Impact of grow lights on crop performance under simulated growing environment

Abstract

The study entitled “Impact of grow lights on plant growth in vertical farming under simulated growing environment” was undertaken with the objective to develop a vertical farming structure with artificial lighting using grow lights suitable for cultivation in shaded areas. For analyzing the impact of grow lights on plant growth, artificial lighting sources such as LEDs and fluorescent lamps were provided in the structure and biometric observations were made under 9 treatments with different combination of light (red, blue and red-blue combination) and rooting media (vermiculite, perlite, sand and coir peat). Two studies were conducted, one under complete dark condition with LED as the only lighting source with coriander plants (Co1 variety) and other under shaded condition supplemented with LED and fluorescent light with amaranthus plants (Kannara local). The overall growth of coriander and amaranthus was noted over a period of 15 and 30 days respectively. Results of the first study revealed that in the case of coriander, different treatments have no significant effect on number of leaves produced but has significant effect on the plant height and the maximum plant height was obtained under treatments T 7 (red-blue combination of light and vermiculite-perlite-sand medium) and T 8 (red- blue combination of light and vermiculite-perlite medium). Results of the second study with amaranthus revealed that there is significant correlation between plant growth and applied light condition. Plants under T 7 and T 8 showed maximum height and number of leaves than the plants under remaining treatments. In both studies plants showed a positive response to artificially supplied grow lights especially to red-blue combination. The use of vermiculite, perlite mixture enhanced the plant growth in both cases as it provides a better root zone environment with good aeration and fair amount of water holding capacity along with good drainability. Hence from the study it can be concluded that direct sunlight exposure is not at all necessary for plants, as the photosynthesis and plant growth depends only on the PAR range. Providing PAR in the form of artificial light with sufficient luminance can support plant growth and vertical farming structure with grow light under controlled growing environment can make urban indoor farming a great success