LED lighting and vertical farming
“ L ENTWINED
ED LIGHTING IS INTIMATELY
WITH THE PROGRESSION
OF VERTICAL FARMING ON AN
INDUSTRIAL SCALE, AS ITS CUTTING-
EDGE TECHNOLOGY MAKES MASS
PRODUCTION POSSIBLE WITHIN THE
CONFINES OF INDOOR CULTIVATION.”
While vertical farming is an attractive concept due to
its versatility concerning seasonality, geography, and
spatiality, it has its own constraints. For vertical farming
operations to succeed, they must create artificial
environments in which plants thrive. The stasis of these
artificial environments is dependent on technology that
maintains light, humidity, temperature, and air flow.
This equipment should also offer farmers affordability
and practicality while maintaining these environments.
When it comes to lighting technology, light emitting
diode (LED) lighting is leading the vertical farming
movement. Here are some reasons why.
TARGETED WAVELENGTHS
One of the most defining characteristics of LED
grow lights is the pink light they emit. This uniquely
colored light is tied to the overall operational
efficiency of the technology.
The white light of sunlight is what we get when all
the wavelengths in the visible light color spectrum
(red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—or,
ROY G BIV) are mixed together. However, researchers
have learned plants respond best to red and blue light
wavelengths. Traditional indoor grow lighting—high
pressure sodium (HPS) and metal halide (MH) lamps—
seek to mimic sunlight at certain times of the year and
utilize a large portion of the ROY G BIV spectrum in
this process. Conversely, LED grow lights cut out the
unnecessary wavelengths by only utilizing blue and
red spectrums. The mix of these two colors result in
the pink color seen in LED growrooms. Also, a majority
of the operational, financial, and environmental
perks of LED lighting are directly attributable to this
breakthrough in light wavelength usage.
50
feature
SPATIAL CONSTRAINTS AND HEAT
Vertical farming takes the efficient use of space for
crop production within cityscapes to its extreme.
A distinguishing trait of vertical farming is the
layering of garden plots on high-tech shelving units
with grow lights dispersed between each level. Some
farms feature as many as a dozen layers of crops.
Light emitting diode lighting technology can at least
be partially credited with the rising popularity of
vertical farming as it’s the only horticultural lighting
technology that can grow crops on a commercial
scale within these stacked layers.
While fluorescent lights could function within
vertical farms, they don’t emit strong enough light
to fuel the production of most crops. Traditional HPS
and MH lighting don’t work for vertical farming either.
While these technologies work great for growing
crops, they are notorious for emitting excessive
heat. The heat issue renders both HPS and MH lights
practically useless within the tight confines of vertical
farms. In contrast, LED li