How Vertical Lighting Alters the Future of Vertical Farming
Vertical lighting in the vertical farming prospect
Agriculture has come a long way in the past century. We produce more food than ever before — but our current model is unsustainable, and as the world’s population rapidly approaches the 8 billion mark, modern food production methods will need a radical transformation if they’re going to keep up. But luckily, there’s a range of new technologies that might make it possible. vertical farming is one of them. It's not that people haven't thought about using vertical space to grow more crops before, but they've been stuck with the problem of vertical lighting. Later, although people tried to use traditional lamps such as HPS and HID for vertical planting, new problems emerged. The growers found that the energy consumption was too high when using these traditional lamps. They have to pay a lot more than normal outdoor planting, and the spectrum is not suited to the crops they grow,making vertical farming impractical.Therefore,The development of vertical planting is slow even stagnant. It wasn't until the advent of led plant lights that growers see the dawn of the sustainability in vertical farming .
It is the emergence of led grow lights that makes up for the innovation gap in vertical agriculture and makes great contributions in vertical farming. led grow light is changing the face of vertical cultivation and promote the development of future vertical farming with its spectral diversity and energy saving characteristics.
new trends in the consumer market of agri-food
Today’s customers have different expectations on farm products supply . they are inclined to buy produce with the following characteristic : competitively priced; locally grown; tastes fresh and is healthy; available for “one-stop shopping”; and year-round availability.
as far as trends go , competitive price is mainly about the cost of total planting investment , picking and packing and transportation etc. while locally grown is no more than making distinction between urbanized areas and agricultural concentration areas. Freshness is a measure of the distance from the growing farm to the dining table. whether healthy or not depends largely on whether there are pesticide residues.As for one-stop shopping, it involves whether the collaborated retail shop is wide enough. Year-round availability is mainly rely on controlled environment like greenhouse farming ,container farming , vertical farming and plant factories. Vertical farming is exactly a combination of all kinds of characteristics.
In order to solve the growing problem of food shortage, vertical farming will flourish everywhere due to its different product supply advantages, especially in cities where the population is relatively concentrated and the agricultural products are in great demand. There will inevitably be a need to rely on led grow light as vertical lighting for better photosynthesis on plants on vertically-stacked racking system indoors.
What can vertical lighting do to improve the vertical horticulture in the future? this type of lighting fixture has the potential to:
Increase the quality of agricultural products. Agricultural products in vertical farming are in a controlled indoor environment, with customized spectra that maximize their photosynthetic potential. Not only does this give the produce a chance to grow freely, but also because there is no outside interference, the plants do not synthesize non-essential compounds in response to stimuli from the outside environment. This makes the nutritional content of the produce pure. So the produce looks best and tastes better.
Reduce planting costs. One of the biggest concerns of vertical growers is the high energy consumption of vertical lighting. Compared with other equipment of vertical farming, it is the electricity bill of grow lights that is the problem. they are sunlight substitutes densely installed on racking system and need to be on for a long time every day.The reason that led vertical lighting can replace traditional lamps to promote the development of vertical farming is that its energy consumption is reduced to an acceptable range for investors .
supply agri-food year round . The price of agricultural products fluctuates with the supply of agricultural products. If there is a shortage of a certain type of agricultural product, the market will push the price higher. Whether it's to balance supplies throughout the year or to make a killing during the off-season. Vertical farming is a good idea. By vertical lighting to break down the seasonal planting restrictions, you can make it reality and have a bigger share of the market.
As leaps occur in vertical lighting technology, the days that constraints of consumers getting fresh agri-food and have the produce shipped from thousands of miles are going to away and are numbered. Technology is available today to grow locally and bring fresh produce to the mass-market within hours. Vertical farms will become increasingly popular.vertical lighting is an integral part of a vertical farming.
