The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), announced publication of the ANSI/ASABE S640 standard entitled “Quantities and Units of Electromagnetic Radiation for Plants (Photosynthetic Organisms).” The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers has published the first in a series of three planned standards concentrating on horticultural SSL, with the first series majorly based on definitions and descriptions of metrics. The requirement of a standard system for LED based systems for plants has increased due to the increase in the importance of Solid State lighting in horticultural lighting.
Therefore, a standard characterization is of undue importance. The work carried on is the first in the coming three-pong effort of standards effort development by ASABE which will carry on the increase of LED-based horticultural lighting. It will provide a common language for characterizing LED based systems. The process of characterizing has been underway for a very long time. However, basic metrics such as efficacy (lm/W) that are directly applicable to humans as the lumen is based on human visual sensitivity do not find any applicability to the effectiveness of light required for plant growth and yield.
