A newly opened indoor farm in Japan has been built with LEDs that emit light at wavelengths optimal for plant growth.
It's the work of plant physiologist Shigeharu Shimamura, who housed the farm inside a former Sony semiconductor factory. It's 2,300 square metres, making it the world's largest LED-illuminated indoor farm, and is already producing 10,000 heads of lettuce per day.
The LED lamps allow Shimamura to adjust the day-night cycle for the plants, allowing them to photosynthesise during the day and respire at night. Discarded produce is cut from 50 percent of the harvest on a conventional farm to ten percent, and the lettuces grow two and a half time faster. Most impressively, stringent climate control means that water usage is just one percent of the amount needed by outdoor fields.
The lights were built by GE, which approached Shimamura in 2011 with the concept. Testing began in 2012, and the final design was laid out in March 2013. During this process it was necessary to redesign the lights to be thinner, more uniform and tolerate the humid conditions inside the factory. "I knew how to grow good vegetables biologically and I wanted to integrate that knowledge with hardware to make things happen,"
Shimamura said, adding that similar farms are planned for Hong Kong and Russia's Far East. "Finally, we are about to start the real agricultural industrialisation."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
