🌾 Light show protects crops

Daan Roosegaarde, an artist from the Netherlands, chose a five-acre farm as his latest artwork. After two years of work, Roosegaarde presented GROW, an installation of multicoloured LED lights dancing across a massive field of leeks at night.

The artists at Studio Roosegaarde use these light shows to show off the beauty of combining art and science. GROW is the first display in a series of “dreamscapes”. In an interview with Deezen Daan Roosegaarde said:

"I want to design things which make people curious about the future, not sad or mad. Light is my language. Light is not decoration; it's activation and it's communication."

GROW isn’t just amazingly beautiful, it’s also very useful in the battle to create a better world. The artist got the idea for the “dreamscapes” thanks to scientific research. They learned that certain combinations of light can enhance plant growth and lessen the use of pesticides up to 50%.

"A specific ultraviolet light activates the defence system of plants. And what is interesting is that it works on all crops, so we can reduce the use of pesticides."

Previously, this method has been tested on plants grown indoors in, for example, vertical farms or warehouses without windows. Roosegaarde wanted to see the potential on larger, rural outdoor settings. Studio Roosegaarde uses solar-powered LEDs to give the field a magical and surreal glow by shining the LEDs horizontally across the plants. The artist wants to take his light shows on the road and use the LEDs to highpoint local crops in 40 countries. In 2019 Roosegaarde wrote:

"People won't change because of facts or numbers. But if we can trigger the imagination of a new world, that's the way to activate people."

Picture: Ruben Hamelink / Studio Roosegaarde via Freethink.