LED technology for plant development

Fuji Electric, Panasonic, Fujitsu and other electronics companies have used manufacturing technology in plant factories to significantly reduce agricultural production costs. The use of energy-saving technologies has also become a driving force for SMEs to enter the plant factory, and plans to expand to emerging countries to help their agricultural development.

Fujitsu, together with Aeon subsidiary Aeon Agri Create and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has been promoting experimental farms in Vietnam since January 2016. Fujitsu has built a measurement system and set up dozens of sensors to measure weather, soil and growth status in real time. Aeon Agri Create analyzed the data from it and remotely guided Vietnamese farmers from Japan through the Internet.

Although nearly half of the people in Vietnam are engaged in agricultural production, farmers are poor and their income is much lower than the minimum wage. The experimental program will cooperate with local consumer groups and women's alliances in Vietnam to investigate the market price of agricultural products, establish a database, and make the price of origin transparent. It is expected to change the unplanned agricultural production methods in the past. Farmers can learn about retail prices through smart phone apps, and plan to produce high-priced agricultural products on the market to increase their income.

In addition, according to the Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, Fuji Electric and the Shimizu construction jointly funded the construction of the “Gandong Farm,” which is located in the industrial area of ​​Komaki City, Hokkaido, and mainly produces strawberries. It is estimated that the annual output will increase to 300 metric tons, equivalent to 20% of the cultivation volume of strawberry in Hokkaido. The plant factory mainly uses natural light, but Fuji Electric's energy control technology is used to reduce costs.

In addition to the height of the scaffolding designed for easy harvesting, the plant has embedded three pipelines in the bedstead of the strawberry planter. As a warm water cycle, the strawberry roots are maintained at 15-18 degrees Celsius, which is the easiest to grow. The efficient local heating system supplies heat directly, while the heating equipment costs only about one-fourth of the general greenhouse, and energy consumption also decreases by 30%.

The other two pipelines supply nutrients and carbon dioxide, respectively, and have the function of measuring the amount of sunlight, increasing the supply during the period when the strawberry grows most quickly, and improving the operating efficiency. The farm effectively uses control technology and can harvest in 8 months with considerable production. Although the price is higher than the general market price, it can be supplied at a stable price throughout the year to ensure that the purchase end is not affected by price fluctuations. Jidong Farm expects to achieve a surplus in 3 years.

Panasonic introduced an all-artificial light plant that uses LED lights. The blue and red LED lamps are used in the air-conditioning technology used in the production site, which saves 60% of the power of the artificial light factory of general fluorescent tubes. The air-conditioning technology can stabilize the room temperature and average the growth of fruits and vegetables to solve the main cause of plant plant deficits in the past. . And automated technology is used to automatically sow or replace scaffolds, reducing personnel costs.