LED Light / By Mokolight / August 26, 2021 September 8, 2021
The research of LED grow plant light is one of the key research directions in the agricultural field in recent years. LED grow plant lights have the characteristics of low heat generation, small size, energy-saving and environmental protection. Compared with other plant growth lights, LED has obvious advantages. Due to the fiery field of LED grow plant light, many general lighting companies have joined the field of LED grow plant light. The addition of these companies has promoted the advancement of LED grow plant light technology, thereby promoting the development of the industry.
Many peers still have some doubts about the actual situation of the industry and technology of LED grow plant lights. How is the development momentum of grow plant light? What problems did you encounter in the development process? What is the market share of grow plant light? What is the future development trend of grow plant lights? Let’s explore these doubts, hoping that practitioners can learn some experience from them.
The current development of LED grow plant light
The LED grow plant light industry is a sunrise industry and an incremental market. Now there is a huge market demand for plants. Whether it is fruits, vegetables or medicinal flowers, the demand for these plants will only increase, and the added value of these plants is very high. In the future, the price will only get higher and higher, and the price of plants will go up. People will definitely look for more efficient plant cultivation. Plant factories are currently a better way to improve plant production efficiency. Plant factories cannot do without LEDs. Plant light. Careful analysis shows that the market for LED grow plant light will become larger and larger, provided that the technology of LED grow plant light should be further developed.
The growth cycle of plants is relatively long, but the state of the plants will continue to change. The plants will stay in the shape that people want for not too long. If the sales are not good, the harvest period of the plants will be missed, and the previous planting time and Money investment will be wasted. Fortunately, the development of agriculture is now diversified and market-oriented, and information is transparent. Many businesses can find mature crops in a timely manner. Moreover, the development of agricultural product processing technology and cold chain transportation technology has made the sales market of agricultural products even larger. The benefits of agricultural planting are higher.
What is the current LED market share in plant lighting fixtures?
At present, the market share of LED grow plant light is still not high. Greenhouse planting is a relatively popular planting method. In this field, high-pressure sodium lamps are the main grow plant light, although some are slowly using LED plant growth lamps. The development is very slow and the market share is very small. In many countries, fluorescent lamps are mainly used for plant growth lamps, while LED lamps are not used much. In recent years, LEDs have developed rapidly in the field of cannabis cultivation. The main reason for the low market share of LEDs is that the purchase cost of LEDs is high, the growth cycle of general plants is long, and the time for cost recovery is relatively long, which increases the risk. Only high value-added crop grow plant light such as cannabis will be used on a large scale. LED technology is still developing, the cost of LED plant growth lights has been decreasing, and the market share of LEDs has also been rising.
What are the characteristics and advantages of vegetables grown with plant lighting compared with ordinary vegetables?
Vegetables grown by LED grow plant light have the following characteristics:
Vegetables grown with LED grow plant light is safer. The environment where LED grow plant light is planted is a relatively closed planting environment. LED grow plant light is used instead of sunlight, and nutrient solution is used to replace fertilizers and minerals in the soil. Plants grow in such a growth environment without pests and weeds. In the process of planting, no pesticides and herbicides are used. Growth in this environment is safer than traditional plants.
Vegetables grown with LED grow plant light is fresher. LED grow plant light planting does not need to consider the different regions and seasonal changes. This planting method will simulate an environment suitable for plant growth, so as to ensure that fresh vegetables can be produced in any season in any region, not the kind of long-term storage. Vegetables or vegetables are transported over long distances.
The risk of growing vegetables with LED grow plant light is lower. Vegetables grown under LED grow plant light will not affect the growth of vegetables due to seasonal changes. The growth environment of vegetables under this planting method is stable, and vegetables can produce a stable output.
The quality of vegetables grown with LED grow plant light is better. In the process of growing vegetables with LED grow plant light, we can adjust the light intensity and light time of the plant lights, and also adjust the wavelength of the plant lights. We can adjust other growth environments appropriately to make the plant growth environment the best growth environment. The growth pattern of vegetables can be adjusted. Tomatoes and potatoes grown under this condition will be larger, lettuce leaves wider and longer, and leeks will be longer.
In addition, plant planting is more efficient than traditional planting, because plants can receive long hours of light and more easily obtain nutrients, which greatly shortens the growth cycle of plants, and it is an environment suitable for plant growth throughout the year. Great plant output.
Is there any research on vegetables grown in plant factories that have defects in function or performance? Will artificial planting change the structure of vegetables, or other similar genetic problems?
Artificial light is basically the same as sunlight, and there is no difference in the growth of plants. The only difference is that if this plant is reddish and you use an accurate spectrum, it will grow lettuce with normal red leaves. But you said that the vegetable will not be different if the anthocyanin is missing, but some nutrients are missing. It is possible that the vegetables grown in hydroponic systems will have a tender texture. Some people like them very much, but some people say they are unnatural. People are the only animals that wear clothes, but we don’t feel unnatural when we wear clothes, so don’t use the word “natural”. Infinite zoom.
Plant factories use data to speak. We adjust the light to grow ingredients that are beneficial to people. The ratio of blue light to red light in sunlight is fixed, but the lighting can make the ingredients we need more appear, but it does not change the vegetables. Gene, this is the ability of the plant itself, we have not changed the gene of the plant.
Nutrients are the end applications of vegetables. Some have higher nutritional value and some are not what we need. When we need a certain ingredient of plants, we can adjust it through physical conditions. This is the benefit of plant factories. The growth of beneficial components in the human body, or by changing the growth environment of vegetables to adjust different tastes.
How do you think marijuana cultivation is legal in some countries and illegal in some countries? What is the development of cannabis cultivation?
Marijuana itself is a double-edged sword, and its medicinal value is beyond doubt. Different states in the United States have different laws, depending on how the local government views the matter. At present, if you want to grow cannabis in China, you must have some special licenses or plant it in some special places.
Many states in the United States have legalized the cannabis market, and mature lamps are now in use. And they are now looking for a LED grow plant light solution that is more efficient than high-pressure sodium lamps in the market. If your LED light solution has no obvious advantages over the high-pressure sodium lamps currently used, there will definitely be some obstacles to promotion.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of LED and traditional light source metal halide light (HID) in plant light? What is the development trend of ceramic light in the plant light market at home and abroad?
High-pressure sodium lamps have been used in agricultural production for a long time, and LEDs have just begun to be used, but as general lighting, the current LED market share is getting higher and higher, and many traditional lamps have been replaced by LEDs. This is an inevitable development of science and technology. trend. However, the spectral output of the metal halide lamp is relatively fixed, and it is difficult to control the change of the spectrum, so it is suitable for the growth of certain specific plants. At present, metal halide lamps are widely used in tomato planting, but if you are a plant factory, LED is better than it. Much, its spectrum is more suitable. However, the current QE value of LED compared with metal halide lamps, LED has no obvious advantage.
HID is more difficult to apply to vertical farms. One is its heat and the other is its volume. In the greenhouse, HID is also difficult to compete with high-pressure sodium lamps, because the trend of the spectrum is not the same. The artificial fill light in greenhouses all over the world is basically high-pressure sodium lamps. The Dutch who used LEDs in the greenhouse in the early days wanted to replace the high-pressure sodium lamps. However, it was later found that it was not feasible. The high-pressure sodium lamp was installed in the greenhouse very high, about 4 or 5 meters high. One lamp covered a large area of ​​plants below, and the LED installed at this height would have much less light, so currently the Netherlands uses a combination of the two Use high-pressure sodium lamps for headlights, and use adjustable-height LEDs at a distance of 15 or 20 cm between plants and plants, specifically to illuminate the leaves above the results. The combination of the two effects is very good, and the LED basically only needs red light.
What is the difference between hydroponic vegetables and plant factories? Will there be insects growing in plant factories?
Whether it is a greenhouse or an indoor all-artificial light factory, insects will grow. The key is how to control it. The greenhouse is a semi-manually controlled environment. If the door opening and closing state are not well managed, bugs will come in. Usually, there is a lot of space and bugs will come in. The strict conditions of plant factory management and greenhouse management are not at the same level. When we enter the plant factory, human hair must be protected. In addition, the air and water of the plant factory are purified or filtered. If we strictly follow the management mode of the plant factory, The probability of growing insects is very low, so plant factories do not allow the use of insecticides. In the greenhouse, we can only try to reduce its pollution rate. Hydroponics through the nutrient solution is one of the methods.
On the basis of different light quality, how to ensure its luminous flux density? In addition, how to ensure that it is in the same light intensity. For example, two different light sources of red and blue are combined into the same power, and the voltage chip of the blue light chip and the red light chip are not the same. The different numbers seem to represent different light intensities, that is, the PPF is different, because the luminous flux is different from the plant chlorophyll. A and B are related.
Even with the same PPF, each watt is similar to the concept of luminous efficiency, and different spectrums have different effects on plant growth. Many lamps sold on the market now use PPF per watt to measure performance. I think this is not comprehensive, because it does not include the spectrum. Effective PPF is very important for the plant growth spectrum.
We all know that it is difficult for any light spot illuminated by any lamp to achieve complete uniformity when designing lamps. It can only be achieved through optical design at the stage of lamp production, so as to make the light as uniform as possible, such as targeting the center. Some linear lamps with high power do a good job. If you want to fill light in the greenhouse, you need a more precise optical design.
When conducting plant light research, will the light test conducted under the same PPFD and the light test conducted under a different PPFD cause the final test results to be different?
PPFD compares the spectrum in the same situation. If the PPFD has high and low, and the spectrum is different, the research results are basically not convincing. But it depends on the research direction. If the PPFD is the same but the spectrum is different, this is the study of the spectrum; some research is that the PPFD is different, but the energy consumption is the same, and the same lamp is used normally, such as each 20-watt lamp. Light up 5 roots and adjust the height of placement to compare the difference in cultivation intensity. All of these must be considered together.
I think there are several indicators that can be used to measure the overall efficiency of the plant factory. The first is the measurement after the lamp is installed. The indicator of the amount and the indicator of the PPFD divided by the watt is the indicator of the light source itself. How many photons are generated by the power consumption of the light source? It is necessary to measure the PPFD of the cultivation surface and use the PPFD unit as an indicator to measure the condition after installation.
There is also an indicator called electricity production capacity. From vegetable seeding and sprouting to planting of finished products, the total amount of vegetable planting is calculated and divided by the power consumption. This indicator can measure energy production capacity, that is, how many vegetables are grown per kilowatt-hour of electricity.
The last indicator is the photon production capacity. By looking at the growth performance of plants with the same number of photons in different spectra, you can immediately judge the pros and cons.