Research trial aims to improve strawberry production with supplemental light
Strawberry season is in full swing, but that doesn’t mean you can’t end up with a bad batch. Luckily, research is underway to learn more about using LED lighting to produce consistent, high-yielding strawberry plants—during strawberry season and beyond.
Fluence by OSRAM has partnered with Delphy Improvement Centre in Bleiswijk, the Netherlands, to conduct the research, focusing on how the company’s LED lighting solutions impact strawberry production in greenhouses.
Traditionally grown in outdoor fields, strawberries are temperature-sensitive crops, restricting growers in the northern hemisphere to limited seasonal production cycles. The research team aims to examine best practices for efficiently growing strawberries in a controlled environment by introducing supplemental lighting techniques that growers can replicate year-round.
According to Delphy, greenhouse growers have shown increasing interest in switching from legacy systems such as high-pressure sodium lighting to LED fixtures to analyze how various light spectra affect crop quality and consistency. “Growers are searching for optimized lighting strategies and want to understand how their plants will react to artificial light,” says Lisanne Helmus, manager of research in greenhouse horticulture at Delphy. “We’re inspired to answer their questions and discover new developments in lighting technology that will impact the entire cultivation system.”
The trial results are expected to be published later this year—perhaps paving the way for fewer of those less-than-desirable cartons on our shelves, no matter the season.