LEDs Come to the Rescue of Flower Growers in West Bengal

In the farms of Panskura, Pakuria and Khirai, which send ornamental flowers like Chrysanthemum and Karen to rest of the country and abroad, have resorted to using LED bulbs to enable their plants to flourish. These plants have been bitten by pollution and smog that stunt their growth. The farmers have now started protecting the plants by covering them up during the day for some time during their growth cycle.

At night, thousands of LED bulbs are switched on to give the plants artificial, ‘day-like’ light to compensate for its lack during the daytime cover-up. These flower growers shifted to this new method of farming, where they strung up rows of 9Watt LED bulbs across their fields and keep these switched on from sunset till dawn for 7-10 days during the budding stage.

As per a media report, the growers were not only able to double production last year, the quality of their chrysanthemums was also very good. Botanists said the process made perfect sense as excessive pollution often choke the pores leading to stunted growth in ornamental flowers.