"LED research scalable and practical"

Vertical and indoor farming, LED lighting and light recipes are hot topics. There are plenty of opportunities there - almost too many. That's why Wessel van Paassen, general director of Green Simplicity, and Ronald Monster, general director of Hortilux, joined forces under the name LED'S Research! by Hortilux & Green Simplicity. It's a plug-and-play, fully modular cultivation system, focused on studying the effects of LED on plants.

Breeders, propagators and growers can carry out practically applicable research at their own company and with their own plants, so they can use the advantages of LED lighting in their own company. "Thanks to LED'S Research! you can optimize the use of grow lights based on your own research," Ronald says.

The joint venture is a partnership between grow light specialist Hortilux and Wessel van Paassen, who focuses on LED use in horticulture with Green Simplicity. "The possibilities of LED are endless," Wessel says. "With light color and intensity, one can make an infinite variety of light recipes. We can control for compactness, production, shape, ingredients, you name it. And all those possibilities beg the question: What is it that you want exactly? What does light do with your specific plant, or even your specific variety? There's not enough knowledge about that yet."

The partnership with Hortilux was established to answer this question. "The Hortiled Multi 4DIM by Hortilux can be dimmed per color, has optimal efficiency and is, in my opinion, the best in the industry." They jointly developed a modular cultivation system and accompanying software. It's marketed under the name LED'S Research! "Our system is fully scalable: you can start with a movable trolley for an existing testing environment, or start with a brand new climate chamber, it's your choice," Ronald explains. "And it's plug-and-play: growers, breeders and propagators can start with it right away."

The new World Horti Center has a sample of a LED'S Research! climate chamber. It will eventually be used for research, but can be viewed (on appointment) soon. The climate chamber can be divided into several research compartments. Every compartment can be fitted with four light recipes per 24 hours, for instance to simulate a day and night rhythm. The light-absorbing screen in the middle means there's no chance of light contamination.

 

The LED'S Research! cultivation systems are fitted with proprietary software to control, set and log climate, light and irrigation. The plants and research compartments can be divided at one's own discretion. With the app, it's possible to compile a light recipe from blue, white, red and far red. The full set is delivered fully calibrated, so a spectrometer isn't needed. The desired light intensity can be set accurately per color, down to micromol level. The smart HORTILED Multi 4DIM also feeds the realized output back into the software. The client sets what he wants and the software checks it. If something goes wrong, an alert goes off. The total amount of light can also be easily read or used as a setting. "If you want to administer 150 µmol/m2.s red light, it could be the luminaire switches on for 75%", Wessel shows. "By providing insight into these data, you can conduct research easily. The user has to understand what's going on." Ronald adds: "Thanks to the intelligent control software and modular settings you can reliably conduct research in the manner and on the scale you want. That's why it's financially interesting, and the research is also immediately relevant to a company: You determine the focus yourself, and discover what plant or product works best at minimal costs."

The LED's Research! products benefit the extensive knowledge about grow lights and plants that Hortilux and Green Simplicity have. When a client has reached the optimum light recipe, he can opt to scale up to practice right away. Every light recipe can be deployed with the Hortiled installations, which in turn can be directly linked to Hortilux's digital platform HortiSense, which enables insight into optimal returns always and everywhere. "For breeders, there's a whole world to win in terms of light, but also for potted plant growers, for instance, LED'S Research! is of interest. What does extra blue light do with your plant? How does the scope change with extra far red? The exact light recipe is the research subject for many companies. LED'S Research! delivers the tool to solve this with precision." 

For more information: 

www.leds-research.com