Heliospectra LED

Technology start-up Heliospectra has launched a light-emitting diode (LED) system aimed at plant-science researchers.

The Gothenburg-based start-up's L4A Series 10 system is designed to help those developing 'species-specific lighting' that can modulate and optimise plant growth. 

Using LEDs should increase plant yields and thus help overcome the world's food supply problem in a sustainable manner.

The L4A includes 240 individual LEDs across seven wavelengths from violet to far red. Each wavelength channel can be adjusted to match precisely the researchers' experimental needs.

In making Heliospectra one of its Climate Solvers 2012, the World Wildlife Fund estimated that the firm's L4A systems could reduce CO2 emissions by 21m tonnes a year by 2022 if taken up by 20 per cent of the world's greenhouses that use supplemental lighting.