{"id":40664,"date":"2015-07-28T10:47:54","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T10:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/?p=40664"},"modified":"2015-07-28T10:47:54","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T10:47:54","slug":"farms-of-the-future-forget-sun-and-soil-its-all-about-led","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.massarate.ma\/farms-of-the-future-forget-sun-and-soil-its-all-about-led.html","title":{"rendered":"Farms of the Future: Forget Sun and Soil, It’s All About LED"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For centuries, farmers have been dependent on weather, short growing seasons, fluctuating supply and demand cycles, and a host of environmental factors that make the farming business one of luck as much as agricultural acumen. Combined with the world’s growing population and the increasing scarcity of farmland, new strides in indoor LED farming are becoming less the stuff of science fiction and more of a real world necessity. Let’s take a look at how the world’s oldest industry is getting a radical 21st century update with a little help from light-emitting diodes.<\/p>\n
Philips recently opened its GrowWise City indoor farm in the Netherlands, a 2,500-square-foot indoor farming facility powered by LED lights. Images of these highly controlled gardens are surprisingly beautiful, as the vibrant green vegetables contrast with stainless steel racks and purple LED lights. This is not Dorothy’s farm in Kansas by any stretch of the imagination.<\/p>\n
As Philips’ 10,000 researchers experiment with creating “LED Light Growth Recipes,” the goal of providing farmers with a large scale produce infrastructure that requires no sunlight or soil is getting closer every day. While this all sounds pretty out there, consider the possibilities: plants grown in a controlled environment, effectively sealed from contaminants that frequently pervade crops from both the air and the ground, would be 100 percent organic and pesticide-free. The LED system is customizable, too, allowing settings for each individual plant to be controlled and adapted as needed. You can’t say that about Mother Nature. Currently Phillips is focusing on perfecting those light growth recipes for strawberries, leafy green veggies, and herbs, with potatoes and wheat in the pipeline.<\/p>\n