Samsung Electronics last year entered the ‘future food’ industry by introducing its full-spectrum white-based horticulture LEDs for vertical farming. To find out more about what this means for the future of agriculture, Samsung Newsroom sat down with Professor Changhoo Chun (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University), adviser to Samsung’s horticulture LED development process and an authority on plant growth, to discuss ‘future food’ and the role technology has to play in this.

Q. What led to the adoption of agricultural techniques like vertical farms? What benefits do they offer to people?

“Nowadays, a number of factors have led to an increasing need for agricultural innovation in order to meet consumer demand, including an ever-growing global population and the negative effects industrialization and global warming are having on the soil fertility of arable land. Vertical farming, which has grown increasingly popular in places like Europe, the U.S. and Japan, is one such innovation that has the potential to meet the growing need for healthy, abundant food sources.

Vertical plant farms cultivate produce indoors and are pest-free, meaning that the crops do not require pesticides. Thanks to this, the vegetables produced in these plant farms do not require a separate washing process – people can enjoy these fresh vegetables straight from the packet. The controlled, intelligent system that vertical farms incorporate provides the best possible growth environment, meaning that the resulting produce is rich in both taste and nutrition. Additionally, given that these vertical plant farms are indoors, they are exempt from climate events that might affect plants grown outdoors, such as bad weather and fine dust.”

Q. What plants can be grown in vertical plant farms?

“Well, in order to grow properly, plants need exposure to a few essential elements, such as light, moisture and certain nutrients. Vertical plant farms provide all these necessary elements, meaning that theoretically speaking, all manner of plants can be produced in these plant farms.

However, when the supply-and-demand of certain produce types is taken into account, it makes the most sense to use vertical farms to chiefly cultivate those plant species that can mature fully in a short period of time and are no longer than 20 to 30 centimeters – so that they can grow in vertically stacked layers in one room. Produce types that fit these criteria include herbs, lettuce and arugula.”

Q. What role do the LEDs used in plant factories play? Do they replace the need for natural light?

“Light is a very important factor in plant growth, and fortunately enough, LED lighting, which is becoming widely used across vertical plant farms, is able to go above and beyond what natural sunlight offers to the produce-cultivating process.

Plant photosynthesis, germination and growth all depend on the wavelength of light the plant is exposed to. LED lighting is able to provide the optimum lighting conditions for growing any plant because it is easy to adjust an LED’s wavelength. Different light wavelengths can affect the taste and nutrient content of different types of plants. Even sometimes within the same species, vegetables can end up tasting bitter. This matching of the right wavelength to the right vegetable is called a ‘lighting recipe’.”

Q. What is the ‘full-spectrum’ aspect of the white-based horticulture LEDs that you have developed in collaboration with Samsung Electronics?

“In the first plant factories, a combination of red and blue lights was mainly used to aid produce cultivation because at that time, researchers had found that plant growth was most affected by the wavelengths of red and blue lights. However, the red and blue lighting made it difficult to monitor the color of a leaf or the overall development of a plant.

More recently, researchers studying the relationship between plants and light have highlighted the importance of green light wavelengths to a plant’s growth. The results now show that plants absorb green light best, compared to LED lights of other colors. This is why we developed a ‘white’ light – it is a blend of all three lights colors. Samsung’s full-spectrum white-based horticulture LED modules harness a wide spectrum of wavelengths, making it more effective in indoor framing.”

Q. What are the advantages of the full-spectrum white-based horticulture LEDs?

“Growing plants well comes down to providing the right combination of wavelengths specific to each type of plant – from vegetables to fruits to medicinal plants. However, finding the optimum for each type of produce is often time-consuming and costly – a difficult undertaking for most vertical farms.

This collaboration with Samsung, a world leader in LED technologies, focused on finding the optimal combination of light wavelengths necessary for peak plant growth. In order to do this, the most in-demand produce from existing plant factories were documented and then experiments on them were conducted with various combinations of light wavelengths. From the results of these trials came Samsung’s lighting solution lineup, including the full-spectrum white-based horticulture LEDs. These products are expected to be a great help not only for existing large-scale plant farmers, but also for novice indoor growers, farmers who want to try cultivating new crops, and the plant factory industry as a whole.”

Q. What role do you expect Samsung to play in the future food and agricultural sectors?

“Samsung has been working closely with agriculture research teams to come up with new technologies and products that can contribute to the development of the plant growth field, an undertaking that I see as particularly meaningful. This collaborative work will definitely provide good synergy to the future food and agricultural sectors.

Samsung’s latest product, Chef Garden, helps consumers grow their own herbs right inside their own kitchens. I hope that the first-hand experience Chef Garden grants consumers sparks gratitude and curiosity in them towards agriculture and where the food we eat comes from.”

Horticulture LED Driving the Future of Farming

On the industrial scale, indoor farms are increasing in popularity, since they are better equipped to overcome spatial constraints and extreme climates. In such indoor farms, artificial light plays a crucial role in efficiently managing the rate of plant growth.

Drawing upon its LED technologies developed for other lighting markets, Samsung launched its Horticulture LED lineup in May of last year to provide advanced lighting solutions to indoor farms. LED lighting is more efficient and has a longer lifespan than previously existing artificial lighting solutions. It is also easy to control the light spectrum of LED lighting and LED solutions are becoming a more attractive option for indoor farms.

Different wavelengths of light can affect plants in different ways. For example, wavelengths of 430 to 700 nanometers are required for photosynthesis, a wavelength of 450 nanometers promotes germination, 660 nanometers stimulates growth, and 730 nanometers or more helps plants to bloom and produce fruits. It’s thanks to these properties that red wavelengths (about 600~750 nanometers) and blue wavelengths (about 400~450 nanometers) have been the prevailing trend in indoor farms.

Recent developments have also emphasized the importance of green light with a wavelength of 550 nanometers, with findings that it can penetrate the lower canopy and thus increase the photosynthesis in plants found there. Since this was observed, interaction with a blue wavelength is now actively being studied also.

Based on this research, Samsung released its White LED package last November, with an extensive spectral range, including growth-boosting blue and red wavelengths. Full-spectrum LED lights can increase the nutritional value of plants and deter disease and pests. The bright white light can also create a more pleasant work environment than narrow spectrum alternatives, allowing farmers to monitor growth and inspect for disease with relative ease.

The package is designed to deliver strong reliability, even alongside the use of chemical fertilizers or under hot and humid conditions. The package is also competitive in price when compared to red LED products, helping to reduce the cost of establishing lighting systems in indoor farms.

Samsung raised the photon efficacy level of white LED packages to the highest in the industry, thus reconfirming the company’s leadership in this field. As a result, lighting manufacturers can use 30 percent fewer packages in each luminaire to achieve the same efficacy level as other lighting equipment, ultimately reducing the costs for indoor farms.

Packages can be selected according to the types of plants and the facility’s requirements. Samsung Electronics offers five white LED packages and one white LED module. The company has also designed one blue package and two red packages with a single wavelength.

As Will Chung, a researcher in the company’s Lighting Marketing Group (LED), explained, “Although it’s been less than two years since Samsung Electronics started its horticulture LED business, we’ve already received lots of positive feedback from the market for developing high-quality LED technologies. We’re committed to developing more innovative products that support convenient food production, and will continue to enhance our offerings with testing, studies, and experts’ advice.”

Grow Your Own

In the homes of the future, it will be possible to grow your own vegetables no matter the climate. Samsung recently showcased Chef Garden at KBIS 2019, an AI farming platform that integrates with the next generation of Family Hub. The smart indoor garden uses seed capsules, allowing people to grow small fruits, vegetables and herbs with only a small part of the plant. Chef Garden controls light, temperature and humidity to optimize plant growth. The system also utilizes fogponics technology, which creates a nutrient fog that delivers water and nutrients directly to the plants so that they can grow without the need for pesticides. With water kept to the minimum required, the inside of Chef Garden always remains clean. Chef Garden can also inform users when plants are ready to harvest and recommend recipes thanks to smart integration with Family Hub.

Fruitful Investments and Research

Samsung is supporting research and development in fields such as basic sciences, materials science and ICT through the Samsung Science and Technology Foundation. Samsung has funded 500 project grants for the Korean scientific community to explore since 2013, amongst which are technology research projects examining vertical farming and the acceleration of plant growth. In addition, it is expected that further discoveries garnered from ICT projects involving AI, IoT and LEDs will foster synergy between Samsung’s technology and industrial farming’s efforts to produce healthy food.

“One of the main objectives of this support project is to consider how technology might solve the environmental and food shortage problems society faces today,” said Doochan Daniel Eum, Head of the Samsung Research & Incubation Center for Future Technology. “It’s our intention to contribute a total of 1.5 trillion Korean Won (approximately 1.3 billion USD) by 2023, investing in technologies that can effect real change for future society.”