8 ms·

LEDs Are Set to Revolutionize Greenhouse Farming (2014)

99 points by legodt 10y ago

technotony 10y ago
The next step is optimizing the plants to grow better in these greenhouse conditions - currently the plants waste lots of energy. For example my company, TAXA Biotechnologies[1], has identified a gene that doubles the rate of growth of lettuce per unit light energy. It wouldn't work in the wild as the cost is reduced pest-resistance but growing indoors there are other ways to control that. [1]www.taxa.com
- rezistik 10y ago
  There is a lot that can be done to optimize plants genetically, including a ton that can be done with selective breeding. I'm working on a start up doing selective breeding software and it's amazing how much variety is available that isn't being tapped into yet. We're starting with cannabis breeding before moving into other crops but there is a ton of room for improvement in genetic stock.
  - andai 10y ago
    Hey, I'd be very interested to hear more about this! Do you have a newsletter or something like that? I had the idea that there is so much untapped potential in selective breeding of cannabis after reading about various terpenes and their medicinal properties. The market's just been breeding for ridiculous THC levels (I daresay harmful levels - unfortunately I know several heavy smokers who have been institutionalized) without the CBD to balance it and without exploring the role of the other chemicals. So I'm happy to hear that this is changing! (Like that news of a 15% CBD 1% THC strain from a few years back) I wish you the best of luck!
    - andai 10y ago
      To clarify on the last bit, I was thinking it would be great if the genetics from the new high CBD strains could be brought into the mainstream by crossbreeding with popular strains. My interest in this has to do with the idea that in the 1970s, CBD and THC levels were both around 1%. THC has skyrocketed but CBD has not. THC is known to trigger psychosis and paranoia in sensitive individuals, while CBD reduces anxiety and was found to be as effective as other anti-psychotics. TL;DR too much sativa not enough indica :)
    - rezistik 10y ago
      Hey, we don't yet could you email me patrick@growflora.co ? I'd love to talk about it more. We're onboarding some of our first breeders this upcoming week and have a grow journal beta out in the open.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - choosername 10y ago
    nice to hear but more relevant to the thread would be info on precise photo active radiation spectra. The absorption is easily meassured putting a leaf under a through light spectroscope, but narrowing down the actually active spectrum is a different matter.
- lisivka 10y ago
  Optimize for taste, not for fast growth, please. I don't want to pay for lettuce with taste of straw.
  - thatswrong0 10y ago
    Last time I checked (it's been a while since I had a salad), lettuce already doesn't have too much of a taste. I'd be surprised if they managed to mess that up.
    - eonw 10y ago
      is that the outcome of nature or selective breeding?
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      It really depends on the lettuce. Iceburg seems to be intentionally useless. Romaine starts to have a little flavor. Leaf lettuces have a wide range of flavors.
      - slyn 10y ago
        Iceberg is a texture, not a taste per se. Used in combination with other greens and veggies it has a place.
    - dekhn 10y ago
      Moving to California recalibrated my understanding of lettuce/salad greens. Not sure if you meant just lettuce, but in California a typical salad has little to no lettuce, and instead: mizuna, arugula, radicchio. What lettuce is does have is Romaine and butter lettuce, not iceberg. The result is a very flavorful salad- intensely bitter with much less crunch.
  - dbyte 10y ago
    Yes, this is a must. I wonder if industrial greenhouses could benefit from some sort of induced day-night cycles and thermal gradients to cuddle the little plants. Maybe it will allow them to grow better and to develop a better taste. Once you have LEDs possibilities are many.
hooloovoo_zoo 10y ago
Link to the paper http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.3016 http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.3016. They do not seem to have accounted for the fact that the "waste" heat from current solutions reduces the overall heating bill. Of course, electrical heating is not usually as cost effective as other methods.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Greenhouses in NL use natural gas to heat and they are getting a serious discount compared to homes and offices, compared to what they are paying for gas heat any conversion from electricity to heat is a loss to them.
tomeast 10y ago
The Economist had some related content in this week's Technology Quarterly (http://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2016-06-09/factory-fresh#section-2 http://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2016-06-09/fac...) - I made note of the 2 LED producers they mentioned: http://www.valoya.com/ http://www.valoya.com/ and https://www.heliospectra.com/ https://www.heliospectra.com/
Lerc 10y ago
One question I have had on my mind is about solar powered LED lighting. Solar cells capture a wider spectrum than plants (plants are green ergo not green eaters). At what levels of efficiency do solar cells and LEDs have to be before you receive a net gain by having the solar cells in the sun instead of the plants. How far away from that are we now? Underground farming in arid regions seems like the best scope for something like this.
- simcop2387 10y ago
  Actually if you're doing underground farming and such like that, it could be a net positive pretty quickly because you could be swamped by other concerns such as available water for growing and the energy costs to get it.
  - SixSigma 10y ago
    Aquaponics uses much less water than hydroponics plus you don't use energy to make fertiliser. Your inputs are light & fish food and some top up water.
    - deftnerd 10y ago
      I'm a big fan of aquaponics too, but I've never seen numbers on the energy required to source, process, and transport the fish food. It gets even more complicated if you include the energy required to raise the fish that get caught and turned into fish food. In my old system, I used bottle fly larvae to feed the fish so the energy input was less (waste refuse that would have been composted anyway) . It was the least fun part of the system because of the "gross factor" of maggots.
      - SixSigma 10y ago
        There is plenty of efficiency to be gained in shifting dry bulk fish food around but I agree it needs to be more quantified for a real comparison. Micheal Polkas claims 10 calories of energy in for 1 calorie out in our current intensive farming, so any improvement at scale promises returns.
known 10y ago
It's already revolutionizing in India http://www.ujala.gov.in/ http://www.ujala.gov.in/
groktor 10y ago
Greenhouse farming really could be a good way to help tackle the waste/runoff problem. I think Greenhouse farms could easily be closed systems with no need to push polluted water back into the world. The dead zone in the gulf of Mexico (all ocean dead zones actually) HAS to be dealt with pretty damn soon as I understand it...
1QAm1 10y ago
Ceramic Metal Halide bulbs, at much lower wattage than HPS, but with more power than LED seems to be the immediate compromise. A 315w Phillips Ceramic MH will deliver a huge spectrum to the plants with less than half of the heat of a comparable 600w HPS/MH. The cost is getting very close to traditional HPS lights. LEDs do work, but they still use plenty of power, and are largely unproven. Try to find a greenhouse/grow store that stocks ANY led fixures. They have been cheap China crap for so long, that the better ones cost quite a bit of $.

99 points by legodt 10y ago

The next step is optimizing the plants to grow better in these greenhouse conditions - currently the plants waste lots of energy. For example my company, TAXA Biotechnologies[1], has identified a gene that doubles the rate of growth of lettuce per unit light energy. It wouldn't work in the wild as the cost is reduced pest-resistance but growing indoors there are other ways to control that. [1]www.taxa.com

rezistik 10y ago
There is a lot that can be done to optimize plants genetically, including a ton that can be done with selective breeding. I'm working on a start up doing selective breeding software and it's amazing how much variety is available that isn't being tapped into yet. We're starting with cannabis breeding before moving into other crops but there is a ton of room for improvement in genetic stock.
- andai 10y ago
  Hey, I'd be very interested to hear more about this! Do you have a newsletter or something like that? I had the idea that there is so much untapped potential in selective breeding of cannabis after reading about various terpenes and their medicinal properties. The market's just been breeding for ridiculous THC levels (I daresay harmful levels - unfortunately I know several heavy smokers who have been institutionalized) without the CBD to balance it and without exploring the role of the other chemicals. So I'm happy to hear that this is changing! (Like that news of a 15% CBD 1% THC strain from a few years back) I wish you the best of luck!
  - andai 10y ago
    To clarify on the last bit, I was thinking it would be great if the genetics from the new high CBD strains could be brought into the mainstream by crossbreeding with popular strains. My interest in this has to do with the idea that in the 1970s, CBD and THC levels were both around 1%. THC has skyrocketed but CBD has not. THC is known to trigger psychosis and paranoia in sensitive individuals, while CBD reduces anxiety and was found to be as effective as other anti-psychotics. TL;DR too much sativa not enough indica :)
  - rezistik 10y ago
    Hey, we don't yet could you email me patrick@growflora.co ? I'd love to talk about it more. We're onboarding some of our first breeders this upcoming week and have a grow journal beta out in the open.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- choosername 10y ago
  nice to hear but more relevant to the thread would be info on precise photo active radiation spectra. The absorption is easily meassured putting a leaf under a through light spectroscope, but narrowing down the actually active spectrum is a different matter.
lisivka 10y ago
Optimize for taste, not for fast growth, please. I don't want to pay for lettuce with taste of straw.
- thatswrong0 10y ago
  Last time I checked (it's been a while since I had a salad), lettuce already doesn't have too much of a taste. I'd be surprised if they managed to mess that up.
  - eonw 10y ago
    is that the outcome of nature or selective breeding?
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    It really depends on the lettuce. Iceburg seems to be intentionally useless. Romaine starts to have a little flavor. Leaf lettuces have a wide range of flavors.
    - slyn 10y ago
      Iceberg is a texture, not a taste per se. Used in combination with other greens and veggies it has a place.
  - dekhn 10y ago
    Moving to California recalibrated my understanding of lettuce/salad greens. Not sure if you meant just lettuce, but in California a typical salad has little to no lettuce, and instead: mizuna, arugula, radicchio. What lettuce is does have is Romaine and butter lettuce, not iceberg. The result is a very flavorful salad- intensely bitter with much less crunch.
- dbyte 10y ago
  Yes, this is a must. I wonder if industrial greenhouses could benefit from some sort of induced day-night cycles and thermal gradients to cuddle the little plants. Maybe it will allow them to grow better and to develop a better taste. Once you have LEDs possibilities are many.

hooloovoo_zoo 10y ago

Link to the paper http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.3016 http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.3016. They do not seem to have accounted for the fact that the "waste" heat from current solutions reduces the overall heating bill. Of course, electrical heating is not usually as cost effective as other methods.

jacquesm 10y ago
Greenhouses in NL use natural gas to heat and they are getting a serious discount compared to homes and offices, compared to what they are paying for gas heat any conversion from electricity to heat is a loss to them.

tomeast 10y ago

The Economist had some related content in this week's Technology Quarterly (http://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2016-06-09/factory-fresh#section-2 http://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2016-06-09/fac...) - I made note of the 2 LED producers they mentioned: http://www.valoya.com/ http://www.valoya.com/ and https://www.heliospectra.com/ https://www.heliospectra.com/

Lerc 10y ago

One question I have had on my mind is about solar powered LED lighting. Solar cells capture a wider spectrum than plants (plants are green ergo not green eaters). At what levels of efficiency do solar cells and LEDs have to be before you receive a net gain by having the solar cells in the sun instead of the plants. How far away from that are we now? Underground farming in arid regions seems like the best scope for something like this.

simcop2387 10y ago
Actually if you're doing underground farming and such like that, it could be a net positive pretty quickly because you could be swamped by other concerns such as available water for growing and the energy costs to get it.
- SixSigma 10y ago
  Aquaponics uses much less water than hydroponics plus you don't use energy to make fertiliser. Your inputs are light & fish food and some top up water.
  - deftnerd 10y ago
    I'm a big fan of aquaponics too, but I've never seen numbers on the energy required to source, process, and transport the fish food. It gets even more complicated if you include the energy required to raise the fish that get caught and turned into fish food. In my old system, I used bottle fly larvae to feed the fish so the energy input was less (waste refuse that would have been composted anyway) . It was the least fun part of the system because of the "gross factor" of maggots.
    - SixSigma 10y ago
      There is plenty of efficiency to be gained in shifting dry bulk fish food around but I agree it needs to be more quantified for a real comparison. Micheal Polkas claims 10 calories of energy in for 1 calorie out in our current intensive farming, so any improvement at scale promises returns.

known 10y ago

It's already revolutionizing in India http://www.ujala.gov.in/ http://www.ujala.gov.in/

groktor 10y ago

Greenhouse farming really could be a good way to help tackle the waste/runoff problem. I think Greenhouse farms could easily be closed systems with no need to push polluted water back into the world. The dead zone in the gulf of Mexico (all ocean dead zones actually) HAS to be dealt with pretty damn soon as I understand it...

1QAm1 10y ago

Ceramic Metal Halide bulbs, at much lower wattage than HPS, but with more power than LED seems to be the immediate compromise. A 315w Phillips Ceramic MH will deliver a huge spectrum to the plants with less than half of the heat of a comparable 600w HPS/MH. The cost is getting very close to traditional HPS lights. LEDs do work, but they still use plenty of power, and are largely unproven. Try to find a greenhouse/grow store that stocks ANY led fixures. They have been cheap China crap for so long, that the better ones cost quite a bit of $.