Light is a basic environmental factor for plant growth and development. Light not only supplies the energy required for plant growth through photosynthesis, but also is an important regulatory factor for plant growth and development. Through artificial light supplementation or full artificial light irradiation of plants, it can promote plant growth, increase yield, improve product shape, color, enhance functional components, etc., and also reduce the occurrence of diseases and pests. Today, I will share with you the development status and trend of the plant lighting industry.
The application of artificial light source technology in the field of plant lighting is more and more widely, LED with its high light efficiency, low heat, small size, long life and many other advantages, in the field of plant lighting application advantages are obvious, plant lighting will gradually be dominated by LED lighting.

First, the development status of LED plant lighting industry

1. Plant lighting package

In the field of plant lighting packaging, there are many kinds of packaging devices without a unified measurement and evaluation standard system, foreign manufacturers mainly in the direction of high power, COB and module, taking into account the white light series of plant lighting, combined with plant growth characteristics and humanized lighting environment. Compared with domestic products, it has greater technical advantages in reliability, light efficiency, photosynthetic irradiation characteristics of different plants in different growth cycles, including a variety of high-power, medium-power and low-power products of different sizes to meet the needs of various plants in different growth environments, and is expected to achieve the goal of maximizing plant growth and energy saving.

A large number of core patents of chip epitaxial chips are still in the hands of early leading enterprises such as Japan’s Hiya and the United States Cree, and domestic chip manufacturers still lack patented products with market competitiveness. At the same time, many companies in the field of plant lighting packaging chips are also developing new technologies, such as Osram thin film chip technology so that the chip is tightly packaged together to create a large area of lighting surface, based on the technology wavelength of 660nm efficient LED lighting system can reduce the energy consumption of 40% in the cultivation area.

2. Plant lighting spectra and devices

The spectrum of plant lighting is more complex and diversified, and there are great differences in the spectrum required by different plants in different growth cycles and even in different growth environments. In order to meet these differentiated needs, there are the following solutions in the industry: (1) A variety of monochromatic light combination solutions, with the most effective peak for plant photosynthesis of 450nm, 660nm spectrum and 730nm spectrum induced by plant flowering, plus green light of 525nm and ultraviolet band below 380nm. These spectra are combined according to the different needs of the plant to create the most appropriate spectrum. (2) Full spectrum solution, to achieve full coverage of plant demand spectrum, SUNLIKE represented by Seoul Semiconductor and Samsung, this kind of spectrum is not necessarily the most efficient, but suitable for all plants, and the cost is much lower than the monochromatic light combination scheme. (3) Full spectrum white light is the main solution, plus 660nm red light combination scheme to improve the effectiveness of the spectrum. This scheme is more economical and practical.

Plant lighting monochromatic light (the main wavelength is 450nm, 660nm, 730nm) package devices, domestic and foreign companies are covered, and domestic product types are more complex, more specifications, foreign manufacturers are more standardized products, while in the photosynthetic photon flux, light efficiency and other domestic and foreign packaging factories still have a big gap. In addition to products whose main bands are 450nm, 660nm and 730nm, many manufacturers are also developing new products in other bands to achieve the complete photosynthetically active radiation of the product. PAR) wavelength coverage (450-730nm).

Single-color LED plant growth lamp is not suitable for the growth of any plant, the advantages of full-spectrum LED are therefore highlighted, the full spectrum of the full spectrum of visible light (400-700nm) full coverage, in addition to improve the blue-green light (470-510nm), deep red light (660-700nm) performance of the two bands. With ordinary blue LED or ultraviolet LED chip with phosphor to achieve the “full” spectrum, its photosynthetic efficiency is high or low. Most manufacturers of white LED packaging devices for plant lighting use Blue chip+ phosphor to achieve full spectrum. In addition to monochromatic light and blue light or UV chip plus phosphor to achieve white light packaging mode, there is also a mode that uses two or more wavelength chip composite packaging, such as red ten blue/UV, RGB, RGBW. This packaging mode has great advantages in terms of dimming.

In terms of narrow-wavelength LED products, most package suppliers can provide customers with a variety of wavelength products in the 365-740nm band. In terms of plant lighting spectra for phosphor conversion, most packaging manufacturers have a variety of spectra for customers to choose from. Compared with 2016, its sales growth rate in 2017 has achieved a significant growth, of which the growth rate of 660nm LED light source is concentrated in 20%-50%, and the sales growth rate of phosphor conversion plant LED light source reached 50%-200%, that is, the sales growth rate of phosphor conversion plant LED light source is faster.

All packaging companies can provide 0.2-0.9W and 1-3 W universal packaging products, these light sources give lamp manufacturers a good flexibility in lamp design. In addition, some manufacturers also provide higher power integrated packaging products. At present, more than 80% of the shipments of most manufacturers are 0.2-0.9W or 1-3 W. Among them, the shipments of international leading packaging companies are concentrated in 1-3 W, while the shipments of small and medium-sized packaging companies are concentrated in 0.2-0.9W.

3. Field of application of plant lighting

From the field of application, plant lighting is mainly used in greenhouse light, artificial light plant factory, plant tissue culture, field light, home vegetable and flower planting and laboratory research.

① In the solar greenhouse and greenhouse, the proportion of artificial light filling is still low, and the permeability of LED plant lighting system is low, but the growth rate begins to accelerate with the decline in cost, mainly because the user has a long time of experience in the use of gold halide lamps and high-pressure sodium lamps. And the use of gold halide lamps and high-pressure sodium lamps to avoid burning plants at the same time, but also for the greenhouse to provide about 6% to 8% of the heat. The LED plant lighting system does not provide specific and effective instructions and data support, delaying its application in daylight and multi-storey greenhouses. At present, it is still mainly used in small-scale demonstration. Because the LED is a cold light source, it can be relatively close to the plant crown and have a small temperature impact, and the application of LED plant lighting in daylight and multi-greenhouse is more of the inter-plant fill light lamps.

② Field application. The penetration and application of plant lighting in facility agriculture has progressed relatively slowly, while the application of LED plant lighting systems (photcycle regulation) for outdoor long-day crops with high economic value (such as dragon fruit) has achieved rapid development.

③ Plant factory. At present, the fastest and most widely used plant lighting system is the full artificial light plant factory, which is divided into centralized multi-layer and distributed mobile plant factories by category. The development of all artificial light plant factories in China is very rapid. The main investment body of the centralized multi-layer artificial light plant factory is not a traditional agricultural company, but more companies engaged in semiconductors and consumer electronics products, such as Zhongke SAN ‘an, Foxconn, Panasonic Suzhou, Jingdong, and CoFCO, Xitui and other new modern agricultural companies. In distributed and mobile plant factories, shipping containers (new or second-hand boxes) are still the standard carrier. Artificial plant factory plant lighting system mostly uses linear or flat panel array lighting system, the number of planting varieties continues to expand, a variety of experimental light formula LED light source began to be widely and widely used, its listed products are mainly green leafy vegetables so far.

④ Home plant planting. LED can be used in household plant lamp, household plant planting rack, household vegetable growing machine and so on.

⑤ Cultivation of medicinal plants. The cultivation of medicinal plants, such as clematis japonicum, iron calysis, etc., the products of these markets have higher economic value, and are currently an industry with more plant lighting applications. In addition, the legalization of cannabis seed cultivation in parts of North America and Europe has promoted the application of LED plant lighting in the field of cannabis seed cultivation.

⑥ Flowering lamp. As a necessary tool to adjust the flower flowering time in the flower gardening industry, the earliest application of flowering lamps for incandescent lamps, followed by energy-saving fluorescent lamps, with the industrialization of LED more LED type of flowering lamps have gradually replaced traditional lamps.

⑦ Plant tissue culture. The traditional tissue culture light source is mainly white fluorescent lamp, which has low luminous efficiency and high calorific value. Due to the significant characteristics of low power consumption, low heat and long life, LED is more suitable for efficient, controllable and compact space plant tissue culture. At present, white LED lamps are gradually replacing white fluorescent lamps.

4. Regional distribution of plant lighting enterprises

According to statistics, at present, there are more than 300 enterprises engaged in plant lighting in China, and the plant lighting enterprises in the Pearl River Delta region account for more than 50%, which has been in the main position; The proportion of plant lighting enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region is about 30%, and it is still an important plant lighting product production area. The traditional type of plant lamp enterprises are mainly distributed in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Bohai Rim region, of which the Yangtze River Delta region accounted for 53%, the Pearl River Delta and Bohai Rim region accounted for 24% and 22% respectively; LED plant lighting manufacturers are mainly distributed in the Pearl River Delta region (62%), the Yangtze River Delta region (20%) and the Bohai Rim region (12%).

Second, LED plant lighting industry development trend

Step 1 Specialize

LED plant lighting because of its spectrum and light amount is adjustable, and the overall heat is small luminous characteristics, has good waterproof performance, suitable for use in various scenarios of plant lighting. At the same time, due to changes in the natural environment and people’s pursuit of food quality, it has promoted the vigorous development of facility agriculture and plant factories, and also made the LED plant lighting industry into a period of rapid development, the future LED plant lighting will play an important role in improving agricultural production efficiency, improving food safety, and improving the quality of vegetables and fruits. The LED light source for plant lighting will further develop with the gradual specialization of the industry and move forward in a more targeted direction.

2. High efficiency

The improvement of light efficiency and energy efficiency is the key to significantly reduce the operating costs of plant lighting, the use of LED instead of traditional lamps and according to the light formula needs of plants from seedling to harvest period for dynamic optimization of the light environment is an inevitable trend in the future of fine agriculture. In terms of increasing yield, according to the development characteristics of plants, it can be cultivated in stages and regions combined with light formula to improve the production efficiency and yield at each stage; In terms of quality improvement, the content of nutrients and other health function components can be increased by means of nutritional regulation and light regulation.
It is estimated that the current demand for vegetable seedlings in the country is 680 billion plants, and the production capacity of factory seedling is less than 10%. The seedling industry has high environmental requirements, the production season is mostly winter and spring, the natural light is weak, the need for artificial light, the plant lighting input output is relatively high, and the acceptance of the input is high; Fruits and vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, etc.) need grafting, and under high humidity conditions, specific spectral fill light promotes grafting seedling healing, and LED has unique advantages. Greenhouse vegetable planting fill light, can make up for the lack of natural light, improve plant photosynthetic efficiency, promote flowering and fruit, increase yield, and improve product quality. The application prospect of LED plant lighting in vegetable seedling and greenhouse production is wide.

Step 3 Be smart

With the improvement of intelligent control technology and the application of the Internet of Things, a variety of monochrome spectrum plus intelligent control system to achieve time control, light control, and timely adjustment of light quality and light output according to the growth state of plants is bound to become the main trend of the future development of plant lighting technology