Aliens in the flower fields?!

Every year, at the end of summer we have a slight gap between our crops of scented pinks and scented narcissi. There are various things we can do to bring the narcissi forwards a little but we have also been looking for ways that we can extend the flowering season of the scented pinks. The pinks thrive with the long daylight hours throughout June and then slowly begin to stop creating new buds after the longest day. 

We’re always keen to experiment with new and exciting ideas and so this summer we are trying out grow lights on a portion of one of our tunnels. This system called ‘night break lighting’ has been used in horticulture for a while but this is the first time we’ve given it a go here on the farm. Night break lighting uses LEDs to provide the plants with directional, specific wavelengths of light for 4 hours each evening which prolong their growing day (or break up the night). This will hopefully stimulate new bud growth long after the pinks would have naturally slowed down. 

The good thing about using directional LED lighting is that it produces a very low level light that is concentrated down towards the plants rather than shining out and lighting up our beautiful dark night skies. 

We’ll keep you updated about how the trial is going and hopefully this time next year we’ll have the scented pinks for longer.  For anyone wandering past the farm late at night, you now know what the eerie purple glow coming from one of our fields is!