The new development here seems to be that these are white LEDs that can be specced in terms of blue/green ratio, rather than metrics based around human vision (color temperature, tint, and color rendering index).
Cree and other manufacturers have been offering horticulture-specific LEDs for some time, both red/blue and red/blue-weighted white like these. Here are some of their competitors:
While these might be new to Cree’s offerings, LED grow lights have been widely available for a few years now.
They’re even used in “vertical farms” to grow herbs (other than cannabis) hydroponically indoors, exclusively in artificial light, with very little human intervention:
Pick the sci-fi scenario of choice here, the tech exists and is economically viable, at least for high value crops that place a very high premium on freshness.
They are new to Cree, who is a more mainstream manufacturer.
The growlights that power the vertical farms (which are, let's be honest, mostly weed farms) come from vendors (e.g. Fluence) that are more specialized, and therefore are fairly expensive. About $1500 per 4x4 foot grow area, last prices I saw.
I dunno if this will ever be economically feasible outside of high-value crops. A Spyder rig from Fluence draws about 630W. But yep, it is at least a step forward, and way better than the weird fluorescent/MH/HID options.
Iirc chlorophyll has 2 very distinct absorption peaks [1] so it should be possible to design lights that target those frequencies. But knowing how LEDs work and the hacks with wavelength adjustment we use with phosphorus and others I’m sure it’s not easy.
It's really complicated, because plants also use other bands of color for decisionmaking (e.g.: am I being shaded out by another plant? Am I tall enough? What time of year is it? Should I make flowers? etc). Growers and light manufacturers have found that adding some infrared and other frequencies help, even though they don't contribute substantially to energy absorption.
Also, there are multiple chlorophyll molecules, with slightly different spectra. Lots of fun stuff in this field.
Cree acknowledges this in the link, listing "Reduce complicated spectral analysis" as a feature, implying its just an easier way to achieve what is already done with multiple LEDs working together.
I mix 6000K/6500K (daylight) LED strips with 2700K (warm white) ones and plants seem very happy about it and it is OK for humans, too.
In fact I previously used only 6000K LED strips (in an insulated box so no other light at all) on cycad and other seeds and got very healthy plants.
I think the key for commercial applications like vertical farms is to optimise energy use by trying not to waste electricity on wavelengths that won't do much to boost production.
Anybody in horticulture or botany knows what a BFD this is. Anybody else... it's major.
Those of you wondering about the green spectrum, try running a commercial greenhouse with fuchsia-tinted lighting. You'll have a paradise of lush, happy plants that never go anywhere (i.e. they won't sell).
Cree, Nichia, Osram, and Samsung were already selling horticulture-optimized white LEDs. What seems to be new here is a choice between three options for blue/green ratio.
„By maximizing green content and minimizing red content versus standard lighting LEDs, this LED color enables significant enhancements to luminaire cost and performance.“
I thought plants look green because thats what they reflect? Meaning that the other wavelengths are absorbed for photosynthesis.
The red content is intended to be supplied by a separate red LED. A red LED produces red much more efficiently than the phosphor on a white LED, so it saves power to leave red out entirely if you know it will be paired with red.
Yeah that seems odd to me. Chlorophyll largely doesn't do anything with 500-600nm wavelengths, and that's where this LED outputs a lot of energy. If this was a bulb that could switch between red and green that might be useful for dealing with day/night cycles for plants, but this LED seems like it just outputs more green light than normal?
I bought some grow lights last year. Monios. Lightweight. Hang 4' strip on string. Miracle of economic design. A finely tuned spectrum. Blazing fuchsia. Like aliens are landing. Plants like em.
I think it is a pretty cool fact that because of the ability to use LED lights in this manner where they emit only the ranges of light wavelengths that are beneficial to plants, you can actually capture sunlight with solar panels. Convert that light to electricity. Then re-emit that electricity as light through these narrow range LEDs as well as store it and emit it over longer periods of time. You actually end up with more plant growth than would be possible if the plants were directly in the sun.
>The “farm” produces four harvests per year. With every harvest, enough wheat is grown to make one loaf of bread (580 grams), which has a cost of at least 345 euros.
>Calculated at a yield of 175 kilowatt-hours per square meter of solar panel per year, the indoor cultivation of 1 m2 of wheat requires 20 m2 of solar panels.
> I'd love to find out how they managed to stay on top.
Me too.
"In May 2019, [Cree] sold its Lighting Products division to Ideal Industries... In March 2021, the company sold its LED Business to SMART Global Holdings for up to $300 million... In October 2021, the company changed its name to Wolfspeed."[1]
I'm pretty confused by this announcement. How is "Cree" doing anything, when their name changed to Wolfspeed and they no longer have a lighting products or LED business? What gives?
Finally. People have been using Cree CXB3590 3000k CRI90 for flowering, 5000k CRI90 for veg for top tier grow rigs for a while now, nice for Cree to recognize that.
Also, they quote "up to 3.25 PPF/watt", which is kind of unheard of. That'd make it the most efficient product on the market by a rather large margin. The highest commercially produced finished products are only hitting between 2.75 and 3.0. Presumably, they're not taking into account efficiency loss from the power supply itself (which would put it closer to 3.0 in reality given your typical Meanwell HLG series PSU that virtually everyone uses).
Digi-Key stocks CREE stuff, looks like they even have this product [1]. Obviously you need to roll your own board, or hand solder/wire them but that wouldn’t be too difficult.
I have yet to see a horticultural LED that cannot be bought by regular people. The indoor grow market, especially for cannabis, is humongous. If you can buy them in 10,000 piece lots as a business, they will have no problem offloading them to lower level consumers for a decent markup. Ive made a lot of money myself sticking bare LEDs to chunks of extruded aluminum heatsink and reselling them to growers, and even that makes me feel like im ripping them off because it is so dead simple to do yourself.
Cree is a part supplier to loads of manufacturers of commercial products. You can add Cree as a search term when looking for high quality LED lighting (and you'll get lots of knockoffs depending on where you're looking).
Digikey, Mouser, etc, all carry Cree parts. Rapidled.com also carries all the important parts used for DIY grow lamps, and probably will end up carrying them when they get released.
Im surprised by the number of people here that didn't know Cree has been making horticultural lights for years or know that there are multiple other companies making high performance horticultural lights for many years. I was building grow panels and lighting setups for cannabis years ago to get people off from using shitty blurple LEDS or shitty sodium bulbs or florescent bulbs and whatever other super inefficient garbage that people have been buying.
I find it incredibly sad so many companies are scamming people selling 20+ year old lighting tech for plant growth. Oh sure they save 20% on initial setup costs, only to pay multiple times more than that "savings" in energy costs the first year alone.
Cree hasn't sold one tuned just for agriculture. Instead, people have been using two specific CRI90 variants of the CXB3590, which are quite generic (but the highest PPF/watt on the market until these new ones).
After over a decade of me griping at them to get it done.
They're late to the game and adjusted color range and adjustable color temp lighting has been done for over half a decade.
And Cree doesnt even manufacture their own stuff. You cant guarantee quality control, as I recently learned with their XHP35 series. Different color temps come from different manufacturers and the difference in quality of the top cover is drastic. One set, just touching the top cover causes the silicone to shear away, the other, you can rub and bump, nothing happens to the silicone.
Question for anyone. I tried researching grow lights and I found mixed information regarding UV emissions. It seemed like maybe some or all grow lights emit UV based on some sources, and then other sources don't mention it at all.
Ideally, it would be nice to have a grow light that doesn't emit UV so I don't have to worry about eye protection and could have the light in common spaces. This is just for 'normal' house plants during winter, not for growing anything for consumption.
LED growlights have been commonly available for years. I was using them a decade ago for horticulture. I don't see how an LED company could even NOT be making them. The cannabis industry alone is huge. Seems like Cree is very behind the 8ball in this space if they are just now entering the market.
I don't actually know anyone who bothers growing cannabis with their setups. I see it online, but mostly I see people who just like growing flowers, herbs, cucumbers, lettuce, etc.
At the industrial scale I know cannabis is a significant driver of light sales, but I suspect growing food is a huge driver as well.
[+] [-] Zak|3 years ago|reply
Cree and other manufacturers have been offering horticulture-specific LEDs for some time, both red/blue and red/blue-weighted white like these. Here are some of their competitors:
Samsung: https://www.samsung.com/led/lighting/applications/horticultu...
Osram: https://www.osram.com/os/applications/horticulture-lighting/...
Nichia: https://led-ld.nichia.co.jp/en/product/lighting_hortisolis.h...
[+] [-] nomel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rgmerk|3 years ago|reply
They’re even used in “vertical farms” to grow herbs (other than cannabis) hydroponically indoors, exclusively in artificial light, with very little human intervention:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/10/ocado-inves...
Pick the sci-fi scenario of choice here, the tech exists and is economically viable, at least for high value crops that place a very high premium on freshness.
[+] [-] deltarholamda|3 years ago|reply
The growlights that power the vertical farms (which are, let's be honest, mostly weed farms) come from vendors (e.g. Fluence) that are more specialized, and therefore are fairly expensive. About $1500 per 4x4 foot grow area, last prices I saw.
I dunno if this will ever be economically feasible outside of high-value crops. A Spyder rig from Fluence draws about 630W. But yep, it is at least a step forward, and way better than the weird fluorescent/MH/HID options.
[+] [-] foobarian|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Chloroph...
[+] [-] Centigonal|3 years ago|reply
Also, there are multiple chlorophyll molecules, with slightly different spectra. Lots of fun stuff in this field.
[+] [-] tiagod|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|3 years ago|reply
In fact I previously used only 6000K LED strips (in an insulated box so no other light at all) on cycad and other seeds and got very healthy plants.
I think the key for commercial applications like vertical farms is to optimise energy use by trying not to waste electricity on wavelengths that won't do much to boost production.
[+] [-] kylehotchkiss|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ninefathom|3 years ago|reply
About. F*king. Time.
Anybody in horticulture or botany knows what a BFD this is. Anybody else... it's major.
Those of you wondering about the green spectrum, try running a commercial greenhouse with fuchsia-tinted lighting. You'll have a paradise of lush, happy plants that never go anywhere (i.e. they won't sell).
[+] [-] Zak|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tpmx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnJamesRambo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrBuddyCasino|3 years ago|reply
I thought plants look green because thats what they reflect? Meaning that the other wavelengths are absorbed for photosynthesis.
[+] [-] TD-Linux|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reportingsjr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] genocidicbunny|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etrautmann|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swayvil|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agentwiggles|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjeaff|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imtringued|3 years ago|reply
>The “farm” produces four harvests per year. With every harvest, enough wheat is grown to make one loaf of bread (580 grams), which has a cost of at least 345 euros.
>Calculated at a yield of 175 kilowatt-hours per square meter of solar panel per year, the indoor cultivation of 1 m2 of wheat requires 20 m2 of solar panels.
[+] [-] 323|3 years ago|reply
There is no way to produce enough solar panels to power that.
[+] [-] ozcap|3 years ago|reply
Plants benefit more from the intensity of light rather than a slightly preferable spectrum.
[+] [-] FounderBurr|3 years ago|reply
I’d love to find out how they manage that and stay on top.
[+] [-] Maursault|3 years ago|reply
Me too.
"In May 2019, [Cree] sold its Lighting Products division to Ideal Industries... In March 2021, the company sold its LED Business to SMART Global Holdings for up to $300 million... In October 2021, the company changed its name to Wolfspeed."[1]
I'm pretty confused by this announcement. How is "Cree" doing anything, when their name changed to Wolfspeed and they no longer have a lighting products or LED business? What gives?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfspeed
[+] [-] DiabloD3|3 years ago|reply
Also, they quote "up to 3.25 PPF/watt", which is kind of unheard of. That'd make it the most efficient product on the market by a rather large margin. The highest commercially produced finished products are only hitting between 2.75 and 3.0. Presumably, they're not taking into account efficiency loss from the power supply itself (which would put it closer to 3.0 in reality given your typical Meanwell HLG series PSU that virtually everyone uses).
[+] [-] quirkot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lloydatkinson|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] genmud|3 years ago|reply
1 - https://www.digikey.com/short/97452z74
[+] [-] AngryData|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwater|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DiabloD3|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanvanfleet|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AngryData|3 years ago|reply
I find it incredibly sad so many companies are scamming people selling 20+ year old lighting tech for plant growth. Oh sure they save 20% on initial setup costs, only to pay multiple times more than that "savings" in energy costs the first year alone.
[+] [-] DiabloD3|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lightedman|3 years ago|reply
They're late to the game and adjusted color range and adjustable color temp lighting has been done for over half a decade.
And Cree doesnt even manufacture their own stuff. You cant guarantee quality control, as I recently learned with their XHP35 series. Different color temps come from different manufacturers and the difference in quality of the top cover is drastic. One set, just touching the top cover causes the silicone to shear away, the other, you can rub and bump, nothing happens to the silicone.
I'm not exactly impressed, here.
[+] [-] TheCowboy|3 years ago|reply
Ideally, it would be nice to have a grow light that doesn't emit UV so I don't have to worry about eye protection and could have the light in common spaces. This is just for 'normal' house plants during winter, not for growing anything for consumption.
[+] [-] j_m_b|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] youngNed|3 years ago|reply
This doesn't make sense. Being 'very behind' the 8ball is no disadvantage.
[+] [-] socialismisok|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EricE|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steve_adams_86|3 years ago|reply
At the industrial scale I know cannabis is a significant driver of light sales, but I suspect growing food is a huge driver as well.
[+] [-] homero|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anarajpur524|3 years ago|reply
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