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Horticultural lighting has been used as a complement to, or replacement for, sunlight as a stimulant for plant development for many years. While several light sources have been employed, most supplementary and replacement illumination for plant development in professional, large-scale operations is provided by high intensity discharge (HID) lamps.
Because of the popularity of HID lighting, there are specialized chemistries of high pressure sodium and metal halide lamps made specifically for grow lighting. Since the commercialization of LEDs in lighting, attempts have been made to create LED plant growth lighting that uses the direct colors and relative adjustability of LED spectrums to try and optimize the light to the plant’s absorption.
Since the invention of electric lights, artificial illumination has been utilized to augment plant growth. Early research centered on carbon-arc lights, but incandescent bulbs eventually took control. While these products were successful, they were inefficient and substantially weighted in the red and far red spectrums, causing stem development to be extended.
When discharge lamps first became commercially available, they were employed to varying degrees of success, and the industry eventually decided on high pressure sodium and metal halide lamps for supplementary lighting.
Fluorescent lights, which employ phosphors to tune the spectrum more towards plant development, have also been used in some instances for a wider spectrum of light.
The issue with current technology is that it is largely stagnant. The spectrum cannot be adjusted when plant development requirements vary without manually changing out a bulb, which requires additional labor. High pressure sodium lamps are inexpensive, efficient, and long-lasting, however they only give a restricted spectrum for growth, primarily in the orange and red regions.
Metal halide lamps, which may emit strong blues (a spectrum that promotes leaf development), suffer from quick luminosity depreciation owing to arc tube darkening and have extremely high pressures, necessitating the installation of a lensed fixture. There have been attempts to integrate the two into a single bulb, however these lamps end up with a lumen maintenance imbalance.
Water is the most evident and possibly harmful environmental condition to which horticulture lighting is subjected. This is an issue with any sort of illumination because power and water must be considered, but it is usually amplified in a horticulture context.
Efficient lighting systems, such as HID or LED, include a ballast or driver that converts the incoming AC line voltage into something usable for the light source, as well as a way to guide the created light.
For HID, this might be a magnetic or electronic ballast that starts the lights and maintains correct electrical conditions, as well as reflectors that distribute the strong light across an area. For LEDs, this driver might be simple or sophisticated, with or without a reflector.
Deterioration in either the electrical or optical controls, regardless of source type, will lower light output (to zero if the light becomes inoperable) and hence effectively diminish yield and/or product quality.
Different levels of protection may be required depending on the fixture’s position and the watering system used in the facility. For drip irrigation or hydroponics, for example, the issue may be preventing internal components from being damaged by excessive humidity rather than protecting against direct spray.
For some applications, rain-like spray or even more powerful sprays from the irrigation system or stray sprays from human watering may be a hazard with the fixture.
The Europe Horticulture LED Lighting Market accounted for $XX Billion in 2023 and is anticipated to reach $XX Billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of XX% from 2024 to 2030.
Fluence from Osram LED horticulture lighting has been introduced throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), backed by an experienced team of technical consultants to assist producers in producing the greatest crops possible to suit regional market demands.
Osram acquired Fluence Bioengineering Inc. last year, a leading producer of energy-efficient LED lighting for commercial crop production and research purposes. LEDs of the current generation are energy efficient and ready to replace traditional illumination, producing crops of equal or higher quality.
The Fluence by Osram brand combines Osram’s dependability and worldwide reach with Fluence’s agile and creative product selection to solve the special demands of European producers and researchers in critical issues.
Fluence’s standard full-spectrum LED lighting systems give special benefits for growers in greenhouse and multi-layer production, allowing them to achieve better yields and higher quality than traditional horticulture lighting.
The new innovative MITRA LED lighting system from Heliospectra features a unique modular architecture that allows for a broad range of customisable options, including greenhouse, indoor, and vertical installations. The new fixture, designed exclusively for high-light crops, has a high-intensity light output and an electrical efficacy. In June, Heliospectra will introduce the first two MITRA configurations at GreenTech. This includes the following:
The square format is meant to give uniform light dispersion across a normal growth bed or bench and is optimized for vertical installations. MITRA focuses exclusively on the indoor vertical food and cannabis businesses.
