Smart LED grow lights support year-round pepper production

Added on 09 May 2022

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Smart LED grow lights support year-round pepper production

CANADA, Ontario- Innovative new lighting technology will let Ontario vegetable greenhouses grow peppers all year long. That's the result of a project funded through the Greenhouse Competitiveness and Innovation Initiative (GCII), which also found that the smart LED grow lights system results in higher yields, better quality and more uniform crops.

Expanding production to 12 months of the year in Ontario, North America's largest greenhouse vegetable-growing region, helps boost the competitiveness of the greenhouse vegetable sector and strengthen domestic food security by increasing the availability of locally grown vegetables.

Conventional greenhouse lighting systems rely on High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lighting that doesn't work well on pepper crops, making year-round production expensive and challenging. To work on the project, Allegro Acres formed a consortium with smart LED grow lights solution company Sollum Technologies in Montreal and teamed up with the Harrow Research and Development Centre, the University of Windsor, Golden Jem Produce and Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers.

"LEDs are up to 40% more efficient, longer-lasting and more sustainable over traditional lighting - and will let us eliminate night sky light pollution while maintaining an optimal environment for our crop," explains Gene Ingratta of Allegro Acres Inc., host greenhouse of the project trials. "In the past, though, LED technology has been very expensive and not readily available, so we were keen to try the Sollum system."