News
+30% More Cucumbers: How Interlighting Cut Bloom-to-Fruit Time from 21 to 13 Days
A Dutch cucumber grower changed one thing between the rows — and the crop answered in weeks, not seasons.
The grower added 40W interlights between the cucumber rows. Before the change, fruit took 21 days from bloom to harvest, and the house yielded about 96 kg per square metre per year. After the change, bloom to fruit took 13 days, and yield rose to 128 kg per square metre per year — about 30% more cucumbers from the same house.
The reason is simple. In a tall cucumber crop, the top light feeds the top leaves. The middle and lower canopy sits in shade, and the fruit down there ripens slowly. Interlighting puts light where the top light cannot reach: the 40W bars hang vertically between the rows and shine into the middle of the canopy with a wide 240° beam, so the leaves that were doing the least work start pulling their weight.
Adding more top light would not have done the same job — it would have fed the same top leaves harder and added heat above the crop. Interlighting feeds the shaded leaves instead, and that is where the extra kilos come from.
The bars are built for greenhouse work: 2.5–3.0 umol/J, IP65 against humidity, and they hang between the existing rows, so the grower did not need a new house or a new layout. They run alongside the top lights already in place.
For a cucumber grower, the arithmetic is what matters. Faster fruiting means more cycles through the same house, and more kilos per square metre from the same plants. Light was the missing input — and it went exactly where it was missing.
See the lights behind this case in our LED Grow Lights range, and request a quote for your greenhouse. [Browse LED Grow Lights → https://www.cailiwinwin.com/products?category=growlights | Request a Quote]
