NASA uses Osram's new LED grow lighting system - Phytofy RL

Not long ago, the German LED lighting giant Osram launched a new LED plant growth lighting system, named Phytofy RL. This lighting system is equipped with 6 individually controllable spectral channels to meet the research needs of researchers and institutions involved in plant growth. With the Phytofy RL system, users can change the color ratio and light intensity without changing the lamps to evaluate the growth of plants under different artificial light conditions.

LED grow lighting system

The six spectral channels of Phytofy RL are 385 nm, 450 nm, 521 nm, 660 nm, 730 nm, and 2,700 K warm white light. At the same time, the system is equipped with LED grow lights with extremely high luminous flux and uniform light distribution. Researchers can also use the system to precisely illuminate crops with specific wavelengths and intensity of light to selectively intervene in the metabolism of the crop, thereby controlling its yield, color, flavor, and other characteristics. After professional calibration, the system can also provide accurate illumination chart, eliminating the need to manually measure luminous flux. In addition, the system can also set different wavelength combinations in one illumination cycle.

Developed by OSRAM and plant biologists, this system software has an intuitive graphical interface that greatly facilitates user operations. The Phytofy RL system has been adopted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Michigan State University.

Which is better for LED grow lights and HPS lights?

New agricultural facilities such as greenhouses, plant factories, and vertical farms play an extremely important role in the development of modern agriculture. In order to avoid the adverse effects of weather and increase the yield, artificial lighting is used for plant supplement lighting. After years of development, LED grow lights have become the most important light source in agricultural lighting. Because of the lower price and high light efficiency, the high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps still have a certain market share. The following is a comparison of the two most common agricultural lights currently on the market.

1. The HPS light is composed of mercury, sodium, neon arc tube wick, glass bulb, and getter lamp head. HPS lights of different powers need to use ballasts of corresponding specifications. The LED is also called a light-emitting diode, and the core portion is a wafer composed of a P-type semiconductor and an N-type semiconductor.

2. The HPS lamp tube has an illumination angle of 360°, and most of the light must be reflected by the reflector to reach the designated area. The spectral energy distribution is roughly red-orange, yellow-green, and blue-violet (only a small part). The LED light source has wavelength tunability, and can emit monochromatic light with narrow light waves, such as infrared, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, etc., and can be arbitrarily combined according to different needs.

3. The life of the HPS light is about 20,000 hours, which generates a lot of heat during work. As a semiconductor light source, LED grow lights can last up to 50,000 hours and produce relatively little heat, which can be installed close to crops.

4. Studies have shown that the gas exchange, chlorophyll content, accumulation of photosynthetic pigments, and transpiration rate are higher under LED lighting. The special spectral ratio of LEDs can also be used for the different growth of plants.

The advantages of HPS lights and LED lights are significant compared to other light sources. The initial investment cost of LED is higher than that of HPS lamps, but the overall cost is lower. And with the development of LED technology, the production cost of LED grow lights will further decrease.

7-11 investing 6 billion yen to build LED lighting vertical farm

Japan 7-11 are planning to build a large vertical farm to provide vegetables for their stores in Tokyo and Kanagawa. The farm uses LED grow lights to provide lighting for the vegetables, reducing the impact of weather on prices. Through large-scale procurement is expected to stable the plant operations and encourage further development.

7-11

The 7-11 vertical farm invested about 6 billion JPY and is expected to be put into operation in January 2019. 7-11 are considering to build more plant factories in other partner factories in Japan.

At present, 7-11 mainly purchase vegetables from contracted farmers. Due to the traditional farms are more affected by weather, the prices of vegetable will rise sharply during the bad weather. Although the production cost of plant factories is higher than the regular purchase price in the early stage, the production of the vertical farm is not affected by the external environment. For the plant factory, the prices and quality of vegetable are more stable, the defect rate is lower, and on average, the production cost is expected to decrease.

MLDR CO., LTD. is a professional LED grow lights manufacturer in China, welcome to contact us if you have any questions about LED grow lights.

LED grow lights help Fujian plant factory producing

A LED lighting plant factory in Fujian, China, with an area of 10,000 square meters, is the largest plant factory in the world.

Although the vegetables can grow in the normal environment, all the vegetables in the plant factory must be grown in the clean space to avoid diseases and insect pests. Therefore, the staffs are requested to have a series of complicated and rigorous disinfection procedures before entering the production area.

In the huge workshop, rows of plant cultivation modules are neatly arranged, just like a large supermarket. The top of each layer of cultivation racks are covered with LED grow lights, and various lettuce and cabbage are planted on the cultivation racks. Although there is no soil, and no sunshine all year round, these vegetables are growing strong.

The plants need different light in different growth stages. Therefore, the plant factory can control the quality and yield of vegetables by adjusting the LED grow lights, which is impossible to sunlight. For example, in the seedling stage, the factory can make seedlings grow stronger and synthesis more soluble proteins through increase the blue light ratio of LED grow lights.

Beginning in 2016, the vegetables grown in the plant factory entered the market and received positive market feedback. The lettuce produced in the plant factory is placed in a cold air cabinet, a pack of 150 grams, priced at 9.9 yuan, and 150 grams of ordinary lettuce is less than 1 yuan. The price disparity is so large, but consumers still think that the vegetables produced by plant factories are healthier and more nutritious.

LED lighting helps to plant and harvest fruits in winter

The development of grow lights continues to change our understanding of agriculture. In recent years, with the maturity of LED plant lights technology, more and more plant factories use LED grow lights, and many institutions have conducted research on LED lighting planting crops.

Recently, a Dutch company called Delphy has conducted a study on the use of LED lighting to grow raspberries and blackberries, aiming to harvest fruits during the winter. They first tried using LED lights to grow raspberries and blackberries in November last year and harvested fresh blackberries in March this year. This experiment shows that under limited natural light conditions, the BlackBerry can be successfully cultivated by LED lighting. Based on this experience, in September, the researchers started a new project to grow long-term preserved and frozen blackberry plants and plan to harvest the fruits in December.

According to Delphy, the project is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture and Nature & Food Quality Department, which aims to study the influence of indoor LED lighting and light intensity to promoting crop maturity. At the same time, the research will also develop a future-oriented and energy-efficient new planting concept to grow crops in winter.

LED heat dissipation technology and materials

Heat dissipation is a principal factor affecting the illumination intensity of LED lights. In order to achieve a better effect, all of the LED lights manufacturers and related research institutes have been working to improve the heat dissipation technology and materials.

In general, the heatsink can be divided into the passive heatsink and the active heatsink. Passive heat dissipation means that the heat of the LED light source is naturally radiated into the air through the heatsink, and the heat dissipation effect is proportional to the size of the heatsink. However, it can only be used in LED lights of relatively low power. For example, the aluminum PCB of the rigid LED light strip is equivalent to a heatsink. The high power LED lights such as the LED grow light commonly adopts active heat dissipation, that is, the heat emitted by the heat sink is forcibly taken away by the heatsink such as the fan, which is characterized by high cooling efficiency and the small volume.

Heat Conductivity Coefficient

As can be seen from the above table, silver and copper are the best thermal materials, followed by gold and aluminum. However, gold and silver are too expensive, so the current heat sink is mainly made of aluminum and copper. In comparison, both copper and aluminum alloy have their own advantages and disadvantages. Copper has good thermal conductivity, but the price is relatively expensive, the processing is difficult, the weight is too large, and the copper heat sink has a small heat capacity and is easily oxidized. On the other hand, pure aluminum is too soft to be used directly. The aluminum alloy used can provide sufficient hardness. The advantage of aluminum alloy is that it is cheap and light, but the thermal conductivity is much worse than copper. Of course, there are some radiators for other materials, such as fiberglass, ceramics, etc., and because of their price and process, they also have a place in the market.

The LED industry has extremely strict requirements on the alignment accuracy of the heat-dissipating substrate itself, and it needs to have characteristics such as high heat dissipation, small size, and good adhesion of metal lines. To improve LED luminous efficiency and service life, solving the heat dissipation problem of LED products is one of the most important issues at this stage.

Germany successfully grows vegetables in the arctic with the help of LED grow lights

According to the German arctic research camp, researchers have successfully planted and harvested 183kg of fresh vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers, kohlrabi and so on. This successful trial not only marks that the humans have the ability to planting in the Arctic but also set an example for other researchers who try to grow plants in other harsh natural environments and outer space.

It is extremely difficult for supply ships to enter the Arctic during the winter because the sea will be covered with extremely thick ice. Therefore, It's almost impossible for staff in the Arctic to eat fresh vegetables at that time. In February of this year, The German team built a greenhouse that could withstand temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius and built vertical farms in it. The lack of sunlight in the greenhouse makes artificial lighting indispensable, for this reason, LED grow lights are used to create the light condition for the growth of vegetables. Although the tomatoes grown in this greenhouse aren't as big as those grown outside, its vitamin content exceeds that of refrigerated vegetables.

This may also be a good example for future agricultural development. Moreover, the LED grow lights that is famous for energy conservation and environmental protection also will occupy an important position in future agriculture.