The indoor led grow light is an electric lamp that helps plants grow. Indoor led grow light either attempt to provide spectra similar to the sun or provide more suitable spectra for plant needs.
Outdoor conditions are simulated through the different colors, temperatures and spectral outputs of the grow lights and the intensity of the lights.
What Is Plant Factory?
Plant factory, known as a new agricultural production mode in many countries in the world, can be widely used in the cultivation of flowers, vegetables, medicinal materials and edible fungi. It is a modern agricultural sustainable production system created by high technology.
Plant factory, in a broad sense, refers to a plant cultivation system that completely or partially controls the environmental conditions required for plant growth, so that it is completely or partially unaffected by the natural environment. Its main feature is that the planting space is closed and artificial light completely replaces sunlight.
In this kind of production system, the controllable agricultural environment can realize annual production. The output of agricultural products is dozens or even hundreds of times of that of traditional agriculture. The vertical shelf stacking system makes full use of the scarce land resource space and realizes the productive production of plant factory with specific area.
Using physical agricultural technology instead of chemical agricultural technology for insecticidal and bactericidal, the production of agricultural products without pesticide residues, health and pollution, truly achieve green or even organic product quality.
The technology of resource recovery and utilization not only improves the utilization rate of various resources, but also realizes zero emission and zero pollution.
The production factors (carbon dioxide, oxygen, temperature, humidity, fertilizer nutrients, light, etc.) have been comprehensively and accurately controlled. Continuous cultivation throughout the year, the production cycle is fast.
According to the plan, the whole process is carried out in the factory production line, so that the products are more refined, homogenized and produced.
According to statistics, the global population will exceed 9 billion by 2050. The global problems in the 21st century are food, resources, environment and quality of life.
The deterioration of natural environment includes soil hardening, soil salinization, heavy metal pollution, serious haze and desertification caused by human factors.
Plant factory can solve the problem of vegetable supply in extreme environment.
For example, soldiers working in desert conditions and workers working on offshore platforms need to regularly distribute vegetables and other food.
And only have vegetables that are storable, with less fresh leafy vegetables. In addition, the world’s major powers are scrambling to study all kinds of technological means to explore space. Plant factory is an important research topic.
The development direction of the combination of plant factory and lighting industry
The light sources developed and used in plant factories mainly include high pressure sodium lamp, fluorescent lamp, metal halide lamp, incandescent lamp, etc. the prominent disadvantages of these light sources are high energy consumption, high operating cost, high energy consumption cost, accounting for 50% of the total operating cost- 60%.
The indoor led grow light developed in recent years not only emits monochromatic light with narrow light wave, but also can be arbitrarily combined according to the needs of plants.
Moreover, indoor led grow light is a kind of cold light source with low heating characteristics, which can improve the space utilization rate in short distance.
It provides a reasonable light environment for plant growth and is very suitable for multi-layer cultivation of plants.
Analysis on the demand and application characteristics of indoor led grow light equipment in plant factory:
The basic requirements of indoor led grow light application in plant factory are mainly reflected in three aspects: spectral performance, which not only ensures the photosynthetic quality of plant photosynthesis, but also reduces the invalid spectrum and energy consumption as much as possible; The luminous efficiency (PAR) was higher than that of electricity consumption; Service life: long service life, low light loss and relatively low price.
There are three main factors that affect the growth of crops in plant factory
- Light intensity. It not only affects photosynthesis intensity, but also changes crop morphology, such as flowering period, internode length, stem diameter, leaf size, etc;
- Spectral distribution plays an important role in plant photosynthesis and morphogenesis. Plants on earth have been adapting to solar radiation in the long-term evolution process, and different species have different light selective absorption characteristics.
- Photoperiod characteristics are closely related to the light hours. Different crops need a certain number of light hours to complete the photoperiod, otherwise, the flowering and Fruiting of crops can be inhibited by changing the light time.
The influence of indoor led grow light on the construction and use cost of plant factory. At present, the cost of LED light source in factory construction accounts for 20% – 50% of the construction cost, and the compression space is large; Installation efficiency, maintenance and replacement frequency, power saving rate and attenuation speed will affect the actual use cost.
Future development of plant combined with indoor led grow light technology:
The cost performance of LED has been improved significantly in recent years. Therefore, led based artificial light plant factory industry has also developed rapidly in recent years. We can be sure and predict that led is based on LED with more and more high cost performance. Artificial light plant factory will have a broader development space. The rapid rise of plant factory also promotes the development of plant lighting industry towards the favorable direction of R & D, standardization and close cooperation between industries.
In order to promote the efficient and healthy development of indoor led grow light plant factory, the following problems need to be solved:
1. Deeply study the effect of artificial light source on plant growth in plant factory.
The complexity of plant photobiology makes the mechanism of photobiology unclear, especially in the field of molecular biology.
First of all, there are many kinds of plants, and the demand of photobiology is very complex. Secondly, the wavelength of plant effect light is complex, involving many typical bands. Individual effect and compound effect need long-term study.
Finally, the most complex is plant development. The yield and quality indexes are various, the light control is difficult, and the single index and composite index are complex. This requires close collaboration between the two industries to drive solutions.
2.The formulation and implementation of relevant standards for lighting lamps in plant plants.
Compared with the lighting lamps such as family and shopping malls, led agricultural lamps, especiallygrow lamps, still have problems such as disordered products, nonstandard production design, lack of uniform product standards and quality management.
In addition to the lack of scientific and unified specifications in the light quality control and light intensity, the design specifications for the protection of electricity, water and corrosion in the high humidity environment of plant plants are also lacking. Some lamps have short service life and have potential safety problems.
3. Improve technology R & D investment and intellectual property protection system.
At present, there are many small and medium-sized enterprises producing low-end products of indoor led grow light, which lack independent intellectual property rights and systematic research, resulting in uneven led plant lighting products, low industrialization and standardization, and lack of market. competitive power.
High end facility agriculture is the development trend of modern agricultural planting, and plant factory is a typical representative of this new concept and technology system. Through the high-precision environmental control in the facility, the high-efficiency agricultural system of continuous cropping crop production can be realized.
It is the use of computers to automatically control the environmental conditions of plant growth. It is a subversion of traditional agriculture, so that plants are not affected by natural conditions or grow freely. Limited labor-saving production mode is the advanced stage of agricultural development.
The development of plant factory in various countries
Indoor led grow light is another important application area of LED lighting. Since 2013, the output value of indoor led grow light has begun to show a high growth trend. At present, Japan, the Netherlands, the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Israel are at the forefront of plant factory development. South Korea, Singapore and China are also developing rapidly.
Japan
Japan has more plant factories than any other country. The largest plant factory is located in Okinawa, near Taiwan, China. The rapid commercialization and financial subsidy of plant factories by the Japanese government began in 2010, which helped to promote interest in their development.
Secondly, Japan is very worried about the excessive pesticide residues in imported agricultural products. Therefore, their desire for local vegetable cultivation is very urgent. It also helped them develop better technologies to achieve high yields of local crops. Therefore, the development of plant factories has also promoted the development of indoor led grow light technology.
U.S.A
More than 40000 farms in the United States grow crops indoors. That’s more than a billion square feet of acreage. In fact, when you see a “greenhouse” sticker on a tomato you buy in a supermarket in the United States in the winter, it means it’s grown in a greenhouse. These 40000 growers generate a market value of $14.8b per year. Now it’s just a traditional crop. Marijuana producers sold $6.7b last year, with most of the production taking place indoors.
Netherlands
The total area of Holland is only 41.6 square kilometers, but the area of greenhouse farm is the largest in the world. As a result, the fruits, vegetables and flowers produced in this country are supplied not only to its own people, but also to millions of foreigners.
The plant factory is one of the powerful industries in the Netherlands. They are highly mechanized, automatic, intelligent and unmanned. They have a complete set of technology and equipment to support the industrialized cultivation of vegetables. Because of the high latitude, short day and long night in Holland, almost all plant factories need artificial light to supplement lighting. Energy intensive traditional plant growth lights have limited their large-scale use.
Until the last ten years, with the development of LED technology, low energy consumption indoor led grow light gradually replaced high-energy consumption of traditional HPS plant growth lights.
Therefore, the energy cost of plant factories is becoming lower and lower, and the use of indoor led grow light is becoming more and more common.
The main equipment of the plant factory includes:
1) Well insulated, airtight warehouse structure, no windows.
2) Layer / shelf with light source and culture bed. 3) Carbon dioxide supply device.
4) Nutrition supply unit.
5) Air conditioning.
6) Environmental control unit.
7) Other equipment includes nutrient solution sterilization unit, air circulation unit and seeder.
The most common crops grown in the plant factories
- Primarily green leaf lettuce
- (2) romaine lettuce
- (3)frill lettuce
- (4) spinach
- (5) basil
- (6)arugula.
How to Make Plant Factories Profitable With Indoor Led Grow Light?
Before deciding whether to install indoor led grow light, the question is whether indoor led grow light really cost extra money in the hearts of growers trying to grow vegetables in factories. The answer is yes. They are worth it. Even led plant lights help to maximize their return on planting investment.
1) No matter what season, no matter what latitude, no matter how changeable the weather is, the crops in the plant factory are well lit. Sufficient light is combined with the controlled planting environment in the plant factory. Annual production is not a problem at all. Growers can get the maximum profit with the maximum yield.
2) The photosynthetic potential of plants is stretched to the limit, the growth rate is the fastest, and the growth cycle is shorter than that of plants growing in the natural environment. For growers, the time to market of their products has been advanced, which brings them a price advantage.
3) Whether or not to use LED grow lights depends on whether there is economic benefit. As a lighting source, the life of LED has been proved by time. LED plant growth lamp is a durable and long life product. A small portion of its profit has exceeded the initial investment and energy cost of the lighting.
4) The indoor led grow light has a good effect in planting plants. After all, it is the final sales output that determines the profitability and space of your investment. Good quality drives sales and thus profits. And less pests, good appearance, no pesticide residues, more in line with people’s desire for food safety. The production is safer and the loss is less.
Conclusion
In the next three to five years, more industrial resources and more capital will enter. With the introduction of government support policies, the development of plant factories will enter a period of vigorous development.
As well as the continuous professional development and strategic cooperation of other related upstream industries, the plant factory will flourish is conducive to the general trend of consumption upgrading. And can solve the problem of partial shortage of energy and cultivated land.