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High performance of vegetables, flowers, and medicinal plants in a red-blue LED incubator for indoor plant production

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Abstract

In urban agriculture, plant growth is limited by the availability of light. Light emitting diodes (LED) could provide specific quality and quantity of light overcoming existing limitations for normal plant growth. However, there have been very few investigations on the applications of LED in incubators and plant growth chambers. The devices fabricated in this study, were lighted with 100 % red, 100 % blue, 70 % red plus 30 % blue, or 100 % white LED. We cultivated Mentha piperita, Mentha spicata and Mentha longifolia, lentil, basil, and four ornamentals to test the effect of various LED lights on plants productivity compared with field and greenhouse conditions. Our results show that 70/30 % red-blue LED light increased Mentha essential oil yield up to four times along with increases in plant photosynthesis and fresh weight compared with field condition. The red-blue LED incubator also led to a better growth of lentil and basil and to higher flower buds and less days to flowering for pot flowers versus greenhouse conditions. Our findings demonstrate that LED could improve economic characteristics of plant species by probably stimulating plant metabolism.

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Acknowledgments

The corresponding author would like to thank the Iranian National Elites Foundation and Isfahan University of Technology for the financial support of this research. BS also thanks the University of Le Mans for support. We would also like to express our appreciation to Mr. Ehsan Ataii for the assistance in conducting experiments and Prof. Aghafakhr Mirlohi for the critical review of the preliminary draft of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, 84156-83111, Iran

    Mohammad R. Sabzalian, Parisa Heydarizadeh, Morteza Zahedi & Mehran Agharokh

  2. Biocomputing Group, Department of Biology, University of Bologna, Bologna, 40126, Italy

    Amin Boroomand

  3. Arvin Tajhiz Espadana Company, Isfahan Science and Technology Town, Isfahan, 84156-83111, Iran

    Mohammad R. Sahba

  4. MicroMar, Mer Molécules Santé, IUML – FR 3473 CNRS, University of Le Mans, EA 2160, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, Le Mans, France

    Parisa Heydarizadeh & Benoît Schoefs

Authors
  1. Mohammad R. Sabzalian
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  2. Parisa Heydarizadeh
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  3. Morteza Zahedi
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  4. Amin Boroomand
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  5. Mehran Agharokh
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  6. Mohammad R. Sahba
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  7. Benoît Schoefs
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Correspondence to Mohammad R. Sabzalian.

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Sabzalian, M.R., Heydarizadeh, P., Zahedi, M. et al. High performance of vegetables, flowers, and medicinal plants in a red-blue LED incubator for indoor plant production. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 34, 879–886 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-014-0209-6

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