LED Plant Light Source Development Trend

In recent years, LED has gradually entered the lives of ordinary people, in all areas of general use is not difficult to see the shadow of LED. LED has the advantages that can not be replaced by tradition, but also has more room for development. The evolution of the market towards semiconductor-based technology has given rise to many new growth opportunities, one of which is plants. According to Navigant Research, the average annual growth rate of LED plants is 83.3% between 2015 and 2020, and the penetration rate of LED in plants is estimated to be as high as 85% by 2020. The global market share for vertical farms using LED lamps will increase from USD200M in 2017 to USD1.2B in 2021, as shown in Figure 1. The advantages of LED plants, such as increasing crop growth rate, saving energy up to 75%, saving water resources up to 90%, are also widely recognized by the industry. In the global climate change, the demand for sophisticated crop cultivation, aquaculture, food storage and preservation, food safety and other market demand, promote the development prospects of the plant and horticulture market.

At present, the general market competition has become increasingly fierce, LED plants are seen as a new space for development, many LED-related enterprises in the field of plants are accelerated in advance layout. As the world's top five LED manufacturers in the field of plant and horticulture research and development application has accumulated for many years, different light formula, different light conditions and different production methods to plant production has a very rich experience. The following is a brief analysis of the characteristics and types of LED light sources in the field of plants, taking the products of LUMILEDS as an example.

From the technical point of view, the improvement of light efficiency and energy efficiency is the key to greatly reduce operating costs. It is an inevitable trend for the future precision agriculture to adopt LED instead of traditional lamps and adjust the light environment dynamically according to the light prescription requirements of plants from seedling stage to harvest stage. LUXEON SunPlus series can perfectly match the demand of this technology. The products of LUXEON SunPlus series have light formulations according to the research and development of output and quality. In the aspect of increasing yield, according to the characteristics of plant development, cultivation can be carried out by stages and regions combined with light formula to improve the production efficiency and yield of each stage; in the aspect of improving quality, nutrient content, soluble sugar and other functional quality can be improved by means of nutrition regulation and light regulation. Plant is an interdisciplinary system engineering, light source is one of the most important parts. Based on its luminous principle, LED has the advantages of free combination of spectrum, high purity and rich color. In addition to LUMILED S, other LED suppliers, such as Osram, Cree, Nichia, Everlight and so on, have also launched a series of LED products for plants, which are not listed here. For LED light source, the same PPF value, the composition of the spectrum can be different, for different plants, or the same plant at different growth stages produce different effects. It is simply that the pursuit of PPF value can not achieve the optimal scheme of plant growth. So the future plants in the more specialized market segmentation requirements, will put forward new requirements for LED light source, that is, how to achieve effective PPF. This requires LED suppliers and other disciplines to exchange and cooperate to develop more targeted spectral light sources. Plant LED packaging types will also be more diversified, to meet the needs of a variety of plants, from home-style entry level to plant factory professional full coverage, to achieve cost-effective optimization program.

It is believed that in the near future, with the continuous development of plant factories, LED plant market penetration will gradually improve, technology and commercial organic combination, the global market into an explosive period. Plant LED light sources will be further developed with the gradual specialization of the industry, to a more targeted direction.