In January 2020 the first LED lamps in a tomato greenhouse in the south of Kazakhstan were switched on. It was just the start of a bigger investment, as these are just the lamps for the 5,000 square meter first phase of the greenhouse. The complete greenhouse complex is 110,000 square meters. The other parts of the greenhouse where Merlice tomatoes are grown, are to be equipped with LEDs this year. All lamps were and are to be delivered by Plantalux, a Polish horticulture LED lamps producer.
"Initially the greenhouse was supposed to hang 1000W HPS lamps, which were already bought but the investor had an idea to install HPS on one climate zone and LED on another", Rafał Lachowski of Plantalux explains. "Such arrangement will provide him a precise answer which lighting technology is more profitable in short and long term. After calculation provided by us, the ROI (Return On Investment) turned out promising - within only 2 years the project will repay itself only from savings on electricity bills."
Research
Meanwhile Plantalux together with Warsaw University on Life Science in Warsaw, Poland has been comparing top LED lighting versus top LED lighting plus inter row LED lighting on Tomimaru Muchoo tomatoes in a research greenhouse. "In the first year, we expect to have a same yield result as under 1000W HPS lamps and improved quality. In the coming years we will be aiming to get approximately 5% bigger yield while keeping high level quality."
For more information:
Plantalux
plantalux.pl