LED lighting, the new growth point of plant factory

In Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, a large plant factory, which has been operating since 2014, covers an area of ​​about 5,000 square meters and produces four salad vegetables.

Katashi Kai, general manager of the factory's operations department, said that the biggest advantage of using LED grow lights is that they can guarantee stable production and supply throughout the year, independent of climate and environment. The cultivation management and hygiene control methods completely eliminate dust, insect pests, and foreign matter pollution, and can produce high quality and safe vegetables without using pesticides.

In the early days of its establishment, the factory used traditional fluorescent lamps as the light sources. But the fluorescent lamps have various problems. For example, the heat generated by fluorescent lamps can burn plant leaves, and the fluorescent light has a short decay period, and the fluorescent lamps have a risk of causing pollution of foreign matter. Kai said: "LED lights do not have such problems or risks. Therefore, we decided to replace the fluorescent lamps with LED plant grow lights, in the medium and long-term operation, the use of LED lighting can greatly reduce operating costs."

The LED lights were fully utilized in the factory in 2017. Compared to the previous, the electricity cost of the factory was reduced by about 40%, and the growth rate of vegetables was increased by 20% to 30%. Higher growth rates mean higher yields in the facility, lower production costs, and no change in the taste and nutrient content of the vegetables.

Plessy's new LED strip grow light

In order to improve the lighting conditions for the plants of cucumber and tomato in the greenhouse, Plessy launched a new model of LED strip grow light, designed for installation in vegetation. In the greenhouse, due to the occlusion of leaves on the top, the lower plants will lack lighting. The strip LED light can provide enough lighting for the part of plants that the sunlight hard to reach. Not only for the greenhouse, but also for the closed plant factory that using hanging LED grow lights, this LED strip will be a good auxiliary lighting source.

led strip grow lights for greenhouse

The tube design makes the LED strip has a larger emitting angle and higher lighting penetration, which, additionally, increase the performance of the lighting. Moreover, there are also have a heating channel inside the LED light tube, providing proper heat to promote plant growth. As the additional lighting, the grow light LED strip can help the greenhouse maximize the output and economic benefit.

China's successful LED plant factory

In recent years, with the continuous improvement of the people's pursuit of high-quality life, and the upstream industries such as LED plant growth lights and the agricultural intelligent systems have developed rapidly, the cost of various facilities and equipment has gradually declined. The development of artificial lighting plant factories has entered a golden period.

Red & blue LED grow light in the plant factory

Plant Factory refers to plant cultivation systems that fully or partially control the environmental conditions to make the plant growth unaffected by the natural environment. Its main features are that the planting space is closed, the artificial light completely replaces the sunlight, the production cycle is short, etc. In addition, many countries are scrambling to study space farming technologies. In November 2016, Chinese astronauts brought a miniature LED plant factory into space and conducted a number of experiments in the Tiangong-2 Space Lab.

Xicui Plant Factory is one of the first large-scale commercial vertical plant factories in China. Its industrial crop production process and innovative agricultural production methods are examples of high-tech agriculture in the future. As the industry's leading indoor full artificial light vertical farm, the Xicui Plant Factory uses the computer to accurately control key environmental factors in plant growth, so that plant growth is not affected by climate and geographical conditions. The full-circle-controlled growth conditions make it unnecessary to apply any pesticides for the cultivation of vegetables in the Xicui plant; 12 layers of dense planting, extremely high land utilization; high-efficiency water saving, only 1/10 of the water used in traditional agriculture.

At present, the Xicui Plant Factory covers an area of 3,000-square-meter in Guanhu, Dapeng New District. The daily production capacity is around 10,000 dishes, and the products are positioned as high-end customers. According to the latest research of McKinsey Global Institute, the number of middle-income and above people in China reached 290 million in 2011. The annual per capita consumption of high-quality vegetables in this group reached 115 kg. The demand for high-quality vegetables will reach 33.35 million tons, and the output value will exceed 1006. 200 million yuan. The high-end vegetable market has huge space.

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.

A plant factory combines natural light and LED grow lights have been built in Beijing

The largest sunlight and LED grow lights combination plant factory has been built in Beijing by Jingdong, which has a total area of more than 10,000 square meters. With the help of the combined lighting system, cultivate system and temperature control system, the factory will be in the most suitable environment all years round.

Due to the adoption of the latest technologies, the yield is 3 to 4 times than other traditional greenhouses, and more than 90% of the water is saved. Moreover, the factory maximizes the use of natural light rather than relying on LED grow lighting, which further reduces energy consumption.

It is reported that the vegetable will be sold simultaneously on the Jingdong's online and offline markets.

The world's first underground fully automatic LED lighting plant factory

The use of artificial lighting and nutrient solutions to grow leafy vegetables is no longer a new thing, and many Japanese companies use the waste factory to plant vegetables. A plant factory in Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo, differs in that the boxes from which the seedlings are grown are transported to the plant factories in the underground space, and the vegetables that are finally grown are sent to the ground by conveyor belts to achieve full automation. Planting vegetables.

This is the world's first underground fully automated plant factory, located in an idle underground municipal complex. The top of the underground tunnel of about 3.1 kilometers is about 5 meters from the ground, the interior is 6 meters to 8 meters wide, and the height is about 4 meters. It was first built in 1995. It was originally planned to be used in the local municipal integrated pipe network and was left unused. Ito Electric Co., Ltd., which develops automation equipment, cooperates with the Chiba Prefecture Corporate Land Administration to utilize this idle underground tunnel. In December 2017, this unique plant factory was built.

According to Okada Akira, head of the Plant Factory Development Headquarters of Ito Electric Co., Ltd., starting from December 2017, the plant factory began to test and cultivate 200 vegetables per day, including leafy vegetables such as lettuce and edible flowers. According to the plan, by 2020, the factory can enter the mass production period and produce 2,500 per day. By 2022, the daily output will be further expanded to 5,000. By then, the underground plant area will reach approximately 3,200 square meters, and the above-ground working area will reach approximately 600 square meters.

It is reported that part of the tunnel has been opened up as a fully enclosed plant growing area with an area of about 120 square meters. Through the plastic wall curtain, some vegetables such as lettuce can be seen layered inside.

According to Okada Akira, the plant has been fully automated. After cultivating the seedlings on the ground, the modular vegetable box is sent underground through the conveyor belt. The LED light and nutrient solution transport in the underground plant can be completed automatically. The underground plant factory can be transported to the ground for sale after 24 days of cultivation.

The staff also brought freshly harvested lettuce to the reporter for tasting. Due to the complete cultivation in a non-polluting environment, these lettuces can be eaten directly without washing, and the taste is also very good.

Okada Akira said that the price of vegetables produced at this plant is now the same as that of ordinary lettuce, and there is room for further cost reduction in the future. When the daily output reaches 5,000, the ground only needs about 10 staff for seedling, harvesting and equipment maintenance. In the future, they plan to develop more automation equipment, with the goal of reducing costs by 20% to 30%.

According to Toshihiko, the deputy director of the Chiba County Enterprise Land Administration, plant factories usually need to consume a lot of electricity for temperature control and lighting, but this plant is set up in an underground tunnel, constant temperature and humidity throughout the year, which can save a lot of air-conditioning electricity costs. . In addition, due to the close proximity to the consumer market, the vegetables produced do not need to be transported over long distances, saving a lot of logistics costs.

Abandoned mine + LED grow lights + other systems = vertical farms

The reduction of waste coal has become a global environmental consensus, so more and more coal mines will be closed in the future. Scholars at the University of Nottingham are beginning to think about the future use of waste mines. They propose vertical farms. The concept is that a mine is a ready-made greenhouse that can be turned into a fully functional farm with the addition of LED lighting and irrigation systems.

According to reports, scholars believe that deep farms have some obvious advantages: they are not affected by the weather, and the temperature of the ground floor does not change much, and expensive temperature control equipment is not needed. Safa of the University of Nottingham said: Tunnels and shafts do not need heating equipment, and even if they do, they consume less electricity, so they are very attractive for food production. We designed a central shaft for mounting robots. With these robotic arms to take care of the crops and harvest, the entire system costs only about $38,000 to build, and then the operating costs are lower. The LED plant grow lighting system does not consume much electricity.

Vertical farms are suitable for vegetables and fruits with short growth cycles, such as spinach, kale, basil, mint, strawberries, mushrooms, carrots, eggplants, etc. Their trials show that a small well-type small farm can produce 80 tons of crops per year. Moreover, production is not affected by the seasons and can reach 10 crop cycles per year, while British outdoor farms only have 4 to 6 times.

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.

Plant factory into investment hot

Based on information technology, intelligent agriculture has solved the problem of less labor and realized the transformation and upgrading of the agricultural industry. The plant factory uses the computer to automatically control the environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, light, carbon dioxide concentration and nutrient solution of the plant and realizes mass production of plants in a short period of time in a small space.

LED grow lights in the plant factory

A plant factory greenhouse that requires 10 people to manage, can harvest 1 million vegetables and sell one million USD a year. The plant factory first appeared in northern Europe, and there are currently more than 400 artificial plant factories in the world, half of which are in Japan. Located in Japan, a plant factory the plant is a closed-plan environment in a two-story building surrounded by vegetable greenhouses. The staff monitors the growth of vegetables through the computer management system. Vegetables take about 20 days from planting to seedling. The staff can monitor the temperature, humidity, and light of the greenhouse through displayers to realize remote operation.

In recent years, plant factories have become a popular target for global agricultural investment. One of the reasons for the increase in investment is the large-scale use of LED grow lights in plant factories. In the past, the electricity costs accounted for about 25% of the total costs of plant factories. In other words, the application of LED grow lights reduced the costs of investment and production. It is understood that, at present, agriculture LED lighting plant factories mainly produce various vegetables. Meanwhile, researchers are concerned about higher value-added medicines.