Many leading LED companies across the world including Cree, Nichia and Osram see horticulture LED lighting a growing market with expanding applications. Apart from the well-known application of vertical farming supplementary lighting for greenhouses is also a major growing segment for horticulture LED lighting. A recent study published agriculture journal Agronomy demonstrated that LED lighting can improve yield and precocity of greenhouse tomatoes in the Mediterranean, where sunlight is considered sufficient comparing to other region.

Researchers of the University of Bologna studied the effects of supplemental LED interlighting on vegetative development, inspecting fruit growth, yield, and fruit quality of high-wire tomato plants during spring and summer season in a hydroponic greenhouse in Italy.

(Image: Paucek et al. 2020)

The study compared plants grown under natural sunlight with additional LED lighting and those without. The results showed that supplemental LED lighting enhanced yield by increasing fruit weight and dimension and accelerated fruit ripening by one week in spring and two weeks in summer, leading to improved productivity.

Results of the study proved that LED lighting not only enables crop cultivation in areas without enough sunlight, in regions where natural solar radiation is strong, supplemental LED lighting still helps to advance yield and production.