Sweden-based horticulture lighting technology provider Heliospectra announced a new order from Turner Construction in Miami, Florida. The systems integrator and supplier will install the controllable spectra ELIXIA LED lights for several upcoming greenhouse facilities. Turner Construction is leading the design, construction, and installation services for the commercial-scale greenhouse projects across the United States in 2020. The Heliospectra ELIXIA 600W LED light will benefit the greenhouse projects by improving crop quality and performance in a wide v...

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has developed a free online tool, the horticulture luminaire calculator, to assist growers evaluating the performance, efficiency, and economics of a wide variety of horticultural luminaires, typically used in greenhouses and other controlled agricultural environments. The horticulture luminaire calculator enables growers to compare different luminaires and choose the optimize solutions for their applications. (Image: LRC) Horticulture lighting is become more significant with indoor farming and high-...

The Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) will invest US$100 million to four agri-tech companies to set up high-tech agricultural facilities in Abu Dhabi including the world’s largest vertical farm for R&D and other production farms to solve the challenge of local food production. The ADIO partners include AeroFarms, Madar Farms, RNZ and Responsive Drip Irrigation (RDI). AeroFarms from the U.S. will build a new 8200 square meter indoor vertical farm focusing on R&D and commercialization of relevant local crops by leveraging its expertise a...

High Power Optoelectronics (HPO) is the world's one and only professional manufacturer of full gamut (from 365 nm UV to 940 nm IR light), vertical-structure LED chips, holding the world's oldest LED-single crystal substrate wafer bonding patent. This wafer bonding process turns the original substrate into a silicon substrate after MOCVD epitaxial growth, giving LED chips exceptional thermal conductivity, and allowing them to provide even better luminous efficacy under high current and increased component reliability. (Dr. Chih-Sung Chang, Chairman of...

LettUs Grow is an indoor farming technology provider founded in 2015 in Bristol, UK. The company is speeding up the building of two vertical farm modules in the city of Bristol to help feed vulnerable communities during the Covid-19 outbreak. The company is also forming partnership with the food redistribution charity FareShare South West to ensure the produce gets to those who need it most. LettUs Grow expects the first of the new aeroponic farm modules to be ready to start producing fresh produce from mid-April, with the first harvests ready to be delivered in ten days...

A report of Thomson Reuters Foundation pointed out that cities lockdowns across the globe due to COVID-19 pandemic has made people to rethink the way they obtain food. Urban farming taking places in rooftops or other spare spaces in the city may be the solution for food supply. Horticulture LED lighting can thus become a critical supporting equipment for household or community farming applications. Panic buying has been reported in many countries during the coronavirus crisis. Kotchakorn Voraakom, the landscape architect who designed Asia's largest urban rooftop farm...

GE Current offered some advices for LED horticulture grow lights for how to choose the most suitable LED lightings for controlled environment. A few concepts were proposed by the company regarding the idea of full-spectrum. The first thing GE Current pointed out that it is critical to learn that “full spectrum” actually has no strict definition and is not specific to any industry, standard or code. The term, according to GE Current, is rather a marketing label to describe light sources that emulate natural daylight (“white” light). As such, full ...

A multi-departmental research team at Taiwan’s National Chi Nan University (NCNU) collaborated with local famers and developed a LED lighting system for water bamboo (Zizania latifolia) cultivation to improve the growth with a new design of LED lenses. The advanced technology tackled the existing issues and proved to benefit the harvest. The results were published Applied Sciences in February 2020, titled “Optimized LED-Integrated Agricultural Facilities for Adjusting the Growth of Water Bamboo (Zizania latifolia).” The optimized LED...

80 Acres Farms, an indoor farming operator, is growing tomatoes on one of the busiest streets in New York outside the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as part of the Guggenheim's new exhibition in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas, Countryside, The Future, which is taking place from February 20 until August 14, 2020. (Image: Guggenheim Musuem) People in New York will be able to look through a large window in the indoor farm to view a crop of fresh tomatoes being grown continuously during the next six months under precise LED lighting and other controlled conditio...

By using LED lighting system, a researcher successfully speeds up the production cycle of hops and tricks them to flower without dormancy. Bill Bauerle, professor in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Colorado State University (CSU), has spent years in the horticultural research center of the university to optimize hops cultivation. With the support of horticulture LED lighting system, Bauerie opens up new possibilities for indoor, sustainable, local production of hops (Image: Colorado State University) Hops are almost exclusively ...

Fluence by OSRAM is expanding its business in Europe and announced the partnership with growers and other horticulture specialists in Papenburg, the Emsland region of Germany. Given Papenburg’s decades-long history of attracting horticulture experts, Fluence’s innovative lighting solutions for horticulture are a natural fit for the region’s tomato, cucumber, leafy greens and herb growers. Elektro Evers, an engineering firm specializing in greenhouse technology, is Fluence’s exclusive systems integrator in the Papenburg region. Elektro Evers as...

Osram announced the new generation of its Oslon Square Hyper Red, the LED that support innovative horticulture lighting applications by providing the exact light composition according to the needs of plants for ideal growth or to develop certain characteristics. Plants predominantly need red (640 to 700 nm) and blue light (400 to 490 nm) for their growth. For example, red light promotes the production of biomass in plants. (Image: Osram) The new generation of the Oslon Square Hyper Red with a wavelength of 660 nm. According to Osram, apart from its efficiency valu...

Heliospectra announces a new order from Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, United Kingdom. Heliospectra will replace antiquated metal halide lighting with new MITRA modular LED grow lights and controllable spectra DYNA LED solutions. One of the world’s oldest agricultural research institutions, Rothamsted Research works with a wide array of food and cereal crops in both glasshouses and walk-in plant growth chambers. The new Heliospectra LED solutions offer ease of installation for the large scale retrofit of existing chambers and significant reduction in...

Vertical farming breaks the limitation of growing crops and creates possibilities for food production everywhere. Supporting by LED tunable lighting and hydroponics system, vertical farms leverage their strengths to shrink the distance between growers and consumers, attracting strategic partners to launch innovative services. Singapore Airline, for example, collaborated AeroFarms, a U.S.-based vertical farm startup, for realize the Airline’s “From Farm to Plane” concept. AeroFarms has begun to supply fresh produce for Singapore Airline’s flight s...

James E. Wagner Cultivation (JWC) announced that it has entered into a mutually collaborative product trial and evaluation agreement with Fluence Bioengineering, a Osram subsidiary, to test and provide feedback regarding the performance, functionality and suitability of Fluence’s VYPR 2p Broad Spectrum LED lighting solution. Analysis will be conducted under the Agreement for a term of eight months to assess whether JWC can further improve its high level of energy efficiency by using lighting equipment provided by Fluence to help optimize cultivation perform...

LED lighting combining hydroponics system enables people to cultivate food anytime anywhere. In France, a startup company has turned an underground garage in Paris into a vertical farm to grow mushroom and greens, providing fresh food for local people. The government built several parking spaces under the city of Paris during 1960’s to 1970’s and these spaces become abandoned as the driving population declined. La Caverne, a French startup, thus decided to grow vegetables via urban agriculture project in a garage under the city. (Image: La Caverne) Fou...

Sweden-based horticulture lighting solution provider Heliospectra announced new orders for its new LED lighting solutions from Bridge Farm Group in the UK and Nectar Farms in Australia. The two farms will install Heliospectra’s new MITRA LED lighting solutions in greenhouses for commercial food production. Bridge Farm Group is the largest commercial producers and suppliers of plants in the UK. The company has been producing greenhouse grown flowers, potted outdoor plants, microgreens, herbs and ornamentals for more than 30 years. Bridge Farm Group was...

With increasing urban population across the world that drives food demands in cities, innovative growing techniques are critical for sustaining food supply. Vertical farming that cultivate crops with LED lighting and controlled environment has served as a solution to provide fresh food for areas with high population density with less water and space consumed. Agritech companies in the U.S. are expanding their vertical farming business across the country. Plenty, a vertical farming company based in California, USA, announced that it will build a new farm in Los Angeles later...

Horticulture lighting technology supplier Heliospectra announced that it will supply spectra controllable LED lighting solutions and light control system for Canadian cannabis grower. The horticulture LED lighting and control solutions are designed to ensure high-quality production and healthy plants from propagation to harvest. Eco Canadian Organic (E.C.O.) is a family-owned commercial cannabis late-stage license applicant with Health Canada ACMPR and is located in New Brunswick, Canada. The company will apply the new cultivation facility to focus on medicinal ...

In order to find out optimized agronomic conditions for different crops to meet demands from the growing indoor farming business, researchers from the UK are developing advanced growth chamber to conduct food production experiments. Experts from agri-tech company Grobotic Systems, Fraunhofor UK, Stockbridge Technology Center and the University of Sheffield are working together in the Advanced Growth Chamber for the Rapid Optimization of Vertical Farming Systems project. The project aims to provide affordable tools to assess optimum growth conditions for different pl...

Horticulture lighting provider Fohse reported that it has been selected by Las Vegas-based cannabis cultivator Green Life Productions to be its official grow lighting partner. GLP is a licensed cannabis cultivation facility that has a primary focus on organic production of cannabis through no-till living soil systems, using the ethics and principles of permaculture. From the outset, GLP has always used LED grow lighting as opposed to legacy types of lighting like high pressure sodium (HPS). Aside from being more energy-efficient, LED lighting allows for better prod...

As population in urban areas across the world continues to grow, it is estimated that by 2050, 68 percent of the world population will live in cities. This demographic shift will lead to increased demand for food within cities, adding strain to the agricultural and food systems, particularly in developing countries. Urban agriculture, or urban farming, has long been viewed as an innovative component in diversifying the food system. A 2018 study of urban agriculture’s global potential found that fully implemented urban farms around the world could produce as much as 180 million m...

LEDs support sustainable horticulture development with tunable lighting technologies and other smart applications. Worldwide food suppliers as well as lighting technologies suppliers continue to create innovative growing techniques for improving crops production and quality. Israel based grow light supplier Fotonica has developed and patented its bio-illuminationTM lighting system that optimizes the growth of cannabis, green leaves, vegetables, and ornamentals while providing real-time data and analytics that ensures maximum crop control and profitability. Fotonica’s TM L...

Based in the U.S., Black Dog LED was founded in early 2010. The company focuses on indoor gardening, has various serious of LED grow lights, and is continuing its research in latest plant grow lighting technology. LEDinside recently had the honor to interview Black Dog LED’s CEO Noah Miller, to get a deeper insight of the product development and market potential of horticultural LED lighting. LED light has obvious advantages in gardening compared to HID Talking about the advantages of LED grow light, Miller gave us an example of LED VS. H...

Crop One, the US-based vertical farm company, announced that it has teamed up with Sino-Science North America Photobiotech (SNAP), a vertical farm technology providers, to jointly develop future vertical farm projects. SNAP is the owner of SANANBIO, which is affiliated and supported by LED wafers and chips manufacturer Sanan Optoelectronics. According to Crop One, it will provide its plant science and controls technology in future projects while SNAP will supply LED lighting and its modular growing systems as well as fully automated vertical farm sy...

Signify announced its partnership with AppHarvest, a controlled-environment growing facilities builder to help the company increase efficiency and boost yields using fewer resources in their 25 hectare greenhouse in Kentucky, USA. With the partnership, the greenhouse will be fitted with a hybrid LED lighting system, utilizing Signify’s Philips GreenPower LED toplighting compact and Agrolux high pressure sodium lighting. AppHarvest will grow tomatoes and cucumbers in its facility, which will be completed in the second half of 2020. The facility uses a unique ...

Fluence by OSRAM announced that it will become the LED provider of choice for The Green Organic Dutchman (TGOD), an organic cannabis company based in Ontario, Canada. TGOD will use Fluence LED lighting solutions for year-round cannabis cultivation, pushing its production capabilities to meet rapidly increasing global demand for organic cannabis. Fluence will supply its high-bay VYPR lighting solutions in two additional hybrid greenhouses of TGOD which measures over 1.4 million square feet. These new facilities will open in phases starting August 2019 ...

AGreen Farms, an indoor hydroponic farm based in Philadelphia, USA, is investing in LED horticulture lighting from Current by GE to produce greens, herbs and edible flowers. Adam Green, founder of AGreen Farms, has worked as a sales intern at Farm.One, a vertical farm based in New York, and gained experiences of the technology-powered urban vertical farm. He launched AGreen Farms in 2018 in a mixed-use building in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood. The 5,000-square-foot operation includes 3,500 square feet of grow space dedicated to microgreens a...

Pharmagreen Biotech, a Canadian biotech science company specialized in cannabis, announced that it will use Signify's Philips GreenPower LED Lighting for cannabis cultivation in its Cannabis Biotech Complex. The complex is a large-scale tissue culture production, research and storage facility of plantlets witch ensures the quality of Cannabis as medicine. The strategic supply partnership with Signify's Philips LED lighting technology adds the high-tech value and opens the door for future cooperation in advancing solutions for the tissue culture industry. ...

Heliospectra, the Sweden-based intelligent horticulture lighting technology provider, announces the formation of Heliospectra Japan and the opening of a new Tokyo, Japan office in July 2019. The Japan Office will be operated under the leadership of General Manager Yasuhiro Suzuki, providing Heliospectra’s integrated LED and lighting control solution to Japan’s plant factories and vertical farms. As Japan’s plant factories and controlled environment farms create new demand for light control and horticultural LED lighting integrations as well a...