One of the most energy consuming items for commercial vertical farms is lighting, as artificial lighting is one of the key factors for plant growth. In it is impossible to grow vegetables without and LED grow lights provided the needed light intensity and spectrum. One should also take into consideration heat emission. For good the growers need to provide plants with optimal microclimate. Only LED lighting is suitable for vertical farms, as other light sources are less efficient, or inefficient at all.
WHAT THE ADVANTAGES TO VERTICAL FARMS OF LED GROW LIGHTS
- Ease of use: LED grow lights for vertical farms are very easy and quick to install and do not require additional cooling.
- Longevity: Lifetime of an LED lights is not limited, and the manufacturer guarantees L70B30 value for luminaire lifetime at 35000 hours, and this reliability is due to the latest Osram LED technology we use for our production.
- Efficiency: The spectrum of our lights is designed for optimal plant growth and photosynthesis, that increases yield per square meter and less energy is used.
- No overheating: LED lights are developed for vertical farms. Aluminum housing of the light has that allow to efficiently dissipate the heat from LEDs and maintain perfect Tc of LEDs to guarantee long lifetime and performance.
- Energy consumption: LED lights consume less energy compared to alternative light sources and allow to quickly get on investments.
- Lighting uniformity: The lights that are in their growth stage require distribution of PPFD, as uneven light intensity over the plants will cause phototropism (the orientation of a plant or other organism in response to light, either towards the source of light ). This can particularly be observed in horticulture luminaires that use lenses to focus light.
- No noise: LED grow lights are completely silent, no noises are produced by the lights as there are no active heat sinks used for cooling. Reliability: Our LED grow lights are safely protected against moisture and have IP-65 protection degree.

   
    For today to feed world’s growing 7 billion population we need traditional farms that will occupy territories, equal to the territory of South America. The farmers of the future will probably need even more space to supply the world with food. This factor was the key idea of new agricultural approach, so-called “agritecture”- construction of vertical farms that either rise up to the sky or go down deep underground. The key problem with indoor farming now is insufficient sunlight amount, especially in structures underground or deep inside vertical farms.

    The most difficult problem with growing plants in controlled environments has been light. It’s been considered until recently that it is impossible to get good results of quality crops under totally artificial lighting. But nowadays based on multiple theoretic knowledge, experiments and research by the leading universities and scientific companies we can state that it is possible to reach high yields of quality plants at rational electricity costs while using LED grow lights, that can not be the reached in changeable sunlight conditions.
    Definitely, sunlight spectrum is much wider than artificial light spectrum, however, not all parts of the solar spectrum are equally beneficial to plants.
    PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) lies in the range of 400-700nm, but some wavelengths of this spectrum are not very efficient for photosynthesis. Most important parts of PAR spectrum are deep red and blue spectra. Green lights are not crucial for plants.
    Based on this knowledge Genesis Scientific Ltd developed LED grow lights for indoor vertical farming that has optimal spectrum curves for most indoor cultivated plants and leafy greens. Currently, we work on optimization of light recipes and development of most efficient LED light solutions for vertical farming. LED horticultural lighting is now quite often used as supplemental lighting that allows improving greenhouse productivity.
    LED lighting for city farming incompletely insulated environments can minimize outside factors and lets us grow plants in most comfortable conditions, thus ensuring our crops are in good yields and quality all year round.
    Horticulture has become increasingly popular due to fast climate changes, extreme weather conditions that happen more and more often, as well as growing expenses for logistics.
    Using LED grow lights in sun-insulated environments also allow us to control plant development stages by changing photoperiod, i.e. change of day and night length.
    It is a fact that plants differently react to day and night period length ratio. By using these instruments we can alter plant morphology and control plant development and productivity. This is unique for vertical farms and can not be done in traditional greenhouses.
    In summer sunshine the level of sunlight can reach 100,000lx or more. But plants are sensitive to high levels of sunlight and excessive sunlight is harmful to plants. For example, the saturation level for tomato is 30,000lx and higher levels lead to photosynthesis suppression. This is to say that some time in daylight greenhouse plants need shading, otherwise they will be under stress conditions.
    In fully contained conditions under assimilation LED lighting the photosynthesis will flow at maximum or optimal level during all lighting period.
   Some research shows that using narrow-band blue and deep red spectrum in contained environments is not efficient enough for healthy plant development and plant morphology. Genesis Scientific company developed LED vertical farm lighting solutions with F2 wideband spectrum best fit for controlled growth in vertical farms without natural sunlight. Due to its balanced spectrum and white color emission allow visual control of plant conditions and health, that let's save to see disease or problems with plant development immediately. White light is also more comfortable for vertical farm’s staff. With peaks in 450 and 660nm and wide phosphor converted spectrum in green band, this spectrum is what most container growers have waited for. In contrast to phosphor converted technology, our dual chip technology will ensure the spectrum does not shift to lower wavelength after some time due to phosphor degradation.
 
 We can divide vertical farms with vertical and multi-tier, or multi-shelf layout. In plant growing, light uniformity is crucial for production. But the grower wants to get maximum PPFD from the luminaries at minimum power consumed. The best solution is to place lights as close as possible to plants. Our new spectrum allows for light plants uniformly on close distance to plants without “hot spots” of blue and red light. For both multi-tier and vertical tower growing, we have solutions with our new improved F2 spectrum.
   For the vertical tower, we can offer LED InterFlex system. It’s is basically a curtain of LED strips with needed wavelength and PSU, that just needs to be connected to mains. Apart from standard specifications, LED InterFlex system can be customized with different density of strips for the customer to get needed PPFD. In InterFlex System, the strips can be facing either one direction for wide aisle applications, or opposite directions for narrow or mobile aisle applications. The systems are very lightweight and have little heat emission, so it can be placed close to plants without risk of burning.
   In multi-tier applications, we recommend using our GroLine LED lights. They can be manufactured in a number of spectra including F2 spectrum and be powered by standard 24VDC power supplies freely available on the market.

Why GroLine horticultural LED system could be the right solution for your vertical farm project?

Vertical farming is not a new phenomenon these days. Many people want to eat locally grown food, and due to this, we see the rise of vertical farms in the US and European cities. At the same time, we see many early technology adopters file for bankruptcy.
Here we will try to help aspiring growers make better estimations of their CapEx and OpEx associated with lighting. We will base our calculation on our GroLine horticultural LED system and the following assumptions generally adopted in the industry:
1. Typical (if this is the right word for this new trend) commercial farm layer width is 5,6m and length can be up to 100m and more. We will base our study on a 10m length just for the ease of use.
2. A typical distance between the lights and base of the plant is 30-40cm (12-16”), we will take 40cm as the base.
3. The spectrum used for leafy greens contains 80% of red and 20% of the blue spectrum, with PPFD being 200umol/s/m² The following project shows how much power per m² you will consume if you use our GroLine System, so you can estimate your OpEx costs related to lighting.

As you will see from this calculation, to get needed PPFD and good uniformity on a project this size you will use around 70W/m² of electrical power. This project will require 90pcs of GroLine GL03-1800-44-120-C2 LED lights. For cost estimation of your project, please contact us with your details.