LED maker Lumileds of San Jose, CA, USA has has introduced the LUXEON SunPlus Series, its first line of purpose-built LEDs that provide the exact wavelengths of light required for horticulture applications.
Based on the rapidly expanding world population and the increasing population in city centers, the horticulture industry is responding by growing more food indoors using LEDs, allowing a greater amount of food to be grown in smaller spaces (using up to 90% less water than growing outdoors).
The LUXEON SunPlus 20 Line targets the needs of greenhouses farmers who want to add supplemental high-bay lighting to enable 24 hour or year-round growth. Growers can develop single-channel solutions using key wavelengths for photosynthesis, blue (420-480nm) and red (620-670nm). Or they can develop multi-channel solutions with select LEDs to optimize light output for different stages of the plant's life cycle, including seedlings, germination, vegetative growth, flowering, etc. The LUXEON SunPlus 20 Line consists of 2.0mm x 2.0mm high-power LEDs in Royal Blue (440-460nm), Deep Red (655-675nm), Far Red (720-750nm), Lime (broad spectra) and Cool White colors.
"Only Lumileds bins its horticultural LEDs by PPF [photosynthetic photon flux in μmol/s] and wavelength, so lighting designers know exactly what they are getting and can design their fixtures for optimal plant productivity," claims Luis Aceña, senior manager of business development. "The SunPlus 20 Line features a high PPF per LED, which leads to more compact solutions. In addition, because all the LEDs have the same focal length, it is very effective," he adds.
Vertical farming, using multiple stacks of growth trays, requires lighting from short distances with high uniformity. The LUXEON SunPlus 35 Line addresses these needs with Blue (440-460nm), Lime, White and three shades of Purple mid-power LEDs in a 3.5mm x 3.5mm format. "Our Purple LED offerings are distinct in that they are long-lasting, high-efficiency blue LEDs under red phosphor, offering the highest uniformity for consistent growth," claims Aceña. "Other companies are combining blue and red LEDs to get purple hues, but this is problematic because red LEDs age faster than blue ones, so the red/blue ratio keeps changing over time, obtaining unreliable growth results," he adds. The Purple LEDs are offered with different blue PPF relative to PPF total across the photoactive region (400-700nm). The Purple (2.5% Blue) LED encourages stem growth and flowering, the Purple (12.5% Blue) LED encourages general-purpose growth, and the Purple (25% Blue) LED encourages vegetative growth for larger leaves.
