NASA research into LED grow lights
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This article on Space.com discusses the NASA research into growing vegetables with LED grow lights like the FlowerForcer™:
Lettuce and LEDs: Shedding New Light On Space Farming
By Todd Halvorson
In recent years, dramatic improvements in lighting technology have provided NASA and its support contractors with new means to develop low-power space-farming systems that will last the life of a building -- or a greenhouse on the surface of Mars.
Working in plant growth chambers the size of walk-in refrigerators, Goins and other plant physiologists here are experimenting with blue and red Light Emitting Diodes, or LEDs, to grow salad plants such as lettuce and radishes.
Similar to devices now used to manufacture advanced traffic lights, the LEDs enable researchers to eliminate other wavelengths found within normal white light, thus reducing the amount of energy required to power the plant growth lamps.
The LEDs generate less heat, and while leaves take on a black hue due to the lack of green light to reflect, the plants grow normally and taste the same as those raised in white light.
"What we've found basically is that we are able to limit the amount of color we give to the plants and still have them grow as well as with white light," Goins said.
~ Read the rest at http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/light_farming_010926.html
