Reportedly, Officials from U.S. Department of Agriculture including Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, have taken a visit to Purdue University greenhouses on Oct. 25 to get a preview of the work that will come from a $4.88 million grant for LED lighting research.

According to Cary Mitchell, a professor of horticulture and project director for the grant, Purdue researchers will team up with Rutgers University, the University of Arizona, Michigan State University and Orbital Technologies on the four-year project to improve and evaluate LED lighting for greenhouse use. The goal is to increase greenhouse yields and decrease producers' energy costs.

The USDA Specialty Crops Research Initiative Award will include $2.44 million from the USDA and an equal amount of in-kind contributions of equipment and services from industry partners. The project is titled "Developing LED Lighting Technology and Practices for Sustainable Specialty-Crop Production."

Merrigan pointed out that” The specialty crop industry plays an enormously important part in American agriculture and is valued at approximately $50 billion every year. These projects will be key to providing specialty crop producers with the information and tools they need to successfully grow, process, and market safe and high-quality products."

In the process of the project, Mitchell will test LED lighting on high-wire tomatoes. He believes that using LED lights on the sides of plants will increase photosynthesis and flowering, improving yield.

Roberto Lopez, an assistant professor of horticulture, will work with about 20 species of bedding plants to test LED lighting's ability to lower the cost of establishing new plants from cuttings and seeds.

John Burr, a lecturer from Purdue's Krannert School of Management, will evaluate the costs and benefits associated with LED lighting.

A.J Both at Rutgers will work for developing best practices and standards for testing commercial LED lighting.

Chieri Kubota comes from the University of Arizona will test the best wavelengths and colors for LED lighting to establish vegetable transplants, and Erik Runkle at Michigan State will test flower initiation of ornamental crops with different colors of LEDs, as well as performing project outreach.

The researchers are partnering with the LED lights builder,Robert Morrow and C. Michael Bourget of Orbital Technologies Corp. of Madison, Wisc.
 
It’s said that they will be engaged in evaluating LED lighting in commercial settings and developing improved LED lights that match the needs determined from those tests in later phases of the research.