Analysis of The Technical Needs of Plant Lighting Users

Types of Plant Lighting
 
At present, the types of plant lighting include an incandescent lamp, a halogen lamp, fluorescent lamp, high-pressure sodium lamp, and LED lamp. LED, with its advantages of high luminous efficiency, low heat, small size, and long life, has obvious advantages in the field of plant lighting. According to the data analysis reported, it is estimated that the size of LED growth lamp will account for 61% of the plant lamp market in 2020.

Current Situation And Development Trend of Led Grow Lights Market
 
At present, the plant lighting market is mainly concentrated in the Middle East, the United States, Japan, China, Canada, the Netherlands, Vietnam, Russia, South Korea, and other regions. Since 2013, the global LED plant lighting market has entered a period of rapid development. According to statistics, the global LED Grow Lights market in 2014 was $100 million, and the market in 2016 was $575 million, forecast to grow to $14.24billion by 2020, and the annual compound growth rate is over 30%. The global plant factory plant lamp market is developing rapidly, and the scale is predicted to be as high as 19120000㎡  by 2020.

 
The Application Field of Plant Lights
 
The field of plant lighting, as one of the fields of agricultural lighting, has developed rapidly in recent years. Light plays an important role in the growth and development of plants in two aspects: as energy, it participates in the photosynthesis of plants and promotes the accumulation of plant energy; and as a signal, it regulates the growth and development of plants, such as the growth of buds, flowers, and stems. From this perspective, plant lighting can be divided into growth lighting and signal lighting, while growth lighting can be divided into full artificial light growth and supplementary light from the use of artificial light. Signal lighting can also be divided into buds, flowering, colored lights and so on. From the field of application, the field of plant lighting mainly includes seedling (including tissue seedling and seed seedling), garden landscape, plant factory, greenhouse planting and so on.
 
User's Technical Requirements of Plant Lights
 
Plant lighting is a comprehensive and cross-disciplinary industry, and the growth of plants is also a result of multiple factors. The technical requirements of plant lighting users concern not only the lighting part but also other factors. The technical requirements of plant lighting users will be analyzed from two perspectives below.
 
1.Analyze user technical requirements from the perspective of the patent layout
 
According to statistics, the first five IPC technical categories of patents applied in the application field of LED plant lighting are shown in the figure, respectively
 
(1) f21y101/02: involving miniature light sources, such as light-emitting devices or lighting systems of light-emitting diodes;
 
(2) a01g9/20: use light to grow flowers, vegetables or rice in an enabling breeding ground;
 

(3) F21s2/00: non-portable lighting device or its system with modular structure, etc.;

(4) A01G7/04: electric or magnetic treatment of plants to promote their growth. From the perspective of patent layout, the improvement of the miniature light source, lighting system, planting scheme, structural modularization, intelligent device, and system silly are the trends of patented layout, which largely reflects the technical requirements and trends of users of plant lighting.

 
 
2.Analyze from the user's perspective
 
The acceptance of plant lighting users to the industry has greatly influenced the development of the industry. For users of plant lighting, the cost of investment and use is the key issue.
 
2.1The Cost of Led Grow Lamps
 
The cost of LED lamps is directly related to the user's investment cost. Although the energy saving and spectrum advantages of LED lamps are obvious, the price of LED lamps is higher than that of other plant lighting lamps. Take cannabis lamps, for example, the same 600w lamp, the high-pressure sodium lamp plant lamp set price is about 300USD, and the LED plant lamp is about 2000USD. Most customers are more willing to start with small power lamps.
 
In the cost of lamps and lanterns, besides the outer casing of the lamp, drive cost, the cost of the lamp bead is compared with the ordinary lamp bead, the price is higher. Take the 2,835 lamp beads of 0.2w for example, the price of the plant lamp beads is about 4-7 times that of the general lamp beads. Of course, the price trend of LED beads is decreasing year by year, and the price of materials such as substrate materials, phosphor powder, and epitaxial wafers is decreasing year by year. The cost of chip manufacturing is also decreasing with the increase of production efficiency (upgrade of 2-inch to 4-inch wafers). The cost of the beads will fall to about 40 percent in 2015 in 2020, according to a report by the chi research consultancy.
 
2.2 The Using cost of LED plant lamps
 
Power cost and power performance are the main concerns of every plant lamp user. Power performance refers to the ratio of power input to output per unit of consumption. The output here is to point to output and quality two respects.
 
2. 2. 1 Light
 
As one of the main factors affecting plant growth and development, light spectrum, light intensity, and photoperiod affect plant growth and development. The light effect is closely related to power performance.
 
(1) spectrum
 
Wavelength range of 300 ~ 800 nm radiation called plant physiological active radiation (physiologically active radiation), but UVB (280-320 nm) and UVc (220-280 nm) band for plant growth and development of the secondary metabolites (produce). On the wavelength type of plant lamp beads, Osram introduced 450nm, 660nm, 730nm, 617nm, 623nm and 6000k white lamp beads. EDIson launched 39-410nm, 415-435nm, 450-460nm, 520-535nm, 585-600nm, 620-630nm, 660nm and 725-745nm light beads. On the monochrome lamp bead, the physiological effective radiation wavelength of the plant is basically covered, plant lamp manufacturer produces different applicable spectrum by different lamp bead combination. However, lamp beads in the UV band, or on the basis of technological reasons, or on the basis of cost, have not been widely used in plant lighting products like other wavelength lamp beads.
 
Although the spectrum can be diversified by a monochromatic lamp bead array, or by chip excitation phosphors. However, different plant species, different stages (seedling growth, vegetative growth, reproductive growth, flowering induction), and different application scenarios have different spectra of requirements.
 
There are many kinds of plants for users of plant lighting, such as red quinoa, salad lettuce, diced vegetables, dragon fruit, passion fruit, strawberry, tomato, cantaloupe, rose, okra, dendrobium, clematis, tissue seedling, tobacco seedling, sweet potato seedling, okra, hemp, and succulent plants. Their recognition and differentiation of spectra are not necessarily professional, but they are primarily concerned with the data of planting effect. Some users are interested in plant lighting products that mimic the sun's rays and think the spectrum similar to the suns would be more widely applicable. This is the compromise made by customers to increase energy consumption when the diversity and precision of the spectrum fail to meet customer demands.
 
(2) Light Intensity
 
The effect of light intensity on plant growth has two points, the compensation point of light and the saturation point of light. For users, the saturation point of light is not necessarily the best light intensity in the production application, which needs to consider the growth rate of plants and balance the production cost. Different crops and different stages have different needs for light intensity. The user needs the plant lighting manufacturer to provide the best light intensity and the combination and suspension mode needed to achieve this light intensity, and most plant lighting manufacturers do not have the technical reference.
 
In light intensity, the demand for plant lamp as a signal is lower than that of growth lamp as energy. As a signal lamp, its optimum light intensity is much lower than that of growth lamp, and its action light intensity (PPFD) is at 3-30 mmol/m2. S.
 
(3) Luminous Effect
 
Luminous efficiency is the ability to convert electrical energy into luminous energy. The higher the light efficiency, the higher the power performance and the lower the power cost. The plant lighting user is concerned with the full lighting effect (units: pressure mol/J). As a plant lamp supplier, the lighting effect of the plant lamp should be improved by the design of the lamp. Red light (660nm) beads are available for up to 3. 17 moles/J, and blue light (450nm) at 2. 5 moles per J. And in the purple light band light pearl effect is low. Mixed color lamp bead is the highest luminous effect is 2. 5 moles per J.
 
(4) Use of Light
 
Plant lighting, which replaces sunlight, is fully controllable. The illumination time, intensity and spectrum of a day are controllable. How to improve power performance by controlling the way light is a problem that most users of plant lighting pay attention to. Total photosynthetic radiation (DLI) refers to the total amount of sunlight accumulated by plants in 24 hours per unit area (per square meter). Plant lighting users, especially plant factory users, pay more attention to the "saturation value" of total photosynthetic radiation of plants to avoid the waste of light energy and electricity.

 
 
2. 2. 2 System Scheme
 
The characteristics of high input and high production cost require the high efficiency of crop production in plant factories. Different from the traditional planting environment, the environmental factors of plant factories are fully controllable, which is also the basis of the efficient production of plant factories. At present, the industry mainly realizes the efficient production of plant factories from the intelligent management system, expert planting technology, and automatic operation platform.
 
Intelligent management systems, such as plant intelligent control technology based on Internet of things, plant plant plant monitoring system based on PLC, plant control system based on an embedded platform. Through these control systems, online detection, remote access, program update and networked intelligent control of plant factory temperature, humidity, light, co2 concentration, nutrient solution Ec, pH, Do and other elements can be realized.
 
Expert planting techniques. The plant factory is different from the traditional planting mode. No matter it is someone from other professional fields, or someone from traditional agriculture, investing or managing the plant factory, the expert planting technical requirements and guidance is essential. The growth and development of plants is the result of the interaction of wind, light, water, nutrients, gas, and bacteria. At present, there are research data on photo temperature coupling, photo temperature CO2 interaction and nutrient element coupling, while more interaction schemes are rarer. These systems are all designed on the basis of interaction of growth factors, but more planting data is needed to support the formation of export schemes. To save labor costs, automated operating systems are also the focus of the industry
 
Others
 
In addition, plant lighting users have corresponding technical requirements for the waterproof level, luminescence Angle, and heat dissipation system of lamps, lamp life, spectral effective life, and light decay.