Light recipes enable sky high vitamins and a longer shelf life in leafy greens – Presented by Celine Nicole, Philips Lighting, at the Vertical Farming Conference, on Jun 27, 2018, at Brightlands Campus, Villa Flora, Venlo, The Netherlands. Read the interview
Vertical farming is a technology that controls climate, water, nutrients and light to grow vegetables and soft fruits in a closed environment. This allows them to grow pesticide free and without other contaminants.
Philips Lighting Research investigated how to influence the post-harvest quality of leafy greens by controlling the pre-harvest growth conditions while keeping a high production rate. Several standard LED lighting recipes (red/blue or red/white either with or without far red) are in use in commercial vertical farms.
In this research we used baby leaf spinach and rocket from various cultivars all grown in a vertical farm research facility at Philips Lighting GrowWise Center in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. We used the standard red white LED light recipe as control, while we changed the spectrum with higher blue and/or higher far-red or applied few days of continuous light stimulation just before the harvest (pre-harvest). Quality at harvest and quality loss during postharvest storage was monitored. We observed that light quality affects shelf life of baby leaf spinach and rocket by several days. Continue reading “Light recipes enable sky high vitamins and a longer shelf life in leafy greens – Presented by Celine Nicole, Philips Lighting”