Leds en agricultura

Case study GreenQ/Improvement Centre
Location Philips Lighting Bleiswijk, the Netherlands Philips GreenPower LED interlighting

“The tests show that the LEDs are ready for the market.”Background

GreenQ Improvement Centre is a modern greenhouse complex in which new cultivation concepts and technical installations from all over the world are developed, tested and demonstrated. Theresults contribute to sustainable and profitable horticulture worldwide. GreenQ’s Improvement Centre conducts trials and concept tests on a practical scale and has previously carried out tests involving thecultivation of tomatoes with the combination of LED lighting and SON-T lamps.

The challenge

the objective of the cultivation was to harvest 79 kilos of tomatoes per m2 with an energy reductionof 30 percent. The setup is comparable to those used by tomato growers that use lighting in practice. The Improvement Centre uses SON-T lamps and LED interlighting modules in two strings. The lightingis combined with climate technologies from The New Cultivation in the fields of dehumidification and screening strategy. A larger row spacing is also used. The purpose of this is to get more light tothe crop and eliminate the shading effect. The number of plants per m2 is the same as in practice. During the tests the Improvement Centre uses the coarse vine tomato Komeet.

Last year it wasdemonstrated at the Improvement Centre that in a greenhouse in which LEDs are used as interlighting the added light (30-45%) is converted more efficiently into tomato by the plant. This is in comparisonwith the testing area, where the same quantity of light was added with conventional SON-T lamps. This year

The solution

This year the test again shows that LED lighting in the crop has a positiveeffect on fruit weight and total production. The energy saving achieved during the winter

GreenQ Improvement Centre achieving impressive results with interlighting for tomatoes
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