LED plant lighting prospects

In recent years, the global sunshine hours have continuously decreased. Take China Taiwan as an example, the recent sunshine time is the lowest in 61 years. The decrease in sunshine hours is very detrimental to agricultural development. With the continuous development of production technology and the growing demand for improved plant yields and shortened planting cycles, artificial light sources have begun to be used in plant cultivation.

"Artificial sunshine" creates a miracle

In the plant plant built by Shanghai Semiconductor Lighting Engineering Technology Research Center and Shanghai Sunqiao Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., the growth of ginseng, lettuce, chicken feathers, and tomatoes does not rely on sunlight, but rather on LED lighting.

Studies have found that many plants need only red and blue light during their growth. LEDs can emit light of various wavelengths. Compared with the full spectrum of sunlight, researchers can use "light distribution" to allow them to accept only "man-made sunlight" in certain wavelength ranges. Therefore, in this 200 square meter "plant factory", researchers only exposed plants to blue and red light. LED 24 hours a day, even in the night, plants continue to photosynthesis.

In this environment, the growth rate of plants is greatly increased. It takes 52 days to 60 days to grow vegetables. After using the LED plant grower, it matures in 20 days.

Replacing the sun with LED lights increases the cost of plant production, but it does not mean that farmers benefit less. Since there is no need to rely on the weather to eat, in the laboratory, the plants are vertically distributed into 2 to 5 layers. Each layer has an LED light source. This design model has greatly increased the unit yield of crops. Researcher Li Yuzhi stated that the increase in output value could offset the increase in costs and ultimately benefit farmers.

The Japanese central government and local governments (county roads) have been counselling local agricultural practitioners since 2011 to develop plant factories and make up for the lack of sunlight through LED lighting. Japan also researched the use of LED lighting in poultry facilities. Research has found that using yellow LED lighting can save costs and reduce the aggressiveness of poultry.

In the Netherlands where “multi-layer cultivation” is actively promoted, LED auxiliary light sources are often seen in cultivation of lettuce and tulips. Because many layers of cultivation, the lower than the upper layer is difficult to reach the sun, so the Dutch farmers mostly use LED lights to supplement the lack of light.

LED plant lighting advantages

Compared with traditional plant lighting, the biggest advantage of LED plant lighting is energy efficiency. For example, the use of LED light-filling experiments in the greenhouse in the Netherlands shows that compared with traditional high-pressure sodium lamps and metal halide lamps, LED can save 50% to 80%. In a plant factory, using a conventional light source requires a 0.5 kW light source per square meter, whereas LEDs only require 0.27 kW. In the field of tissue culture, the total area of ​​tissue culture in China is more than 20 million square meters. If the annual illumination time for tissue culture is 16h/d and the production date is 300 days per year, the total annual power consumption caused by fluorescent lamps is 107.5 billion. More than the degree; after the use of LED, the total annual consumption of about 51.8 billion degrees, the total annual electricity saving of more than 56 billion degrees.

In addition to acting as a "light fertilizer," LED lighting also has a lot of application space in other areas of agriculture.

For example, for the physical control of agricultural pests, LED light sources with specific wavelengths can be used to attract and kill pests and reduce the amount of pesticides. For animal breeding, LEDs with specific wavelengths can be used to promote light according to different breeding purposes. Animal productivity, reducing the use of feed additives and hormones; for marine fishing, LED light sources at specific wavelengths can be used to induce seafood and increase catch; for microorganisms, specific wavelengths that promote the proliferation of beneficial microorganisms can be used The LED implements illumination to achieve a high-efficiency, intensive yield microbial reaction process.

LED plant lighting prospects

At present, plant lighting is mainly used in three areas of plant factories, plant landscapes and breeding lighting. The plant factory is the main and relatively mature market for plant lighting. Take Shenzhen as an example, five plant factories can supply the daily amount of vegetables and fruits in Shenzhen; the plant landscape is in the stage of entering the market; the potential of breeding lighting is huge However, this market has not yet been developed.

"China is the fourth largest plant factory in the world. The future of LED plant lighting is promising," an industry source said. According to the calculations of the research group of Nanjing Agricultural University, “Only a factory-scale planting industry will provide a huge consumer market for LED light sources.” Only one seedling export amounted to nearly 10 billion strains, and the mainland’s annual consumption was even greater. If LED is used as a substitute for traditional electric light source in factory planting seedlings, its one-time total market size will reach 200 billion yuan.

According to the prediction of Yang Deli, chairman of Shenzhen West Deli Technology Co., Ltd., the LED replacement market for breeding lamps in China will reach RMB 30 billion in the next few years.

As the Japanese market is more advanced and more active in plant lighting, Japan has already estimated that in 2020, the LED lighting market value for plants can reach 300 billion Yen a year (equivalent to approximately RMB 23.6 billion). Yuan) The output value of the overall plant breeding amounted to 3 trillion yen, and the growth must not be underestimated.

The temptation of the market has attracted many domestic and foreign manufacturers to enter agricultural lighting. As of the end of June 2012, there are about 40 LED plant lighting companies with a certain scale in China. In 2009, there were only two or three companies engaged in LED plant lighting in China.

The domestic market needs to be developed

Although the prospects are good, there is a long way to go. According to GLII statistics, the output value of China's LED plant lighting was only 300 million yuan in 2011. Compared with the output value of hundreds of billions of ordinary lighting products, this data can only be described as “little ugly”. Of the 300 million yuan in output value, more than 90% of them are exported, and the sales market is mainly concentrated in countries and regions where Japan, South Korea, China, the United States, and Europe are engaged in fewer agricultural personnel. The resistance of the domestic market for plant lighting has expanded.

“At this stage, China still does not have a fast-growing market for the plant lighting industry.” Guan Yong, general manager of Sunshine Lighting, said that unless some basic issues are solved, the plant lighting market will not have an explosive growth in the country.

The primary issue is in promotion. At present, the concept that LED lighting can promote plant growth has not been thoroughly understood and accepted, and it has not been widely promoted.

Guan Yong said that overseas LED plant lighting has a higher degree of marketization. On the one hand, institutions such as agricultural colleges and universities have conducted more in-depth research on this technology. On the other hand, people in developed countries such as Europe and the United States have relatively high acceptance of science knowledge. On the other hand, in the domestic market, enterprises must not only theoretically popularize scientific research institutions, but also popularize the concept of green vegetables for plant factories and consumers. This appears to be a weak one for companies.

Second, the barriers to entry are high, and the advantages of domestic companies are not obvious. To enter the field of LED plant lighting, must have certain technical strength and resource advantages. At present, the domestic market pattern of plant lighting is based on the cooperation between the enterprise and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences. That is to say, some professional LED plant lighting companies are being researched by scientific research institutes. We jointly develop some standards for product development. It is at least three to five years before traditional LED lighting companies want to successfully enter the field of plant lighting.

In addition, plant lighting costs are high and sales are low. At this stage, the input and output of plant lighting are not directly proportional to the company, which also allows a large number of companies that are in this market segment to “catch up”. In addition to Philips, Osram, Mitsubishi, billion light and other international lighting manufacturers are still concerned about this market, the majority of domestic small and medium-sized lighting companies rarely get involved.