Digital Horticulture Technology: Integrating Optical Plant Modeling, Sensors, Adaptive LED-Lighting, and Artificial Intelligence

Dear Colleagues, 

In modern greenhouses, particularly in northern latitudes, year-round production relies on supplemental LED lighting to improve crop quality. Optimized illumination is one aspect of a complex system that consists of several physiological and technical components, such as nutrient dosing, irrigation, ventilation, and carbon dioxide enrichment.

Effectively managing such systems requires the appropriate monitoring and control of a wide range of parameters, including optical plant properties. These properties, such as spectral reflectance, vary with pigment composition, nutrient status, growing status, and stress. This makes them useful for non-invasive diagnostics and for providing feedback to control algorithms. These optical properties can be determined using imaging systems, multispectral cameras, and quantum sensors. The measured data can be used to fit predictive models, such as functional–structural plant models (FSPMs), virtual plant representations, or digital twins, to real-world representatives.

Coupling optical plant models with physically based ray tracing, radiative transfer simulations, and photosynthesis models enables researchers to investigate forecasting canopy development and energy utilization under various lighting scenarios, including variations in lighting spectra, intensity, and AI-based dynamic control strategies. This Special Issue invites submissions that advance optical sensing and modeling, simulation workflows, and data-driven decision support systems in horticultural environments. The goal is to establish a multidisciplinary connection between light simulation, optical modeling, plant modeling, and horticultural system engineering to promote the development of more efficient horticultural systems.

Prof. Dr. Tran Quoc Khanh
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• optical plant modeling
• ray-tracing software
• spectral reflectance and transmittance of leaves
• light impact on photosynthesis
• light intensity variation
• adaptive control in greenhouse
• spectral sensors
• RGB sensors
• RGB camera
• spectral reconstruction of leaf reflectance
• plant growing monitoring
• optimized crop yielding
• daylight versus LED light
• supplemental lighting
• optimized spectrum variation
• sensor-based software
• plant-centric lighting
• impact of UV radiation
• AI-based optimization of crop yielding
• AI-based modeling of plant growth
• generative AI methods