In recent years, urban farming has seen major growth. This is partly due to environmental concerns and partly due to advances in urban farming technology which has made the practice incredibly accessible and affordable.
This trend has been largely the result of the introduction of LED lighting technology to urban farms. LED technology not only helps crops grow faster and healthier, but it also reduces costs and increases energy efficiency. LED technologies are a cornerstone of urban farming, and in this article, we’ll go over everything you need to know!
Why Is LED Lighting Perfect for Urban Agriculture?
LED lighting provides a number of key advantages over its traditional counterparts. Whether you are considering indoor farming or looking to expand your commercial farming to urban areas, you need to understand the popularity of LED lighting and the benefits it provides.:
#1 Promotes Plant Growth
Thanks to leaps in lighting technology, LED lighting can mimic the intensity and wavelength of natural sunlight from various regions and environments, promoting photosynthesis and plant growth.
The yields of urban farms are often larger and of higher quality when compared to traditional farming methods. Control over the environment, including lighting and temperature, allows farmers to determine and influence the plants’ life cycle and cultivation window, creating more efficient farming processes and giving urban farmers more freedom.
#2 Enables Vertical Farming
Unlike direct sunlight, you have complete control over the arrangement and placement of LED lights on your farm. This means that you can set up LED lights to enable non-traditional farming approaches like vertical farming, which makes efficient use of the vertical space available to your farm.
Vertical farming is more space-efficient and cost-effective, enabling the optimum growth of many unique plants that require height. It enables farmers to grow more and experience higher yields, and it has become the norm in indoor agriculture. All these benefits are made possible thanks to effective LED technologies!
#3 Far More Efficient than Traditional Lighting Methods
Though urban farming has become popular recently, the practice of growing food in urban areas isn’t a recent invention. It has a long history that dates back to ancient civilizations. Before the widespread adoption of LED technologies, urban farms relied on traditional lighting to power their farms and promote plant growth.
Sadly, traditional lighting methods have a multitude of glaring disadvantages that have limited the success of urban farming for decades:
- For optimal plant growth, sufficient lighting must be available throughout the day, and when provided using traditional lighting methods, this consumes significant energy, increasing the costs for both the farmer and the consumer.
- Traditional lighting methods are not environmentally friendly. Not only do they release more greenhouse gases due to their lower energy efficiency, but their higher failure rates and production processes result in higher raw material consumption and more mining when compared to LED lighting.
- Traditional lighting methods can’t produce the vast color spectrum LED lighting is capable of LED blue light, for example, has been widely credited with higher yields in leaf-green food production in recent years. Replicating this success with traditional lighting fixtures isn’t possible.
#4 Creates Suitable Environments for Fragile and Exotic Plants
LED grow lights not only provide exceptional general lighting for the most common fruits and vegetables, but they also provide highly specific grow lighting for unique, fragile, and exotic plants that don’t usually grow in the urban farm’s natural environment.
This helps urban farmers diversify their produce, which is highly important to answer market demands, prevent the spread of diseases that affect a single genome, and insulate from commercial and ecological failures that might affect the yields of one produce in particular.
How to Implement LED Lighting on Urban Farms? 4 Key Tips
Getting the lighting right in your urban farm is one of the keys to success. The LED lighting you choose is at the heart of your indoor farms. It determines how much energy your farm consumes, how well your plants grow, how much maintenance your farm needs, and more. Selecting the right LED lighting is critical if you want a lush farm with high yields and healthy plants. This is why we’ve compiled a number of tips to help you along your journey
#1 Source Your LED Lighting from a Reputable Supplier
This is why you need to select your LED light fixtures from a reputable supplier that can guarantee the quality of the LED lights they provide and can supply your farm with LED grow lights that meet your exact specifications. Here at Marc LED, we directly work with farmers to provide the highest-quality horticultural lighting that uses cutting-edge technology to meet the demands of lighting for urban farms!
#2 Carefully Research the Lighting Demands of the Plants You Want to Grow
Though almost all modern urban farms use either primary or supplemental LED lighting, it doesn’t mean they all use the same type of lighting fixtures. Some use specific red and blue light while others use yellow light. The possibilities are endless, and there are hundreds of thousands of different types of LED grow lights that all fill different niches when it comes to urban farming.
Before installing the light fixtures, carefully consider the types of plants you want to grow on the farm and thoroughly research their needs and their growth cycles. The growing space needs to be tailored to the plants, and this includes the types of LED light you install.
#3 Higher Energy Efficiency Is Paramount
One of the largest costs associated with urban farming is the amount of energy it consumes. It directly impacts how viable your farm is, what are your profit margins, and whether you can afford to grow certain crops or not.
Before choosing lighting fixtures for your farm, check their specifications, calculate how much energy they’ll realistically consume, and then determine the cost of lighting based on local prices!
#4 Purchasing and Configuring Smart LED Lighting
If you’ve researched LED lighting for any length of time, you’ve likely heard of smart lighting, which has become commonplace in homes and offices, but, lesser known, is its applications in vertical farms and indoor farming in general.
Smart LED lighting allows you to precisely control the environment your plants grow in, both across your entire farm and individually for each plant. It allows you to set timers for each section of your time, install sensors so your LED lighting reacts to changes in humidity and temperatures and far more! Smart lighting is def worth considering when designing your indoor farm!
LED for Indoor Farming FAQ
Are LED Lighting Affordable for a Vertical Farm?
Installing LED fixtures is one of the most affordable ways to provide continuous and reliable lighting in urban farming. Not only do LED fixtures cost less upfront, but they also consume less energy and require less maintenance, making them an excellent choice for farmers who are looking to get into indoor farming!
What Type of Lighting Does Indoor Farming Use?
In the past, indoor farming relied on the use of traditional lighting like fluorescent lighting. With the advent of LED lighting, most existing and new urban farms started adopting LED lighting due to its many advantages, which include reduced costs and improved yields!