As a professional in the horticulture industry, you have most likely heard about LED grow lights and their benefits for commercial greenhouses. Horticultural LED is a rapidly expanding market revolutionizing greenhouse farming with innovative solutions and incomparable controllability
This may sound overwhelmingly advanced – but in fact, all commercial greenhouses can benefit from LED grow light systems no matter the crop, the grower’s experience or the existing light system. Dutch grower Bas Carsten expanded from 10 LED fixtures to half a hectare, boosting production output by 50% in the process. Read his story here.
What is horticultural LED?
LED grow lights for the horticultural industry are powerful LED fixtures, meaning they have the intensity and colour spectrum required to stimulate plant growth. The most critical difference between horticultural LED systems and traditional lighting is that LED grow lights make it possible for the grower to control the spectral distribution. This has a great influence on both crop quality and production methods.
Traditional light sources like HPS have a relatively scattered spectral distribution, most saturated around the green region of the spectrum. Senmatic’s LED grow light, on the other hand, are focused in their intensity specifically on red and blue light. This corresponds perfectly with the photosynthetic action spectrum, thus matching the light composition that plants benefit the most from.
| The photosynthetic action spectrum Plants have a primary need for red light, which starts the photosynthetic process and impacts germination and florescence. Blue light is also essential as it controls plant size, stretch, red pigmentation and, in some cases, taste. |
4 main reasons why controllable LED systems are vital for your business
Due to the unique controllability, LED grow light systems have a number of advantages that will enable you to grow your business.
- Fine-tune the spectral distribution
The optimal spectral distribution and light intensity depends on your specific culture. Thus, it is impossible for lights with a fixed spectrum to correspond with the needs of all cultures and different crops. As opposed to traditional fixtures like HPS and SON’T, LED fixtures allow you to customize and adjust the spectral distribution specifically to benefit your crop – both now and in the future. - Upscale or convert production
Should you choose to upscale your production facilities, add new cultures to your crop, or completely convert your production, replacing your cultures, LED grow lights are easily adapted to the new conditions. In other words, the controllability of LED fixtures makes the system able to change and grow with your business when needed. - Lower energy costs
Traditional light fixtures create excess heat and are not energy efficient. This is usually associated with significant expenses. Because LED lights produce the exact amount and type of light that your crop requires, less energy is wasted. In other words, you only pay for the light you actually need. -
Increase product quality
Take control of your crop’s size, stretch, colour or even taste. Being able to adjust light composition enables you to improve product quality in ways that are simply impossible with traditional lights. Additionally, using LED lighting means you can reduce the amount of chemicals needed in production.
Is your business ready for LED grow lights?
Most, if not all, people in the commercial farming industry agree that LED light systems are a vital part of the future of horticulture. Although the market has to some degree been permeated by inferior and underpowered low-cost LED bars, development in the area has become so far-reaching that the advantages of LED technology are impossible to reject. Today, all commercial greenhouses can benefit from LED grow lights – no matter the size, culture or the grower’s existing knowledge on LED lighting.
| Did you know? Experience with traditional lighting and regulation of light intensity can be transferred to LED lighting by converting watt per square metre to micromoles per square metre. |
Contact our experts today
Senmatic is a market leader in LED grow light systems, and we strive to help you develop and grow your business. Read more about our horticulture solutions and business areas or contact us to learn more about our LED grow light systems.
“Our customers know their exact production best, and they often have an idea about which systems would match their production needs. At Senmatic, we help initiate the implementation of the LED system by creating a lighting plan with precise calculations for ideal light dispersal – and because we are not only experts in LED systems, we can adapt the installation to your remaining climate control. We continue assisting in the implementation process until everything works as intended” – Morten Hjorth, Global Sales Manager at Senmatic
Author: Senmatic LED grow lights
