LED grow lights replace high-pressure sodium lamps, promoting plant growth

An Italian basil (an herb used for seasoning) grower chose to replace high-pressure sodium lamps with LEDs and found it could promote plant growth while reducing the farm's energy consumption.

This grower is located in the southern Italian port of Reggio, mainly producing basil for salads, pasta and other dishes, and had previously been using high-pressure sodium lamps in its greenhouses.

To avoid typical basil diseases, the grower used artificial light in the greenhouse for several hours each day, which increased costs.

Using red, hyper red and blue LEDs in different ratios in the greenhouse, this pattern can speed up basil's growth time, shortening the harvest time by 5 days and increasing crop yields.

The grower's manager Marco Boselli said, "We were worried about bacterial proliferation, because Peronospora fungi had been eradicated by the heat generated by HPS lighting, but after switching to LEDs, we did not encounter any problems."

"We could also observe that our basil grew better and faster, because the proportion of blue light was lower, at 5% in the LED setup, compared with 24% in the previous HPS setup."

Sebastian Lyschic, global project manager at Osram Opto Semiconductors, said: "Durable, energy-saving and long-lasting LED technology is becoming increasingly popular and will one day replace standard horticultural lighting."