New LED strategies could make vertical farming more productive, less costly Urban Ag News [Video]

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University researchers have designed two simple LED lighting strategies to increase yield and reduce energy costs for the vertical farming sector of indoor agriculture.

The close-canopy and focused-lighting strategies developed by PhD candidate Fatemeh Sheibani and professor Cary Mitchell, both in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture in Purdue’s College of Agriculture, capitalize on LED lighting’s special properties.

“One is that they are relatively cool at the emitting surface, in contrast with other lighting choices,” Sheibani said. Thus, the lighting system works closer to plants without scorching them. LEDs are also current driven, unlike many energy-intensive, voltage-driven lighting sources.

Their work is part of a project called OptimIA (Optimizing Indoor Agriculture). The project, led by Michigan State University, includes collaborators at Purdue, University of Arizona and Ohio State University. OptimIA is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Research Initiative.

Fatemeh Sheibani, a PhD candidate in horticulture and landscape architecture, examines lettuce plants in …