Growing dragon fruits using LED lights

LED light sources provide different spectral distributions that are suitable for growing plants. It's a way to improve the productivity naturally without the use of chemicals.

A dragon fruit garden was equipped with LED lights. Photo: Nguyen Thanh.

The application of LED lighting technology not only saves energy but also reduces the input costs while increasing the efficiency of crop production per hectare unit.

In agricultural application, LED lights has been used popularly in many developed countries like the US, France and Netherland. However, in Vietnam in general and in Quang Ninh in particular the application of LED lights remains humble because it requires high initial investment outlay and the technology has not been disseminated widely.

LED lights are can be easily integrated with modern technologies and can be charged with renewable energy. With these advantages, they can be used as an alternative to traditional lights in agricultural production, especially hi-tech agriculture.

Quang Ninh has 177 hectares of dragon fruit cultivation mainly in Uong Bi, Hoanh Bo and Ba Che of which the harvested area is 150ha with an average yield of 33.9 quintals per hectare. In recent years, several farm households has shown their interest and invested in advanced technology including LED lighting application in order to improve the economic efficiency.

However, LED lighting technology has been applied on only a small area of dragon fruit cultivation. The rest area is left to flower naturally. Currently, most of the growers have used incandescent light and compact fluorescent bulbs to stimulate flowering and fruit production of dragon during main season period and it is not an economic way.

In 2021, the Agricultural Extension Center of Quang Ninh province cooperating with Rang Dong Light Source and Vacuum Flask JSC has designed a model of LED lighting application in dragon fruit production with a size of 1,000 LED bulbs per hectare unit in Uong Bi city as part of the program to support farmers to adopt advanced technology toward safe and modern agricultural production.

After the model was approved, the province's agricultural extension center in coordination with Rang Dong JSC and local authorities organized field trips to choose locations and participants for the project and at the same time assigning technical officers to make sure that the farmers strictly followed the standards set out.

Participating in the model, the farmers were not only provided aid with LED lighting system but also received technical knowledge to take care of their plants properly.

LED bulbs were used for providing light to the dragon fruit plants in two phases. Phase 1 was from September 11-28, 2021 and phase 2 was from October 1-5, 2021. The success of the model was evaluated with regard to some indicators such as length of lighting, number of floral stems, number of bubs, and number of fruits per plant.

Nearly four months after the project was launched, the model of LED light-stimulated dragon fruit production during off-season period could bring two harvests with a yield of above 5.5 tons per hectare and a revenue of nearly VND140 million. The farmers could earn a profit of VND80 million after accounting for all the costs of production.

The model showed that LED lights were effective in stimulating off-season flowering and fruit production of dragon fruit. The spectrum of LED bulbs is relatively similar to the spectrum of sunlight so the plants are easy to trap the energy at maximum to make food they need to live and grow.

Moreover, the application of LED lighting technology also helped to save energy more effectively compared to traditional lighting methods. In addition, LED bulbs were durable resulting in saving money for repair and replacement.

In the next time, the Agricultural Extension Center of Quang Ninh province will continue to cooperate with Rang Dong Light Source and Vacuum Flask JSC to help the local farmer master LED lighting technology.

Quang Ninh aimed to forming large-scale crop production areas through the application of advanced technology focusing on dragon fruit and a number of the province's key crops .