The Power of Lights for Day and Night

Light makes might, or at least helps with photosynthesis for all the vegetables that will make you mighty. For the longest time, a few thousand years, we have been quite capable in farming and agriculture; in fact it helped us advance to being more than hunters and gatherers. But the biggest thing that has limited the advancement of agriculture is the weather and the sun, or more specifically light and the environment.

But recently a plant physiologist in Japan has come up with a greenhouse that is producing vegetables and other food products at three times the rate of a farm and all without genetic enhancements. The reason for this all has to do with LED Lights!

This scientist took 17,500 different LED lights spread over an expanse of shelves reaching about half the length and width of a football field. Together with some electronics to help monitor and pay attention to the photosynthesis cycle of the plants, these lights have managed to help produce over 10,000 heads of lettuce each day.

The process works by mimicking the night and day cycle, and altering the wavelength of light to accommodate each of the plants being grown. This results in nearly three times faster growth for lettuce and other vegetables compared to a normal outdoor farm. And all with some computer controlled LED lights, to create a purple lighting to mimic the night, and white lighting that mimics the day and changes throughout the day as if it were the sun passing overhead!

The whole process was originally created to assist with Japan’s growing issues around population and feeding that population. Creating such a farm in such a compact area provides high hopes for turning out large amounts of food in almost no areas, and takes advantage of Japan’s lack of farming area due to the many mountains.

Because of this immense control of the night and day cycle with lights, it also leaves the farm to be incredibly efficient by cutting water usage from outdoor farms, and by using LED lights it also consumes significantly less power.

Overall this entire process is incredible, and just proves the kind of potential and power that lighting can have, even indoors. Just imagine what else we can come up with for LED Lights.

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