appropriate, low-energy lighting technology to nurture high-quality, abundant harvests every time.
Based in Finland, Helle-Tech Oy provides a range of greenhouse products, up to complete turn-key installations. With more than 30 years’ team experienced in building greenhouses all over Europe and Russia, Helle-Tech Oy partners with its customers throughout every stage of planning and installation, followed by close support and counsel, in order to maximize the potential of each greenhouse. With more growers looking to reduce their energy bills and carbon footprint, Helle-Tech Oy is expecting to guide many more customers through the transition from HPS to LED lighting in 2021, working with Current’s lighting experts to maintain yields and income throughout the process.
Vitro HTS is based at the heart of Eurasia, in Antalya, Turkey, and is focused on supporting growers across Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. With new investments in horticulture and floriculture across the region, Vitro HTS is ideally positioned to support new market entrants and existing growers with Current’s state-of-the-art lighting systems that reduce energy consumption and costs, whilst boosting revenue.
Current’s Lucalox and Arize lighting solutions are available now. Customers can contact their local distribution partner for more information and advice on the best Current solution for their individual greenhouse set-up.
For more information:
www.gecurrent.com
agrotopgarden.de
www.helle-tech.fi
www.vitrohts.com
1 Dec 2020
Challenges With Airflow Strategies In Vertical Applications
As the industry continues to search for ways to maximize efficiencies, the utilization of LED lighting is becoming increasingly common. Aside from energy efficiency gains, one of the many benefits of migrating to LED’s is the ability to also maximize space utilization
As the industry continues to search for ways to maximize efficiencies, the utilization of LED lighting is becoming increasingly common. Aside from energy efficiency gains, one of the many benefits of migrating to LED’s is the ability to also maximize space utilization.
With less radiant heat and more consistent PPFD, cultivators are able to move lighting much closer to the plant canopy (in some cases less than 6”), which makes vertical, or multi-tier, cultivation far more feasible than with HID lighting.
The obvious benefit to tiered applications is the ability to increase canopy square footage without additional building square footage. Although there are some drawbacks to multi-tier growing, there can also be great reward, and so we’re seeing more and more of our clients choose to go this route in their facilities.
From an HVAC perspective
The challenge with multi-tier cultivation is twofold: first, we must ensure homogeneity to the entire canopy at multiple heights (that all plants at all levels are seeing the same conditions), and second, we must ensure that the HVAC system is getting adequate access to the hot, humid canopy air to ensure that it operates at full capacity.
When standalone dehumidifiers are in use (as opposed to integrated dehumidification systems), it’s doubly important. Dehumidifiers are typically ceiling-mounted and getting the humidity from the lower tier all the way to the ceiling is both difficult and absolutely vital to the proper operation of the dehumidification system. These requirements can be challenging even in single tier applications, so when the complication of airflow obstructions associated with multiple tiers of canopy are added into the mix, the need for specialized expertise becomes even more evident.
Unfortunately, it can be exceptionally difficult for cultivators to find and incorporate a well-designed airflow system for their racking design. While something is certainly better than nothing, one-size-fits-all strategies without the proper engineering can be difficult to dial in, often resulting in improper air speed over the canopy, uneven temperatures, higher than necessary cost or higher than necessary energy use in both HVAC and the air distribution system itself.
The variables must be considered
Various lengths of ductwork, various canopy heights, and various distances from the lighting source will all result in variances in airflow requirements. The speed of the airflow, the diffusion of the airflow, and the temperature of the air will all impact VPD and plant transpiration. As even LED lights vary in wattage and sensible heat output, so should the amount of air being displaced over the canopy to ensure that temperature goals are met.
While certain components of racking airflow systems can be utilized in multiple applications, some care must be taken in each application to ensure that the components being applied are appropriate—from duct diameter to static pressure and fan selection to diffusion strategies. And this is only contemplating what is required to deliver cooler, dryer air to the canopy. Delivering the hot, humid air to the air conditioning and dehumidification system must also be considered. Luckily, these are all challenges that can be addressed with the right experience and engineering expertise, and it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.
The racking airflow design should be an integral part of the HVAC design
We are very happy to help any cultivator retrofit their existing racking systems with a well-designed airflow system, regardless of the HVAC system in use. With the proper engineering behind them, these retrofits can solve homogeneity and airflow challenges quite nicely and at a reasonable cost.
By the same token, what we find is that the most cost-effective and energy efficient multi-tier airflow strategies are those incorporated from the get-go as part of the HVAC design. Looking at it objectively, of course these systems should be incorporated at the HVAC design level when possible. Incorporating airflow over the canopy is a natural extension of the HVAC system. However, historically the industry has seen it as a separate challenge, or as a component of the racking systems themselves, and has largely considered only canopy air movement without considering how to ensure the HVAC system impacts the design.
Consistent airflow is achievable if designed right
The fact of the matter is, integrating the airflow systems with the racking systems is the easiest part. The hard part is making sure the airflow systems themselves are correctly designed to achieve their actual purpose: helping provide a cultivation environment that is consistently perfect.
When the multi-tiered airflow strategies within a room are considered as part of the HVAC design, all of the various airflow systems in the room are working in harmony instead of competing and interfering with each other, ensuring that everything operates as it was intended. This approach also minimizes the amount of equipment being utilized to achieve air distribution goals, which minimizes capital costs, overall connected electrical load, and energy use. It can even boost the energy efficiency of the HVAC system itself, by ensuring that air handlers have greater access to the hot, humid air at the canopy.
In any multi-tier application, a well-engineered racking airflow system design is an absolute requirement. However, we must stop thinking of these systems as components of racking, or as a design afterthought, and start thinking of them as an important part of the overall HVAC strategy.
Whether designing the system at the beginning of the room HVAC design or incorporating it after the fact, engineering and expertise that implements the racking airflow system as a vital component of the overall HVAC strategy will always yield the best results.
For more information:
Surna
Tel. +1 303 993 5271
www.surna.com
New OEM -Agreement For Shelf-And-Lighting Panels For Industrial Vertical Farming
The strategic partnership between Senmatic and LED iBond is based on Senmatic’s in-depth knowledge of LED grow lights and software solutions for industrial vertical farming and LED iBond’s unique LED technology platform
Danish-based companies Senmatic and LED iBond International have entered a strategic OEM-partnership for delivery of shelves with built-in grow light to advance the industrial vertical farming industry – a production method globally foreseen to gain currency among producers in the future.
Senmatic and LED iBond International have entered a strategic partnership for OEM delivery of shelves with built-in grow light to be included in Senmatic’s offering of industrial vertical farming solutions. In vertical farming you utilize the cubic meters by planting in layers rather than the square meters, as traditionally done with row upon row of plants and crops.
The new vertical farming shelves are based on LED iBond’s patented lighting fixture, which combines superior cooling characteristics and minimal space requirements with a high carrying capacity.
Photo by: LED iBond
The strategic partnership between Senmatic and LED iBond is based on Senmatic’s in-depth knowledge of LED grow lights and software solutions for industrial vertical farming and LED iBond’s unique LED technology platform.
- We have more than 40 years of experience with indoor plant production. We will combine LED iBond’s super-slim and energy-efficient shelf-and-lighting panels with our controllers and software to create a multifunctional vertical farming solution with best-in-class growth conditions for industrial indoor horticulture. This new partnership with LED iBond will further contribute to our growth in the vertical farming market, so we are very pleased indeed for this opportunity to join forces with LED iBond, says Mads Nychel, CEO at Senmatic.
The joint vertical farming offering is planned to launch at the end of Q4 2020.
WEBINAR: The Importance of Light Quality In CEA Systems
Spectrum has an important impact on plant growth, morphology, and development. Plants have evolved a sophisticated photoreceptor system capable of perceiving small changes on the light spectrum
Date: November 19, 2020
Time: 2 p.m. - 3 p.m. EDT
Presented by: Ricardo Hernandez (NCSU)
Click Here to Register
Spectrum has an important impact on plant growth, morphology, and development. Plants have evolved a sophisticated photoreceptor system capable of perceiving small changes on the light spectrum. Plants use spectral changes as information to adapt and increase survival and reproduction. Therefore, by understanding plant-light interactions, we are able to use light as a tool to change plant responses to meet human needs. This presentation will outline the importance of light quality and provide examples of the commercial applicability of spectral manipulation.
Dr. Ricardo Hernandez is an assistant professor at North Carolina State University focused on Controlled Environment Agriculture research and teaching (https://ceh.cals.ncsu.edu/). He has worked in the field of spectral optimization for over 10 years. In addition to his academic appointment, Ricardo is also a co-founder of two start-ups focused on the use of controlled environment technology and strategies to produce young plants.
Special thanks to our Industry partners
Join today
If you have any questions or would like to know more about GLASE, please contact its executive director Erico Mattos at em796@cornell.edu
The 5 Best LED Grow Lights To Use For Indoor Plants And Greenhouse Growing
Grow lights mimic natural sunlight and utilize the correct color spectrum to encourage photosynthesis to help plants grow indoors
The best grow lights allow us to garden indoors and in our greenhouses throughout the year. Grow lights mimic natural sunlight and utilize the correct color spectrum to encourage photosynthesis to help plants grow indoors. LED grow lights are energy-efficient, long-lasting, and have the full light spectrum, and we’ll cover the best LED grow lights in this article for indoor and greenhouse growing. This article will cover the best grow lights to use for indoor and greenhouse growing.
Kind LED Grow Light K5 Series This is one the best LED grow lights for indoor plants because of its grow light spectrum. This provides plants with a wide range of lights to optimize their growth and lets you grow all kinds of crops year-round. You can use these LED lights for hydroponic and indoor growing.
MD Lighting LED Grow Light This LED lighting system is set up like a lamp and allows for LED replacement bulbs for long-lasting use. It uses the right wavelengths to help encourage and promote plant growth. The grow light is easy to adjust and move to ensure all parts of the plant are receiving an equal amount of sunlight. It’s energy-efficient and saves money on electric bills.
Phlizon 1200W LED Grow Light The Philzon 1200W is one of the best LED grow lights for indoor plants and greenhouse growing. This grow light system doesn’t use a reflector in order to reduce heat emissions for plant protection. It’s known for generating less heat, being energy efficient, which is a cost-effective solution for electric bills. There are two light switches: VEG (blue and white LED light) which is used to promote young vegetative growth, and BLOOM (red and white LED) to promote flowering and blooming in the plants. The full spectrum of light can be found in this grow light to ensure your plants get the necessary nutrients.
HAUS Bright LED Grow Light Bulb These bright LED growing light bulbs provide a full spectrum of light that will help you grow your plants indoors all year round. It’s easy to install since it’s a light bulb and you can hang it anywhere! Only 20w of power is used, but it still produces 1200 lumens to keep your plants healthy.
Aceple Small LED Grow Light This LED grow light is perfect for small plants like succulents or potted plants. This Aceple grow light is one of the best LED grow lights for indoor plants and you can set it up at your office or wherever you may have a small assortment of plants. It provides red and blue lighting, which is essential for healthy leaves and blooming.
Want to learn more about the best LED grow lights for indoor plants and greenhouse gardening? Join our microgreens class to learn the basics about everything there is to know about microgreen and indoor growing. If you can’t sign up for our class, subscribe to our weekly blog and Youtube channel for weekly updates!
#bestledgrowlightsforindoorplants #bestgrowlight #indoorgrowlight #growinglight #growlight #bestgrowlights
Unleashing The Potential of Indoor Sole-Source LEDs on Tomato Production
Enlightening collaboration between Heliospectra and the University of Tokyo
Enlightening Collaboration Between Heliospectra And The University of Tokyo
Heliospectra announced a collaboration with the Institute for Sustainable Agro-ecosystem Services (ISAS), the University of Tokyo. In an effort to redefine and unleash the potential of indoor tomato production, this will be a joint research project with the University’s Institute for Sustainable Agro-ecosystem Services (ISAS), in collaboration with Associate Professor Wataru Yamori at the Agricultural Biology and Biogeochemistry Group, and Heliospectra Japan.
With the average age of Japanese farmers reaching 67 years old and younger generations migrating to cities, traditional farming is facing a crisis. This is forcing the country to investigate new ways to produce food. Plant factories are scaling to meet consumer food demand, mainly in vegetable cultivation in both solar and artificial light environments, and the industry is growing. Japan already has approximately 200 lettuce factories using artificial light, and that number is expected to double by 2025. However, to-date, plant factories have been unsuccessful in cultivating light-hungry vine crops such as tomatoes in indoor artificial light. Heliospectra and the University of Tokyo want to challenge this.
Working together, they are looking to build a business model for Japan’s plant factories and PFAL (Plant Factory with Artificial Lighting) organizations for indoor tomato cultivation. In the University lab, the Professor and his students will be using Heliospectra’s MITRA linear, the horticulture market’s first truly modular LED light. Designed by growers for growers, MITRA is a solution for high-light crops, with high-intensity light output and electrical efficacy of up to 2.8 µmol/J.
“We are very excited to be a part of this research together with Dr. Yamori and the ISAS at the University of Tokyo. Over the years, Heliospectra has conducted research on light’s effect on tomatoes in indoor facilities with great results,” comments Yasuhiro Suzuki, General Manager of Heliospectra Japan. “We now look forward to further expanding our knowledge and developing more effective indoor cultivation of tomatoes for commercial use. We look forward to collaborating with the university and sharing with the world our knowledge of growing tomatoes indoors.”
For more information:
Heliospectra
info@heliospectra.com
www.heliospectra.com
Publication date: Thu 29 Oct 2020
Increasing Lettuce Leaves' Fresh Weight by Light Treatments
Italian researchers dove into the matter and trialed three spectra to see what the effects would be on the crop and what the potential is for growing vegetables at your house
While red light is widely considered the visible spectral region with higher effects on photosynthesis, the amount of blue required for different species is an ongoing question. Italian researchers dove into the matter and trialed three spectra to see what the effects would be on the crop and what the potential is for growing vegetables at your house.
By Mattia Accorsi PhD (1); Federico Carotenuto PhD (2)
1) Biologist2) Researcher CNR IBIMET Florence
Light-spectrum manipulation
The research deepen the enhancement of the nutraceutical components in indoor primary production through only the light-spectrum manipulation. To achieve the experimental results was built, in collaboration with the Department of Agronomical Sciences (University of Bologna), an integrated and automated indoor prototypal growing system. In the prototype different state-of-the-art LED lighting lamps prepared ad hoc by C-LED (www.c-led.it) are compared in order to pinpoint the best spectral characteristics for food production as well as the most energy-efficient solution.
Material and methods: Sampling Location, hydroponic system, and plant material
Indoor growing system was divided into three sectors separated by a non-reflective opaque membrane. Each sector held two draining trays with 8 pots each containing a 50:50 perlite-vermiculite growing medium. The automated irrigation system dispensed 30” of irrigation each three hours from 6:00 to 22:00 (local time) and again at 2 am. A 200 liters tank, refilled weekly, was used as the water reservoir. To the irrigation water were added a series of nutrients. Room temperature was regulated at 18 ± 2 °C between 8 am and 20 pm, and at 16 ± 2°C between 20 pm and 8 am, by the building HVAC system. Each sector (i.e.: each of the three columns with three shelves each) had a specific light spectrum supplied by different LED lamps. Each shelf (i.e.: each row of the scaffolding) contained one of the three varieties of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.): var. Maravilla de Verano, var. Lollo Rosso, and var. Crispa. In this way, each variety was illuminated by the three different spectra, therefore generating nine combinations between variety and lightning.
Agronomical and morphological determination
Determinations on the number of leaves, LAI, and growth rate were conducted weekly for the entire duration of the plants’ growth since the transplanting (Zink and Yamaguchi, 1962). Plants’ biomass in fresh weight (FW) and dry weight (DW) production were analyzed at harvesting time. Values of electroconductivity (EC) and pH of water tank and drainage was checked three times per week with a conductometer model Basic 30 (Crison instrument, Barcelona, Spain). The content of nitrogen in the leaf tissues was measured weekly utilizing a Yara N-Tester (Oslo, Norway), taking thirty measurement per plant. Vegetables’ yield was related to the lamps’ energetic consumption in order to evaluate the energy use efficiency (EUE) and expressed as g kW-1.
Figure: Morphology of three lettuce varieties (Meravilla de Verano, Crispa and Lollo Rosso), treated with three light spectra at 200 PPFD. Picture acquired at harvesting time (30 DAT). Effects on color intensity (green index) and pigment composition will be deepen in next article.
Biochemical determination
At harvesting time, 30 days after transplanting, a portion of leaf tissues of different theses were collected and stored in polyethylene bags at -20°C until processed. Extraction and quantification of total phenolic and flavonoid contents was conducted as described in Piovene et al. (2014). Antioxidant capacity was determined with the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method as described by Floegel et al. (2011), in order to evaluate the additive and synergistic effects of all antioxidants rather than the effects of single compounds (Brighenti et al., 2005; Puchau et al., 2009).
In all lettuce varieties, leaves’ fresh weight was significantly increased by light treatments. Thesis A (110±34g) and C (112±42g) determined a better production in respect to B (90±34g) as shown in figure. Between three lettuce varieties, at 30 days after transplanting (DAT), Meravilla de Verano showed the highest fresh biomass production with 135±28 grams per plant while Crispa and Lollo Rosso varieties had a production of 104±31g and 72±25g respectively. Dry: Fresh biomass ratio (DFr) revealed opposite trend with respect to total fresh food production: treatment B showed higher DFr with values of 1.34±0.15. These values were significantly different in respect to A (1.25±0.12 ) and C (1.10±0.98).
Discussion: Light characteristics and physiological implications
An increasing interest in indoor growing within the urban area is reflected in a multiplication of commercial solutions making use of soilless systems and precision agriculture techniques (Massa et al., 2008; Poulet et al., 2014; Specht et al., 2014). Differently to artificial lighting technologies such as HPS and fluorescent lamps, LED lighting allows a concrete energy saving and to choose the light spectrum for specific purposes (Ilieva et al., 2010). Continuous advancements in LED technology, allow in-depth research on physiology and biochemistry of plants, two-sector of botany strictly correlated with the quality and quantity of the incident light (Horton, 2000; Poulet et al., 2014).
While red light is widely considered the visible spectral region with higher effects on photosynthesis, the amount of blue required for different species is an ongoing question. Red wavelengths (600-700nm) contain the peak absorption of chlorophyll around 660nm (Massa, 2008). Photosystem I (PSI) and photosystem II (PSII) intercept photons respectively around 650nm (PSII) and 700nm (PSI) (Schopfer and Brennicke, 2010). Blue wavelengths (400-500nm) revealed a variety of important morphological (Blaaw and Blaauw-Jansen, 1970; Cosgrove, 1981), and physiological (Schwartz and Zeiger, 1984; Kinoshita et al., 2001; Horrer 2016; Wang et al., 2016) effects.
In this project, all three light spectra integrate a low percentage (8-19%) of green light. These wavelengths were added to continue the work of Piovene (2015) that identified a specific combination of BRr and green for stimulation of biomass production and nutraceutical characteristics. Other works in literature in mentioned green wavelengths for positive effects towards functional compounds content (Samuolienė et al., 2012) and physiological response to photosynthetic light (Kim et al., 2005; Johkan et al., 2012).
How light spectra influenced food production
This study did not identify the correlation between the percentage of green light and biomass production or nutraceutical characteristics (statistical data not shown) contrary to what stated by the work of Kim et al. (2005) who found positive influence in biomass production with the addition of 24% of green light. Anyway, green light, especially if added to the only red and blue LED, completes the visible spectrum and hence helped in the aesthetic presentation of the plants which appeared less purplish-gray and more natural. Therefore, the latter effect of green light within a growing spectrum, would help in better fitting the plant in the indoor living environment for human purposes and ease the identification of disease onset (Massa et al., 2008).
Figure: Study of LED C-LED lamps in collaboration with an italian university. Range of PAR, UV and Far-red are deeply analizyed in product prototyping process.
The food production has shown significant differences between lettuce varieties and light spectra. Taking into consideration only the lettuce varieties, Meravilla de Verano showed the best yield in respect to Crispa and Lollo Rosso. Light spectra, on the other hand, confirmed that the optimal ratio between red and blue has great relevance in influencing crop yield. While a certain quantity of blue light is necessary for a proper physiological balance (Yoro et al., 2001), this study showed that lower BRr has a positive influence on food productivity across lettuce varieties in accordance with previous researches (Wang et al., 2016). In general, it seems that the optimal BRr is somewhat species-specific since, for example, leafy aromatic vegetables showed better biomass production with a higher percentage of blue wavelengths (Piovene et al., 2015; Abiusi et al., 2013). On the other hand, strawberry showed an improvement of vegetative growth when the red percentage was higher than blue, although compensated by a background white light (Samuoliené et al., 2010)
In fact, many researches points out how plants require a complex spectrum that may include green: this parameter increase the difficulty to choose the “correct” light recipe, considering a number of factors such as specific species-varieties- phonological stage requirements (Wang et al., 2016; Kim et al., 2005).
Nutraceutical implications
Different studies described how BRr influences nutraceutical properties in vegetables grown in indoor condition (Bantis et al., 2015; Piovene et al., 2015). Correlation between polyphenols and flavonoids content with antioxidant capacities has been documented (Dudonne´ et al., 2009; Samaniego Sanchez et al., 2007; Puchau et al., 2009). Polyphenols have an important antioxidant capacity determined by their ability to act as radical scavengers (Carter et al., 2006; Fardet, 2010). In nature, polyphenols are generally accumulated in plant tissues as response to external factors (Loaiza-Velarde et al., 1997). In indoor controlled growing system water, nutrition and microclimate are generally optimized: a particular light spectrum may therefore improve nutraceutical properties through photochemical induction and may, therefore, have a dramatic importance for human nutrition.
The three-light theses tested in this project revealed significant effects on the functional compounds such as phenolics and flavonoids, as well as the antioxidant activity. These data confirm previous works conducted with LED light manipulation (Piovene et at., 2015). In this work, antioxidant activity showed), an attitude of blue light to improve the antioxidant properties of lettuce (Figure 8) with a good correlation coefficient (R2=0.776). This is in accordance with previous researches that correlated the amount of flavonoids and antioxidant activity with blue light stimulation (Ebisawa et al., 2008; Kojima et al., 2010; Ouzounis et al., 2016). Blue light revealed also to be effective in increasing chlorogenic acid (Awada et al., 2001), that has higher antioxidant activity than carotenoids and tocopherols (Rice-Evans et al., 1997).
Fresh food possesses significant amounts of antioxidant and, due to its regular consumption, highly contributes in providing dietary antiradical protection (Deng et al., 2013; Harasym and Oledzki, 2014). Generally, fresh fruits have higher level of total polyphenols, total flavonoids and antioxidant capacity than vegetables (Chun et al., 2005) but, due to the higher consumption of vegetable the antioxidant uptake may be much lower. In epidemiologic studies (Chun et al., 2005) the daily nutraceutical uptake may be estimated at 129mg for TPC and 17mg for TFC.
The indoor experimental structure tested in this study guaranteed a certain TPC and TFC production. Considering the average consumption of 0.27 Kg d-1 person-1 (Leclercq et al., 2009; USP-BO 2013) is possible assert that indoor soilless system lighted with all LED spectrum allowed an average uptake of 6% of TPC and 6.2% of TFC.
Figure: Fresh weight of yield (g plant-1) correlated with Blue:Red ratio highlighted with empty circles (○); Antioxidant activity (DPPH) correlated with Blue:Red ratio highlighted with full circles (●).
Read more on the indoor food production sustainability and the conclusion of the research here.
Lead photo: Figure: Experimental vertical farming system realized in C-LED headquarters. Lettuce varieties at 30 DAT (harvesting time). From right to left: spectra thesis A, B and C. From top to bottom lettuce varieties: Lollo Rosso, Meravilla de Verano and Crispa
27 Oct 2020
GE Current Donates Horticulture Lighting Fixtures To The Ohio State University
“We are excited to be deepening our relationship with OSU,” said Melissa Wesorick, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Current. “This is a great opportunity to strengthen our ties with this historic institution and the Ohio community, as well as inspire and empower the next generation of growers.”
GE Current, a Daintree company has gifted 272 horticultural lighting fixtures to The Ohio State University to benefit the university’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
The Arize Element L1000 LED fixtures will illuminate a state-of-the-art greenhouse being built within the new Controlled Environment Food Production Research Complex. The greenhouse was made possible with funding from Nationwide Insurance, as well as support from other Ohio-based companies.
“We are excited to be deepening our relationship with OSU,” said Melissa Wesorick, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Current. “This is a great opportunity to strengthen our ties with this historic institution and the Ohio community, as well as inspire and empower the next generation of growers.”
With construction slated to begin in 2021, the production greenhouse will provide hands-on training opportunities for students to learn how to grow various crops in a greenhouse setting. The multiple tailored light spectrums offered by the Arize Element L1000 opens the door for unique research and scientific exploration into crop production and plant growth, as well as expand upon the understanding of how LEDs can further that growth. The facility will also serve as the location for future grower conferences and workshops.
“Lighting is a key technology of controlled environment agriculture,” said Chieri Kubota, professor in Ohio State’s Department of Horticulture and Crop Science and lead researcher at the new greenhouse facility. “We are excited about potential research outcomes that will advance the science and technology of growing in these environments. We greatly appreciate Current’s generous and important gift to help make this happen.”
Kubota’s work encompasses plant physiology and horticulture engineering to enhance the understanding and efficiency of controlled environment agriculture production systems such as greenhouses, warehouses (vertical farms) and growth chambers.
For more information:
www.gecurrent.com
cfaes.osu.edu
Publication date: Thu 8 Oct 2020
Matt Roney New Lumileds CEO
Roney most recently served as President of Lumileds’ Automotive Business Unit and succeeds Dr. Jonathan Rich who will continue with the company as Executive Chairman of the Board
Lumileds announced the appointment of Matt Roney as the company’s Chief Executive Officer, effective October 1, 2020. Roney most recently served as President of Lumileds’ Automotive Business Unit and succeeds Dr. Jonathan Rich who will continue with the company as Executive Chairman of the Board.
“Speaking on behalf of the Board of Directors, we are grateful for Jon’s contributions as CEO and believe Lumileds is well-positioned for success in this next phase under Matt’s leadership,” said Rob Seminara, Senior Partner at Apollo Global Management. “Matt has nearly 25 years’ experience in the automotive industry and his performance and leadership throughout his career have given us even greater confidence in his ability to drive long-term innovation and growth at Lumileds.”
“Lumileds has a long history of innovation in conventional automotive lighting and is a pioneer of leading-edge LED technology for the consumer electronics, automotive, and general illumination markets,” said Roney. “I am honored by the opportunity to lead this company and team in its next phase and excited by the opportunities ahead to bring new and innovative lighting solutions to market. I look forward to building on the foundation Dr. Rich has put in place to further advance our technologies and increase the value we deliver to customers across a broad set of industries.”
Prior to joining Lumileds, Roney served as Chief Operating Officer for Stanley Infrastructure, a division of Stanley Black & Decker. Previously, Roney was the President of Paladin Attachments, which was acquired by Stanley Infrastructure. He also spent eight years at TRW Automotive, now known as ZF TRW, in roles of rising responsibility, including Vice President and General Manager of its $2.5 billion Global Steering Business. Roney has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, an MSE in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
For more information:
Lumileds
www.lumileds.com
Publication date: Tue 22 Sep 2020
Worldwide Horti Lighting Industry To 2030
The worldwide population is expected to increase to 8.5 billion by 2030, from 7.7 billion in 2019, as per the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA). Additionally, the disposable income of people is also rising, and the two factors are together resulting in a growing demand for food products
21-09-2020 | Cision PR Newswire
DUBLIN- The "Horticulture Lighting Market Research Report: By Type, Technology, Cultivation, Application - Global Industry Analysis and Growth Forecast to 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
The worldwide population is expected to increase to 8.5 billion by 2030, from 7.7 billion in 2019, as per the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA). Additionally, the disposable income of people is also rising, and the two factors are together resulting in a growing demand for food products.
To increase the yield, by making the best use of the available land, several countries are developing indoor farming techniques. Thus, with the population boom, the revenue generated in the global horticulture lighting market is expected to rise from $3.2 billion in 2019 to $20.3 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 18.1% during 2020-2030 (forecast period).
Light-Emitting Diode (LED) to Dominate Market during Forecast Period
Till 2030, LED would continue holding the largest revenue share in the horticulture lighting market, as this technology is quite cost-effective and lets farmers control the light intensity to suit different plants and crops. These factors are resulting in a high adoption of LED lights in greenhouse and indoor agricultural processes.
During the forecast period, the flowers bifurcation is expected to witness significant horticulture lighting market growth, as the demand for flower buds and cut flowers for decorative purposes is surging. From 2017, the exports of such products rose by 2.5%, to garner $6.6 billion in revenue in 2018, as per Trade Map. Currently, Europe's flower exports account for the highest revenue, followed by Latin America (LATAM), Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA), and North America.
In 2019, top lighting dominated the horticulture lighting market, as this type of lighting is vastly used for vertical farming, wherein the lights are placed close to the plants. Similarly, in indoor farming, the lamps and bulbs are suspended for the ceiling, because it creates optimum conditions for the growth of plants.
In the coming years, the fastest growth in the horticulture lighting market is projected to be experienced by the indoor/vertical farming division. The rapid increase in population and urbanization rate is leading to the shrinking of cultivable land, which is forcing the agrarian community to adopt indoor farming methods. Additionally, farmers are being offered financial support, to install vertical farms, by companies such as Toshiba Corporation and Panasonic Corporation.
Europe was the largest horticulture lighting market during the historical period (2014-2019). This is because it is the largest exporter as well as producer of fruits, flowers, and vegetables around the world. During the forecast period, the highest CAGR, of 21.1%, would be experienced in Asia-Pacific, owing to its increasing disposable income and population. Further, as a result, the reducing arable area, numerous countries in the region are looking at modern farming techniques, such as indoor horticulture, greenhouse, and vertical farming.
Market Players Strongly Pursuing Client Wins to Better their Position
In the recent years, several players in the horticulture lighting market have successfully pursued client wins to increase their sales and strengthen their position in the industry. For instance, a Canadian licensed producer of recreational and medicinal marijuana selected LumiGrow Inc. as its LED lighting partner in May 2019, for its six-acre cannabis greenhouse expansion project.
Similarly, in October 2019, Heliospectra AB received a $7.46 million (SEK 72 million) order for its MITRA LED lights from Nectar Farms in Victoria, Australia. The lights will be installed at a tomato-based glasshouse at Nectar Farms.
The competition in the global horticulture lighting market is primarily among Cree Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Lumileds Holding B.V., EPISTAR Corporation, Everlight Electronics Co. Ltd., Osram Licht AG, Broadcom Inc., Signify N.V., Illumitex Inc., Hubbell Incorporated, Hortilux Schrder B.V., LumiGrow Inc., General Electric Company, and Heliospectra AB, as they are the largest companies in the domain.
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The Basics Of Hydroponic Lighting
Choosing the best lights for your hydro system can be daunting for a beginner. There are tons of options out there and depending on your system size and type of plants you are growing; some types may be better or more efficient than others.
Hobbyists often take up hydroponics because they want to grow their own food but don’t have access to outdoor space. Although the sun is the ideal lighting source for growing plants, artificial lighting in indoor systems can provide a good substitute within the appropriate color spectrum.
Choosing the best lights for your hydro system can be daunting for a beginner. There are tons of options out there and depending on your system size and type of plants you are growing; some types may be better or more efficient than others.
Outside, a vegetable garden requires between four and six hours of direct sun per day, plus at least 10 hours of “bright light” or indirect sunlight. With artificial lighting in your hydroponic garden, the main goal is to imitate this. You should plan your system on having at least 14 to 16 hours of bright artificial light, followed by 10 to 12 hours of darkness every day. The darkness is just as important as the light—just like animals, plants need time to rest and metabolize.
If your plants are perennials, you will have to have a more strict and calculated lighting schedule to bring the plants through their vegetative (growth) and flowering (production) stages. The easiest way to maintain a lighting schedule is with an automatic electric timer. They are worth the investment because one small mistake or simply forgetting to turn the lights on or off has the potential to affect your plants' growth and production rates dramatically.
Different Plants, Different Needs
An electronic timer is especially necessary if you are growing a variety of different plants. Although you can follow the general guidelines above and have success, some plants do much better with longer or shorter periods of “daylight.” If you have a mix of these in your garden, you will need to figure out a custom schedule. An electric timer allows you to take care of this hassle-free and change it according to your needs as your garden evolves.
Short day plants: These require a long period of darkness to photosynthesize and produce flowers. If they are exposed to over 12 hours of light per day, they will not flower. Poinsettias, strawberries, cauliflower, and chrysanthemums are short-day plants. The short-day cycle mimics the environment in nature for plants the flower in the spring.
Long day plants: These require up to 18 hours of sunlight per day. They include wheat, lettuce, potatoes, spinach, and turnips. The long-day cycle mimics the natural environment of summer-flowering plants.
Day-neutral plants: These are the most flexible. They produce fruit no matter how much light they are exposed to. Some examples include rice, eggplant, roses, and corn.
If you must mix sort and long day plants, it is best to compromise their needs and pick a lighting schedule that is right in the middle, around fourteen hours of light per day.
Parts of the System
All hydro lighting systems have four main parts. These are the bulb, reflector hood, remote ballast, and timer.
Bulb: The most popular wattage for hydroponic bulbs is between 400-600 Watts. Most hydro gardeners use High-Intensity Discharge (HID) lights. HID bulbs produce light by sending an arc of electricity between two electrodes that are encased in glass with a mixture of gas and metal salts. The gas aids the creation of the arc, which then evaporates the metal salts, producing bright white light.
There are two types of bulbs available: High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) and Metal Halide (MH). Conversion lamps allow you to switch between the two types of bulbs easily.
Metal Halide is a good all-around light, and for most vegetables, it will work very well. If you can only afford or only have room for one type of bulb, MH is a good choice. They cost on average $150 or less for 400 watts. These should be replaced at least every two years, but a decrease in efficiency after about fifteen months so may need replacing earlier.
High-Pressure Sodium bulbs are the best choice for the flowering or fruiting stage of your plants. They are more expensive, so are often used in combination with an MH bulb (used during vegetative state) to save money on replacement costs. Although they are more expensive initially, HPS bulbs last up to twice as long as MH, up to five years. But, like MH lights they do lose effectiveness with use and may need to be replaced as often as every two years based on how much use they get.
Reflector hood: The reflector hood is a reflective casing around the bulb. It increases the effectiveness and efficiency of the bulb by reflecting the light down onto the plants at multiple angles, giving a more effective spread. This also allows you to use lights that give off less heat, saving on electricity and cooling costs.
Remote ballast: The ballast is the power box that powers the light. Sometimes ballasts are sold as a part of the lamp assembly, but these are usually far too hot and heavy. Remote ballasts are much better for home systems. This is the most expensive element of the lighting system, so it must be kept off the ground to ensure that it never gets wet in case of a flood or leak. Flooding is risky with systems such as Ebb & Flow in case your drainage tube gets clogged. It is recommended to buy the ballast as a set with the bulb because they must match each other in wattage.
Timer: Timers are the most inexpensive piece of the lighting system, but they are incredibly important. They must be heavy duty and grounded (three-prong plug) but can be either manual or electric. Manual timers use pins and have two plugs on either side so that you can attach it to two lamps at once. Manual timers are more popular because they are less likely to break than electric.
By Christina D’Anna | the Spruce | July 4, 2019
Signify And RIAT Pioneer Growing Tomatoes And Cucumbers In A Vertical Farm Without Daylight
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
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,” says Vladimir Bukharev, director at RIAT. “In 2019, Signify provided it’s Philips GreenPower LED grow lighting, helping us to achieve a yield performance comparable to traditional greenhouse operations.”
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.
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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.
About RIAT
RIAT is a holding in the Ivanovo region, Russia, which owns the world's first indoor production of tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as 10 supermarkets in Ivanovo and 2 in the Ivanovo region (in the cities of Ples and Kineshma).
Japanese Autotech Giant Denso Invests in Certhon
Denso, the second-largest advanced automotive technology supplier in the world, has announced its investment in Certhon, to expand horticulture business in the global market
Denso, the second-largest advanced automotive technology supplier in the world, has announced its investment in Certhon, to expand horticulture business in the global market. Denso and Certhon will collaborate to develop and provide greenhouse solutions.
Through this capital alliance, and combined with Certhon’s horticulture business knowledge, Denso will develop next-generation greenhouse technologies, such as fully automated indoor farming, and sell greenhouse package solutions tailored to the diverse needs of countries across the world.
Denso’s Long-term Policy 2030 launched in 2017 has identified the non-automotive business as one of its four focus areas and has defined agriculture as a key pillar under the non-automotive field. Until now, Denso has contributed to the improvement of productivity in the agricultural field and the stabilization of cultivation environments through climate control technologies.
As part of that, AgriD, established in 2018 with Asai Nursery, has built one of the largest greenhouses in Japan to realize greenhouse operations 24/7 through cooperation between farmers and robots to reduce the amount of work. Moreover, Denso has started the demonstration of the automatic harvesting robot “Faro” developed by Denso.
In the future, Denso will contribute to sustainable agricultural production through industrialization, and will provide new value to the agri-food sector by establishing an integrated food value chain business.
For more information:
Certhon
www.certhon.com
Denso
www.denso.com
Publication date: Wed 1 Apr 2020
Leo Marcelis: LED Light Recipe Can Enhance Rooting of Stem Cuttings in Medical Cannabis
Uniformity of the plants and predictability of the crop are key factors for the successful production of medicinal cannabis
LED light recipe can enhance rooting of stem cuttings
Uniformity of the plants and predictability of the crop are key factors for the successful production of medicinal cannabis. Growing medicinal cannabis, therefore, requires a high level of control over the production process, which is possible in greenhouses but even more so in indoor farms. LED lighting may be used to control the different developmental stages of the cannabis crop. Wageningen University and Signify have now made the next steps in a research program that aims to control the different developmental and growth processes, such as rooting, canopy establishment, flower induction and formation of secondary metabolites in the inflorescences.
Light to control your crop growth
Often the variability of plants is already present at the start of the crop, which makes crop uniformity challenging. Therefore, certain measures can be taken to minimize the plant differences and grow a uniform crop. LED lighting can help enhance plant uniformity and quality when the right light recipe is applied. A LED light recipe is defined by the light spectrum, intensity, the photoperiod and the timing of that period.
Plant hormones are affected by LED light
Medicinal cannabis is commonly propagated by stem cuttings, which is usually preferred over propagation by seeds because it is a low-cost method and it delivers genetically uniform plants. Auxins and carbohydrates are plant hormones and play a key role in adventitious rooting in cannabis: a critical process in the propagation of stem cuttings. A powder containing synthetic auxins is often applied because it improves rooting and uniformity among plants. When no rooting powders with synthetic auxin can be used, the rooting is rather slow and very variable. Important to know is that auxins and carbohydrates are both affected by LED light. Preliminary results now indicate that the rooting of stem cuttings can be enhanced by using the right light recipe.
The perfect light recipe for rooting
Now, the rooting process of medicinal cannabis is being studied in detail. Cuttings from the tops of the stems are put in pots and placed in rooms with a controlled environment. In a series of experiments, a range of spectra and intensities are tested for their effects on the formation of adventitious roots of cuttings treated with and without auxins. Subsequently, the effects of light are assessed on the development of the cuttings as well as on the morphology of the formed canopy. Thereafter, we investigate the effects of the light regime on flower induction.
In June 2019, Signify and WUR expanded their ongoing research program to determine the effects of Philips LED lighting on compounds and plant characteristics of medicinal cannabis crops. In this unique research project, they develop specific light recipes for medicinal cannabis based on a fundamental understanding of the influence of light on crops to enhance the purity and composition of cannabinoids. In this series of articles, Leo Marcelis from Wageningen University explains what the effects of LED lighting are on improved yield, flowering, and other plant characteristics.
Leo Marcelis is a professor of Horticulture and Product Physiology at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Leo has a vast experience in researching the physiology, growth and product formation of plants in order to improve sustainability and quality of crop production in greenhouses and vertical farms. Plant responses to LED lighting is a focal point of his research.
Valoya Announces Addition of A Former Conviron VP To Its Board of Directors
Its Board of Directors will now be strengthened with the addition of Mr. Bill Mukanik, former VP Client Services at Conviron, one of the world’s leading growth chamber manufacturers and also Valoya’s long term partner
Valoya, the Finnish LED grow lights manufacturer has been steadily growing since its founding 11 years ago. Its Board of Directors will now be strengthened with the addition of Mr. Bill Mukanik, former VP Client Services at Conviron, one of the world’s leading growth chamber manufacturers and also Valoya’s long term partner. Mr. Mukanik brings to Valoya’s Board of Directors team over 40 years of experience in the crop science market.
I look forward to working with Valoya to expand their presence and market share in North America. Having successfully integrated their LEDs for many years, I witnessed firsthand their ability to understand a client’s needs and then provide proven research-driven solutions. I am confident that this capability, along with their desire to provide exceptional value, will lead to even greater success. – Bill Mukanik
Mr. Mukanik’s longlasting experience in the crop science market will help Valoya solidify its position as the global leader of horticultural LED lighting solutions for this segment. As a highly respected and seasoned executive with a valuable understanding of the needs of the crop science customers, Mr. Mukanik will help Valoya serve this market even better. This addition to the Board of Directors comes at the stage of the company’s rapid development.
“I am very pleased and honored, that Bill joins our Board of Directors. He brings very valuable and relevant knowledge and vision to Valoya. He has an extensive global network and unsurpassed insight into the North American indoor growing and plant research markets. I have had the pleasure of working with him already many years in another capacity and now I am happy to continue working with him in his role as a Valoya board member” comments Lars Aikala, the CEO and Co-Founder of Valoya.
About Valoya
Valoya is a provider of high end, energy-efficient LED grow lights for use in crop science, vertical farming, and medicinal plants cultivation. Valoya LED grow lights have been developed using Valoya's proprietary LED technology and extensive plant photobiology research. Valoya's customer base includes numerous vertical farms, greenhouses and research institutions all over the world (including 8 out of 10 world’s largest agricultural companies).
Additional information:
Valoya Oy, Finland
Tel: +358 10 2350300
Email: sales@valoya.com
Web: www.valoya.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valoyafi/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/valoya
Webinar: Developing A Light Spectrum – A Balancing Act
The webinar is free-of-charge and will be held on May 27th at 15.00 EET. It will be presented by Ms. Stefanie Linzer, Plant R&D Director and Mr. Harri Ekdahl, Product Manager at Valoya
In an ocean of LED companies with conflicting claims, which one can be trusted for their horticultural lighting expertise? How can a grower understand which spectrum his/her plants would mostly benefit from? In this free webinar, we will breakdown the spectrum development process so as to enable growers and researchers to better understand what kind of light is best for them.
Valoya, the research-driven LED manufacturer from Finland, has conducted over 600 plant trials in the past decade in search for the highest quality light for cultivation and research purposes. In this process, it has amassed over 100 patents and developed over 60 spectra of which only 5 were commercialized.
Choosing wavelengths such as blue, red, far-red, UV and manipulating ratios such as red:far-red and blue: green are some of the factors that go into account in the spectrum development process. In the plant trials conducted we observe parameters that are of importance to growers such as plant biomass and morphology, secondary metabolite accumulation, etc. Additionally, growers need lights that achieve their cultivation targets efficiently, so spectrum development always includes economic considerations so that the minimal amount of Watts gets the desired output.
The webinar is free-of-charge and will be held on May 27th at 15.00 EET. It will be presented by Ms. Stefanie Linzer, Plant R&D Director and Mr. Harri Ekdahl, Product Manager at Valoya.
To learn more about the webinar and register for it, please click here.
About Valoya
Valoya is a provider of high end, energy-efficient LED grow lights for use in crop science, vertical farming, and medicinal plants cultivation. Valoya LED grow lights have been developed using Valoya's proprietary LED technology and extensive plant photobiology research. Valoya's customer base includes numerous vertical farms, greenhouses and research institutions all over the world (including 8 out of 10 world’s largest agricultural companies).
Additional information:
Valoya Oy, Finland
Tel: +358 10 2350300
Email: sales@valoya.com
Web: www.valoya.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valoyafi/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/valoya
Signify Installs Poland’s First FULL LED Lighting In A Pink Tomato Greenhouse
Signify provides growers horticulture LEDs, which allow them to increase growth predictability, quality, and yield, and which allows growers to grow fruit and vegetables in their greenhouses all year round
April 8, 2020
Warsaw, Poland – Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, has installed LED lamps in a Tomimaru Muchoo pink tomato greenhouse for the first time in Poland. This innovative full LED system was implemented on a 2ha plantation belonging to Łukasz Budyta Greenhouse Complex, which was fitted with Philips GreenPower LED toplighting modules and Philips GreenPower LED interlighting modules. Electrical installation design works on the project were carried out by Philips Horti LED Partner – company Lek/Habo.
Modern greenhouse lighting
Signify provides growers horticulture LEDs, which allow them to increase growth predictability, quality, and yield, and which allows growers to grow fruit and vegetables in their greenhouses all year round. As LEDs are more energy-efficient than high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps, it also helps growers to reduce electricity consumption.
“When designing the greenhouse lighting, we wanted to minimize the installed grid power while maintaining levels of light that are appropriate for the plant’s need. LED lighting is the most energy-efficient, and at the same time – which is equally important to us – the most environmentally friendly solution,” said Łukasz Budyta, owner of Łukasz Budyta Greenhouse Complex.
Compared to 1000W HPS lights, Philips GreenPower LED lighting produces the same amount of light while consuming 50% less energy and producing little radiation heat. This allows growers to independently control the temperature and amount of light deployed, and thus more effectively control climate conditions in their greenhouse. The use of LED modules can shorten production cycles, increase yields and allow better use of growing space. Modern lighting ensures economical and at the same time eco-friendly greenhouse cultivation.
“Philips GreenPower LED lighting is an innovative approach to year-round cultivation of vegetables and fruit in greenhouses. We are constantly following the trends and trying to meet the requirements of our business partners, and our technology for grow light with LEDs in greenhouses is perfectly in line with the eco-friendly approach of modern farms,” said Maciej Król, Horti LED C&EE Business Development Expert, Signify.
Pink tomatoes all year round
Łukasz Budyta Greenhouse Complex focuses on growing pink tomatoes. As the first farm in Poland, it uses LED lighting in a greenhouse in Piotrowice near Karczew.
The greenhouse is illuminated with a full LED system, providing a light intensity of 140 µmol/s/m2 from toplighting modules and 60 µmol/s/m2 from interlighting modules, which allows intensive and energy-efficient winter cultivation.
The setup of their lighting installation is the result of successful trials carried out in 2015-2017 at the micro-greenhouses of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW). In their own full-size production facility located in Piotrowice, Łukasz Budyta Greenhouse Complex wanted to repeat the results achieved in the test installation.
Łukasz Budyta Greenhouse Complex is located near Warsaw, providing easy, direct access to the vast market of the Polish capital and the rest of the country. The first pink tomatoes grown using Signify’s Philips LED fixtures are now available in stores in Warsaw
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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 Press Officer in Poland
Dorota Sławińska
Tel: +48 605 342 517
E-mail: dorota.slawinska@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 32,000 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.
You Are Invited To Join A GLASE Webinar: Lighting Approaches To Maximize Profits
Supplemental lighting is often necessary for year-round greenhouse production of ornamentals and vegetables
Date: April 16, 2020
Time: 2 p.m. - 3 p.m. EST
Presented by: Marc van Iersel
Register here
Supplemental lighting is often necessary for year-round greenhouse production of ornamentals and vegetables. However, the cost of providing supplemental light is high. It is therefore important that supplemental light is provided in a way that provides the greatest benefits for the crop, at the lowest possible price. To do so, it is important to understand the cost of providing supplemental light as well as how plants use that light. Accurate weather predictions can help minimize the risk of providing more excess light than is required by a specific crop. Learn how to account for these factors to help grow high-quality, profitable crops.
Special thanks to our Industry partners
Join today
If you have any questions or would like to know more about GLASE, please contact its executive director Erico Mattos at em796@cornell.edu
The Value of Third-Party Verification For Horticultural Lighting
Horticultural lighting comprises the largest percentage of power demand in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) facilities for fruit and vegetable production
By urbanagnews
February 24, 2020
By Leora Radetsky
The US vertical farming market is projected to reach $3 billion by 2024, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate of over 24 percent, according to a February 2019 report. Another report, by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, put the annual electricity consumption of US horticultural lighting installations at 5.9 terawatt hours – equal to the annual usage of about 550,000 US households, and projected that to increase 15 to 25 percent annually.
Horticultural lighting comprises the largest percentage of power demand in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) facilities for fruit and vegetable production. A 2019 study by Toronto’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) found, for example, that “a lit vegetable greenhouse consumes 10 times as much electricity as an unlit vegetable greenhouse, with essentially all the additional electricity used for lighting”.
Clearly, getting a handle on facility efficiency, including horticultural lighting, is a must-have if individual states and the US as a whole hope to rein in carbon emissions and meet energy reduction goals. This increase in electricity usage comes as states, provinces, and cities across North America are confronting the impacts of climate change and working to reduce – not grow – greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the electrical generation sector. In the US, 23 states and the District of Columbia have adopted specific GHG reduction targets. Massachusetts law, for example, requires the state to reduce GHG emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, and California is under a statutory mandate to cut emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
The good news is there are reliable, third-party lighting and safety standards to help indoor farmers make the leap from old-school lighting to state-of-the-art light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that use a fraction of the electricity and are increasingly effective for growing a variety of crops. Perhaps even better for farmers is the availability of a new industry-wide benchmark for horticultural lighting and a growing list of qualified products that are third-party certified to meet it.
More about the benchmark later – first, it’s useful to walk through the various lighting and safety standards specific to horticultural lighting.
Most lighting fixtures in the North American market go through rigorous inspection by certified labs. The first part of the check is for safety. An official UL safety standard tailored for the unique challenges of the greenhouse environment was recently released (UL 8800, the Standard for Horticultural Lighting Equipment and Systems). This standard and similar safety certifications at other major labs address wiring, environmental conditions, ingress protection, and worker safety related to prolonged photobiological exposure to the eyes and skin. Growers should always ask a lighting fixture manufacturer about safety certification specifically for horticultural environments.
Next on the standards checklist for horticultural lighting fixtures is performance testing. This often happens at the same labs that do safety testing but is designed to verify efficacy, output, spectrum, and other important performance variables. Commercial labs are certified for specific standards so that a test on a fixture is repeatable at any other lab certified to the same standard. This performance testing results in a report summarizing items such as photosynthetic photon flux (PPF), input power (watts), photosynthetic flux efficacy (PPE, measured in μmol/J or micromoles of photosynthetic photons per joule of electrical input power), and spectral content (flux per nanometer (nm) between 400 and 700 nm).
Then, there are flux maintenance standards for LEDs (such as IES LM-80 and IES TM-21) that help make sure the photosynthetic light output of LED products degrades at an acceptable rate to make a grower’s investment worthwhile. The testing and calculation methods that go into these standards were painstakingly developed through a consensus of knowledgeable lighting stakeholders. A key difference between general lighting and plant lighting, however, is how flux maintenance is measured and benchmarked – the bar is significantly higher for plants compared to people since their metabolism and growth are dependent on the light spectrum and amount.
Against this backdrop of standards and testing, lighting and related technologies are quickly evolving. For indoor growers, questions abound – from how long a fixture will last and whether a manufacturer’s claims about efficacy are accurate to the effectiveness of various wavelengths for growing particular crops. The tests described above produce a lot of important information, but it takes an informed reader to analyze and use it to select appropriate horticultural lighting. This is where our organization, the DesignLights Consortium (DLC), comes in. Through our Horticultural Lighting Program, the DLC strives to make the process of vetting lighting products easier, freeing up growers to focus on their core business.
Horticultural lighting specification is a relatively recent addition to the DLC’s work. The organization was founded in the early days of LED lighting to help electric utilities compare different lighting factors and reports to inform their energy efficiency rebate/incentive programs for commercial and industrial electric customers. The DLC began serving as a central clearinghouse for setting energy efficiency and other product performance minimum standards, and for evaluating products against those standards. Then and now, lighting products that pass review qualify for an online qualified products list (QPL) that utilities use to quickly and accurately incentivize high-performing products.
Back to the benchmark mentioned earlier, the goal of the DLC’s new minimum performance standards for horticultural light fixtures is to accelerate the adoption of new energy-saving LED fixtures in controlled agriculture environments. To be on the new DLC Horticultural QPL, an LED fixture must have a PPE of 1.9 micro mol/J, which means it will be at least 10 percent more efficacious than the best non-LED alternative – a 1,000-watt double-ended high-pressure sodium (HPS) fixture. It also must have a Q90 of 36,000 hours (the number of hours before the photon flux output depreciates to 90 percent), and its driver and fan (if included) must have a rated life of at least 50,000 hours.
Importantly, every product is listed online in a searchable, filterable database to help growers and controlled environment agriculture facility designers quickly narrow their options. For example, in a retrofit, a grower might know what PPF is needed from each fixture but might also need to stay within a power budget to avoid rewiring circuits. The DLC’s Horticultural QPL can be filtered to quickly find and compare conforming products.
For utilities and horticultural lighting users alike, trusted, third-party verification holds the same value as it does in other industries. It plays a critical role in ensuring the integrity of a growing array of products – providing assurance that an independent party has done the legwork and is vouching that a fixture can do the job and save electricity.
As the IESO study referenced above noted, horticultural lighting standards developed by the DLC, as well as the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, “should help to build trust between growers and lighting manufacturers and suppliers regarding performance information as LED technology continues to mature”.
Just over a year since it was unveiled, the DLC’s Horticultural QPL contains 58 products from 18 manufacturers, and additional products are reviewed and added regularly. We’re confident this growing roster of third-party certified products is expanding the options for farmers and providing a greater level of assurance about product performance, leading to quicker and wider adoption of advanced, energy-efficient horticultural lighting technology.
Leora Radetsky (lradetsky@designlights.org) is a Senior Lighting Scientist at the DesignLights Consortium.