Leafy Greens in Vertical Farms

Raise the Bar

Tailored lighting solutions, delivering unrivalled performance for your leafy greens

What is it?

A customisable lighting platform adaptable in length, spectra, and performance to the unique requirements of your indoor farm.

How does it work?

Engineered with collaborative customisation at its core, the Align Platform offers unrivalled performance by enabling growers to tailor every aspect of their lighting solution.

What does this mean for my leafy greens?

A significant PPFD, intensity and spectral uniformity improvement, resulting in shortened crop cycles, accelerated plant growth, and improved nutritional qualities.

Uniformity Leadership

The Align Platform utilises custom extrusion manufacturing techniques, advanced LED, and optical technologies to ensure optimal photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) light-use efficiency and unmatched intensity uniformity, whilst requiring fewer light-bars vs the competition.

Industry Standard 1200mm LED Light-Bars

37% of Grow Area is +/- 10% of the 350µmol/m2/s PPFD Setpoint

Bloem Align Light-Bar Platform

100% of Grow Area is +/- 10% of the 350µmol/m2/s PPFD Setpoint

“Intensity uniformity is the consistency of total PAR light distributed over the growing area. This is typically measured at the crop canopy by the volume (%) of the grow area that falls within the specified tolerance of the PPFD setpoint.”

Spectrum Consistency

The Align Platform is engineered to be spectrally uniform and excel within low headspace (150mm), multi-layer environments. The PCB, LED & optical design ensures consistent distribution of the desired light recipe at the plant canopy with minimal deviation of the recipe’s wavelengths.

400-500 nm (Blue) Spectral Uniformity

500-600 nm (Green) Spectral Uniformity

600-700 nm (Red) Spectral Uniformity

“Spectral uniformity is the deviation in PAR wavelength bands over the growing area, measured at the crop canopy, compared to the light-recipe emitted from the fixture and the spectrum setpoints.”

Using Bloem’s Wand Platform

The Bloemteknik Wireless Adaptive Network Delivery (Wand) platform provides advanced dynamic control for single and multi-channel grow lights.

Blue Light
400 - 500 nm

Blue light is necessary to ensure healthy development of chloroplasts

Increases compactness, biomass, leaf thickness and protein synthesis in leafy greens

Regulates plant leaf expansion and shoot elongation

Green Light
500 - 600 nm

Green wavelengths stimulate photosynthesis below the primary canopy leaf layers

Increases leaf area in seedlings, rooting and early growth

Improved human visual quality for detecting pests, pathogens, and nutrient deficiencies

Red Light
600 - 700 nm

Increases leaf area, length, stretch and height

Promotes biomass accumulation, plant growth, and photosynthesis

Increases chlorophyll and carbohydrate accumulation

Far Red Light
700 - 800 nm

High R/FR ratios can increase the photosynthetic rate and promote plant growth

High R/FR increases leaf area, length, stretch, height and overall plant biomass

Low R/FR ratios can reduce plant pigmentation and compactness

Crop Type

Seedlings (New)

Seedlings (Mature)

Swiss Chard

Rocket

Spinach

Kale

Thyme

Dill

Lettuce

Mint

Chives

Oregano

Coriander

Bok Choy

Parsley

Rosemary

Sage

Basil

Crop Stage

Propagation

Vegetative Growth

DLI (mol/m²/day)

4-6

6-16

12-18

12-22

12-20

10-22

12-24

12-22

14-24

8-16

8-20

15-30

PPFD (µmol/m²/s)

100-200

200-350

275-325

250-350

300-350

325-375

200-400

225-400

250-400

300-400

325-425

350-425

300-450

300-500

Photoperiod (Hours)

6-8

10-14

12-16

14-18

12-16

10-14

12-16

14-18

8-12

12-16

6-10

8-12

14-18

The quantity of photosynthetic active radiation (400 – 700nm) required is defined by the Daily Light Integral (DLI). DLI refers to the quantity of PAR the plant is exposed to within a single day (24-hour period). Each plant, including leafy greens, have a minimum and maximum DLI to facilitate growth and this varies by development stage and plant variety.

Typically, vegetative growth for leafy greens has a recommended DLI range of 12-20 mol/m²/day. The desired photosynthetic active radiation density (PPFD) can be calculated from the DLI target and exposure duration (photoperiod). For example, using a photoperiod of 16 hours provides the following formulae:

12 mol/m²/day / 16 hours / 60 minutes / 60 seconds = 208 µmol/m²/s minimum PPFD

20 mol/m²/day / 16 hours / 60 minutes / 60 seconds = 347 µmol/m²/s maximum PPFD

Increasing the photoperiod decreases the PPFD requirement to achieve a similar DLI (mol/m²/day) and the reverse can be said for decreasing the photoperiod and increasing the PPFD.

“Typically, vegetative growth for leafy greens has a recommended DLI range of 12-20 mol/m²/day.”

Get the Full Story

To see the complete list of light wavelength effects on leafy greens, PPFD & photoperiods for more leafy green crop species and much more please download our leafy greens cultivation lighting application guide.

↓ Download

Customer reference

Soli Organic, USA

Re-defining the Indoor Farm Blueprint with the Launch of the San Antonio Facility

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