Environmentally-friendly salad, with vegetables grown using nothing but LED lights, will soon be part of our everyday meals. According to a co-research by Professor Lee Jong-suk’s team at the Department of Horticulture Landscaping at Seoul Women’s University and leading LED lights company Fawoo Technology, Co., fresh salad vegetables have been successfully cultivated using just LED lights.

* Truly environmentally friendly, organic, and pesticide-free vegetables - that do not need to be washed before being eaten - successfully grown under the cooperative research of Seoul Women’s University and Fawoo Technology
* Softer leaf tissue compared to field-grown vegetables – suitable for salads
* Plans to package the LED lights plant factory system to places like North Europe and the Middle East where vegetable agriculture is difficult

The research involved cultivating salad vegetables such as chicory, beets, mustard, canola and cabbage, and various leafy plants with edible leaves and roots such as rocky mountain Chinese mustard, red mustard, icicle radish, Korean cabbage, and lettuce over growth periods ranging from two weeks to two months.

“These plants can be grown using just LED lights, and without pesticides or fertilizers,” says Professor Lee. “They also have softer leaf tissue compared to vegetables grown in the field, which makes them a popular choice even for people who do not like vegetables. The cultivated vegetables, when kept in a vinyl bag under refrigerated conditions, stay fresh for more than three weeks.”

Based on tests combining a variety of LED light colors and wave lengths, the most effective blue light to red light ratio for plant growth was found to be 3:1. This makes it possible for vegetables to be grown in places that lack sunlight such as high-rise building, basements, deserts, and even polar regions like the North and South Poles. LED lights also use less electricity than current fluorescent light vegetable cultivation methods, making them an economically superior way of growing vegetables. As LED technology improves, even less energy will be needed to cultivate plants and their economic value is predicted to increase further.

Fawoo Technology, Co., who co-founded the research, is currently using the study results to develop an ‘LED lights plant factory system’ which cultivates vegetables with nothing but LED lights.

Mr. Yoo Young-ho, CEO of Fawoo Technology, Co., said that “The success of this research has spurred the commercial aspect of LED light-only plant factories.” He also added that they “plan to package and export the ‘LED light plant factory system’ to places like North Europe, the Middle East and Russia, where the environment is not suitable for growing vegetables and salad consumption is expected to be high due to high prices.”