Dutch horticulture lighting is widely utilised across a range of crops to enhance growth and increase yields in greenhouses. In regions with dark winters, supplemental lighting is needed to avoid high drops. The supplemental lighting makes it possible to produce crops in the winter. Some examples of crops and applications include:

Dutch horticulture lighting is extensively used in tomato cultivation, both in greenhouses and in vertical farming setups. The controlled light conditions contribute to increased yields and better-quality tomatoes!

Similar to tomatoes, cucumber production benefits from horticulture lighting in greenhouses, ensuring consistent and optimized conditions for growth. Combining HPS lights and LED lamps in a greenhouse, have shown to be an effective and cost benefit way to illuminate cucumber plants while providing heating in the greenhouse. However, when LED lights become cheaper in the future, it is expected that less HPS lights will be used.

As medicinal cannabis is more being legalised in several countries and becoming a more important horticulture crop for medicinal purposes, an increasing amount of research is being done on assessing the effect of light on the production of Medicinal Cannabis Also, many commercial growers are trying out different ways to optimalise cannabis yield and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) compounds by altering their light recipe and the light they are using.

It has been discovered that there is a positive linear relationship between light intensity and yield up to a light intensity of at least 1498 µmol m^–2 s^–1 .

In other words, up to 1490 µmol m–2 s–, doubling the light intensity also doubles the yield. This study has been done with LED grow lights for Cannabis.

The controlled environment provided by greenhouse lighting is valuable for bell pepper cultivation, allowing for year-round production (especially in the winter in the Netherlands and other higher latitude countries) with higher yields.

In greenhouses and in vertical farms, lighting is used to cultivate lettuce, spinach, and other leafy greens more efficiently. The precise control of light conditions promotes rapid and uniform growth.

Dutch growers use horticulture lighting to extend the growing season for strawberries, ensuring a more continuous and reliable supply. With growing lamps in greenhouses, not only spring, autumn but also winter strawberries can be cultivated in the Netherlands.

Flowers such as roses and chrysanthemum benefit from horticulture lighting to regulate growth cycles, enhance colouration, and increase productivity. In Dutch greenhouses, the HPS lights provide heat for the roses to grow optimally in our ‘cold’ Dutch climate.

(Supplemental) lighting is also used to grow herbs like basil, mint, and cilantro in greenhouses (and vertical farms) to maintain optimal growth conditions.

Growers often forget that lighting also plays an important role in the flavour development of plants, especially for high quality herbs and microgreens. Microgreens are seedlings of edible vegetables and herbs and are characterized by their specific flavours.