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UV LED will play more and more important role in agriculture for indoor applications

29-04-2021
The UV LED market has grown five times in the past decade and is estimated to grow up to at least $1 billion by 2025. The new booming market for new applications i agriculture. At proper frequency and dose, UV light can increase the output of active substances from medical and traditional plants while a healthy growing environment is still maintained.

With more and more applications in indoor and urban farming, UV light has been proven to increase the producion of active subsances in medical plants, such as antioxidant benefits of numerous plants or THC levels in cannabis. As the cost of UV LEDs keeps dropping day by day, targeted UV are improved to combined into the growing process with the right wavelengths, the right dosage and at the right time in the life cycle of specific plant species. But, UV LEDs will still be needed to be combined with the appropriate lens that achieve transmission of UV light without degration or destroy of the lens and UV LED itself.

Further tests on UV LEDs proves that it is possible to bring the additional benefits of ultraviolet light, particularly UV-A and UV-B, to the indoor grow process in a very targeted way. Researchers found that if without UV light, certain plant breeds may develop callus-like intumescence growth on leaves and shoot tissues . 
UV LED are widely used indoor for agriculture
UV light can also help keep a healthy growing environment by reducing mold, mildew, and certain plant pests - all of which need different solutions to chemicals due to increasing fungicidal resistance. The UV-absorbing compounds produced by plants to protect them from receiving too much UV radiation can  also defend plants against infection, injury, and certain plant pests. 

One major threat to indoor growers is powdery mildew. However, UV light has been proven to greatly reduce mildew in plants ranging from grapes, rose plants, cucumber, rosemary and strawberries. Researchers have successfully reduced the powdery mildew by 90-99% using proper doses of UV-B. 

UV-B light has also been proven effective to kill survivorship mites, pests that have been known to destroy entire crops. Some scientific tests have proven that less than 6% of larvae exposed to UV-B doses survived by the second day, and all larvae died by the 3rd day of their test. 

A third major threat is Botrytis cinerea, a type of gray mold or often called gray rot that can eat about 200 different species, typically with fruits or flowers, including strawberries, grapes, and cannabis. This pest is typically brought in from outdoors and then spread into an indoor grow room via air or by shoes and clothing. Relevant studies have shown that Botrytis cinerea spores are most killed by using UV-C irradiation. 

More and more evidences have proven that UV light can protect crops from mould,mildew and other plant pests while it can improve medicinal benefits of plants greatly. The UV LED market will see more and more booming applications in agriculture.
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