Polytechnic research team focusing on greenhouse tech

By Lethbridge Herald on August 26, 2025.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald

A researcher at Lethbridge Polytechnic is sharing his love and understanding of plants with a team of researchers to study light optimization for greenhouses.

Seyed Hashemi said the project measures lighting on cucumbers, tomatoes and bell peppers, and even though it is on track to finish in late-2026, preliminary results are showing some interesting findings.

“We are a multi-disciplinary team here at the green house of Lethbridge Polytechnic optimizing plant production for Albertan and Canadian greenhouse growers,” said Hashemi. 

One of the biggest challenges greenhouse growers face all over the world is energy consumption and dealing with the optimization of the greenhouse to bring down the cost. To tackle that issue, Hashemi said they designed an experiment to optimize the lighting condition to help bring down the cost. 

“We ran an experiment with four lighting types that greenhouse growers are using, and our results show that the best type of light is industrial LEDs.”

The experiment compared industrial LEDs, horticultural LEDs and high-pressure sodium lights. Hashemi said the results within the first year showed the industrial LEDs produce as much as high-pressure sodium lights, but with around 40 per cent less energy consumption. 

“This is causing a lot of economic and financial benefits for greenhouse growers in a commercial scale. And the interesting part of our research is that we’re running these trials in a commercial scale greenhouse where we can apply our results to commercial growers.”

This helps researchers identify climate variables, micro-climates, and this way their results are applicable to industrial greenhouse production. 

Lethbridge Polytechnic’s Integrated Agriculture Technology Centre operates a 10,000-square-foot, industry-scale research greenhouse. 

“My goal is to better inform producers so they can grow the best plants possible for maximized returns,” said Hashemi. “And our first-year results have already been used for four Alberta greenhouse growers.”

To date, results for the cucumber trials have been published and peer reviewed. Hashemi said they chose cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes for the study because those are the main vegetables being produced in greenhouses in Canada, especially in Alberta. 

“One part of our project is to understand how plants are feeling or responding to environmental conditions. We do have electro-physiological sensors to understand how plants are feeling under different types of light.”