[HN Gopher] Cree releases LEDs designed for horticulture
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Cree releases LEDs designed for horticulture
Author : milleramp
Score : 69 points
Date : 2022-11-02 20:08 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cree-led.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (cree-led.com)
| foobarian wrote:
| Iirc chlorophyll has 2 very distinct absorption peaks [1] so it
| should be possible to design lights that target those
| frequencies. But knowing how LEDs work and the hacks with
| wavelength adjustment we use with phosphorus and others I'm sure
| it's not easy.
|
| [1]
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Chloroph...
| tiagod wrote:
| Cree acknowledges this in the link, listing "Reduce complicated
| spectral analysis" as a feature, implying its just an easier
| way to achieve what is already done with multiple LEDs working
| together.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Does each plant have it's own sweet spot of color balance?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I mix 6000K/6500K (daylight) LED strips with 2700K (warm white)
| ones and plants seem very happy about it and it is OK for
| humans, too.
|
| In fact I previously used only 6000K LED strips (in an
| insulated box so no other light at all) on cycad and other
| seeds and got very healthy plants.
|
| I think the key for commercial applications like vertical farms
| is to optimise energy use by trying not to waste electricity on
| wavelengths that won't do much to boost production.
| FounderBurr wrote:
| Cree has to be one of the most abused brand names in the history
| of commerce.
|
| I'd love to find out how they manage that and stay on top.
| etrautmann wrote:
| PPF = Photosynthetic Photon Flux, in case you're curious like I
| was.
| swayvil wrote:
| I bought some grow lights last year. Monios. Lightweight. Hang 4'
| strip on string. Miracle of economic design. A finely tuned
| spectrum. Blazing fuchsia. Like aliens are landing. Plants like
| em.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| Those are remarkably inexpensive!
| jjeaff wrote:
| I think it is a pretty cool fact that because of the ability to
| use LED lights in this manner where they emit only the ranges of
| light wavelengths that are beneficial to plants, you can actually
| capture sunlight with solar panels. Convert that light to
| electricity. Then re-emit that electricity as light through these
| narrow range LEDs as well as store it and emit it over longer
| periods of time. You actually end up with more plant growth than
| would be possible if the plants were directly in the sun.
| ninefathom wrote:
| Three words:
|
| About. F*king. Time.
|
| Anybody in horticulture or botany knows what a BFD this is.
| Anybody else... it's major.
|
| Those of you wondering about the green spectrum, try running a
| commercial greenhouse with fuchsia-tinted lighting. You'll have a
| paradise of lush, happy plants that never go anywhere (i.e. they
| won't sell).
| tpmx wrote:
| So what kind of cannabis do you grow? :-)
| h2odragon wrote:
| cannabis is _fine_ with purple light. My begonias, however,
| which are supposed to have a bright multicolored foliage as
| their main feature, come out looking about as impressive as
| cabbage under purple lights. with a bit of extra "warm
| white" light they become colorful again.
|
| "peak efficiency" is fine but the rest of what the plant is
| doing counts too and those less efficient processes may have
| benefits in the final product.
| Zak wrote:
| Cree, Nichia, Osram, and Samsung were already selling
| horticulture-optimized white LEDs. What seems to be new here is
| a choice between three options for blue/green ratio.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Haha why don't they sell?
| ninefathom wrote:
| Because humans are visual creatures, and we like our plant
| leaves green, and our flowers bright.
|
| Rephrased, just like in cooking, presentation is very
| important in commercial agriculture and horticulture, too.
| People hesitate to buy things that don't look like they
| expect.
|
| Nothing Cree is doing here hasn't been done before in terms
| of plant growth, but they've made it hella easier to have a
| horticultural/agricultural LED installation that fits
| seamlessly into existing business processes with minimal
| headache.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| I wonder if we can get our hands on this, as hobbyists and not a
| giant factory.
| dwater wrote:
| Cree is a part supplier to loads of manufacturers of commercial
| products. You can add Cree as a search term when looking for
| high quality LED lighting (and you'll get lots of knockoffs
| depending on where you're looking).
| genmud wrote:
| Digi-Key stocks CREE stuff, looks like they even have this
| product [1]. Obviously you need to roll your own board, or hand
| solder/wire them but that wouldn't be too difficult.
|
| 1 - https://www.digikey.com/short/97452z74
| nathanvanfleet wrote:
| Try Amazon
| rgmerk wrote:
| While these might be new to Cree's offerings, LED grow lights
| have been widely available for a few years now.
|
| They're even used in "vertical farms" to grow herbs (other than
| cannabis) hydroponically indoors, exclusively in artificial
| light, with very little human intervention:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/10/ocado-inves...
|
| Pick the sci-fi scenario of choice here, the tech exists and is
| economically viable, at least for high value crops that place a
| very high premium on freshness.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| They are new to Cree, who is a more mainstream manufacturer.
|
| The growlights that power the vertical farms (which are, let's
| be honest, mostly weed farms) come from vendors (e.g. Fluence)
| that are more specialized, and therefore are fairly expensive.
| About $1500 per 4x4 foot grow area, last prices I saw.
|
| I dunno if this will ever be economically feasible outside of
| high-value crops. A Spyder rig from Fluence draws about 630W.
| But yep, it is at least a step forward, and way better than the
| weird fluorescent/MH/HID options.
| rgmerk wrote:
| My point on the "sci-fi scenarios" was more for crewed
| exploration and settlement of space in the medium and long
| term future.
|
| While there are plenty of other reasons to be skeptical about
| that, the ability to supply them with some fresh food without
| requiring magic biotechnology is certainly one barrier
| crossed off the list.
| zokier wrote:
| I think you might be confusing lighting fixtures (what
| fluence makes) vs actual leds (what cree does). I suspect
| fluence is probably using osram leds for their products.
| anarajpur524 wrote:
| Please my account is hacked please my name is inayatkhan
| Zak wrote:
| The new development here seems to be that these are white LEDs
| that can be specced in terms of blue/green ratio, rather than
| metrics based around human vision (color temperature, tint, and
| color rendering index).
|
| Cree and other manufacturers have been offering horticulture-
| specific LEDs for some time, both red/blue and red/blue-weighted
| white like these. Here are some of their competitors:
|
| Samsung:
| https://www.samsung.com/led/lighting/applications/horticultu...
|
| Osram: https://www.osram.com/os/applications/horticulture-
| lighting/...
|
| Nichia: https://led-
| ld.nichia.co.jp/en/product/lighting_hortisolis.h...
| homero wrote:
| Enterprise grow lights
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| ,,By maximizing green content and minimizing red content versus
| standard lighting LEDs, this LED color enables significant
| enhancements to luminaire cost and performance."
|
| I thought plants look green because thats what they reflect?
| Meaning that the other wavelengths are absorbed for
| photosynthesis.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Yeah that seems odd to me. Chlorophyll largely doesn't do
| anything with 500-600nm wavelengths, and that's where this LED
| outputs a lot of energy. If this was a bulb that could switch
| between red and green that might be useful for dealing with
| day/night cycles for plants, but this LED seems like it just
| outputs more green light than normal?
| scrumbledober wrote:
| A graphic on the page notes that these are designed to be
| used with red 660nm bulbs. A lot of current grow lights are
| white, blue, and red bulbs. It seems these are aiming to
| create the blend of blue and white so manufacturers can blend
| them with red without worrying about the white/blue mix.
| tiagod wrote:
| Sensitivity of Seven Diverse Species to Blue and Green Light:
| Interactions with Photon Flux https://journals.plos.org/ploso
| ne/article?id=10.1371/journal...
|
| >In contrast to the significant effects of blue light,
| increasing green light in increments from 0 to 30% had a
| relatively small effect on growth, leaf area and net
| assimilation at either low or high PPF. Surprisingly, growth
| of three of the seven species was not reduced by a treatment
| with 93% green light compared to the broad spectrum
| treatments.
|
| Seems like green light is not useful for all cases, but I
| would indeed like to know exactly why that's the case.
| jakedata wrote:
| It's possible that some green light improves aesthetics.
| TD-Linux wrote:
| The red content is intended to be supplied by a separate red
| LED. A red LED produces red much more efficiently than the
| phosphor on a white LED, so it saves power to leave red out
| entirely if you know it will be paired with red.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| This web page claims that the different frequencies of
| photosynthetically active light can cause different reactions
| in plants: https://www.voltlighting.com/grow/best-light-
| spectrum-plant-...
| ninefathom wrote:
| That, too. But it's also much easier to sell plants that look
| the right color to people perusing them. Ever see a
| commercial or resale garden center using fuchsia-tinted grow
| lights? No? That's because they're out of business.
| mediaman wrote:
| The plants look terrible when the light is on, for sure.
|
| But I know of plenty of commercial greenhouses that use
| them prior to shipping to retail.
| ninefathom wrote:
| That's assuming a wholesaler business that ships to
| retail. There are plenty of us out there who actually let
| people - even commercial customers - into our greenhouses
| in person. Until this development by Cree, all of our
| viable options for LED lighting were huge pains in the
| posterior (hence I'm still on fluorescent). This is much
| much simpler, and will definitely accelerate my own
| switch to LED.
|
| In a way, you might say that until now, LED grow lighting
| was only feasible on a very very large scale, or a very
| small scale, and the medium-sized local nurseries and
| greenhouses were just out of luck. Cree seems to have
| changed that.
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