NASHVILLE, Tenn.—The NLB held a panel discussion as part of the NLB Annual Lighting Forum. The topic of this discussion was about horticultural lighting and relationship plants have with light. The discussion was moderated by Randy Reid, Executive Director of the NLB, and featured the following experts:
- John Arthur Wilson, Lighting Design Lab
- Corrine Wilder, Fluence Bioengineering
- Leora Radetsky, Designlights Consortium
The discussion started off with the question of whether or not plants have feelings? The experts detailed their differing perspectives and opinions on what counts as feelings, but they all agreed that as living organisms, plants do feel and react to the environment around them. This leads further into the discussion of why horticultural lighting is important and needs to be focused on as its own category in lighting in order to provide the best solutions for cultivators.
The discussion turned to the challenges that horticultural lighting face. Leora Radetsky believes the lack of objective information that details how a lighting product performs is the big challenge. Lacking this information makes it difficult for cultivators to know the best solution for the specific plants they are trying to cultivate and leads to inefficiency in general. Corrine Wilder provided a response in the same vein, bringing up the lack of benchmarks that provide information on what levels of light that work best for different crops and how that can be implemented in product design and function. The main takeaway is that objective data is lacking in horticultural lighting and is necessary to obtain the best results.
The benefits of LED lighting were brought up in the discussion. Benefits include the ability to fine-tune the spectrum of light to a level that is ideal for the plant that is being grown and the ability to use UV light to combat pests in place of chemical pesticides, among others. The abundance of benefits highlights the importance of LED lighting as direct sources of light for plants.
Watch and listen to the full panel discussion here: https://youtu.be/1fgY-cBJTRo
Tagged with horticulture, lightED, NLB