With the blessing of LED plant lights, Nantou County in Taiwan efficiently grows red pitaya and wild rice bamboo shoots.

Red dragon fruit and wild bamboo shoots are important crops in Nantou County in central Taiwan. The planting area exceeds 2,000 hectares. They use lamps and lanterns to adjust the production period. However, they cause light pollution problems, affecting the ecology around the farmland and the energy consumption of the lamps is alarming. The Nantou County government encourages farmers to switch to environmentally friendly and energy-saving LED lamps. This not only saves electricity bills, but purple light also reduces light pollution. It also makes farmland more romantic at night, allowing agriculture to develop towards efficient and intelligent development, while also being environmentally friendly.

Chen Ruiqing, the person in charge of agriculture in Nantou County, said that Nantou is a major agricultural county and cultivates a variety of fruit trees and vegetables. Among them, red dragon fruit and wild rice bamboo shoots are often illuminated with lamps at night to adjust their production periods. The farmland is illuminated at night as a feature. However, strong light not only consumes a lot of power, but also affects the ecology around farmland. Traditional light bulbs are also worried about heavy metal pollution.

Nantou County cooperated with Jinan University in Taiwan last year to guide farmers in Puli Town to replace traditional high-pressure sodium lamps with LED lights. They built a 10-hectare demonstration area and replaced 344 high-pressure sodium lamps, saving 111,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity every year. All 1,800 hectares of water bamboo shoot fields in Puli Town were retrofitted with LED plant lights, saving 100 million yuan (NT$, the same below) in electricity bills a year. The impact of purple LED lights on the biological environment is greatly reduced, and it adds romance after dark.

The area of ​​red pitaya in Nantou County exceeds 500 hectares, mainly in Jiji Town and Mingjian Township. Jiji farmers also cooperated with Taichung Agricultural Farm and were the first to use lighting to adjust the production period of red pitaya. However, traditional light bulbs may contain heavy metals such as mercury and lead, and there are concerns about pollution. LED grow lights are not made of glass and are not afraid of rain. Farmer surnamed Li said that compared with 23W energy-saving bulbs, LED grow lights can not only effectively promote flowering, but also save more than 20,000 yuan in electricity bills per hectare per year. However, it is a big expense to replace all LED grow lights.

Nantou County will each provide 3 million yuan this year to subsidize the replacement of old lamps in red dragon fruit and wild rice bamboo shoot fields. The maximum subsidy is 10,000 yuan per 0.1 hectares, and the upper limit for each case is 50,000 yuan. Farmers can apply for registration with the farmers' associations in each township, and the farmers' association will send people to conduct surveys. Those who meet the qualifications will be notified by the farmers' association for implementation. We hope to encourage farmers to replace LED plant lights, save energy, increase production, and be more environmentally friendly.