Showa Denko K.K. (SDK), a world-wide manufacture of chemical products and industrial materials,has decided to provide Kawauchi Village, Fukushima Prefecture, with a new cultivation method for LED-based plant growth facilities for free. The village, headed by Mr. Yuko Endo, is now building an LED-based plant growth facility.
 
SDK has developed the new cultivation method jointly with Professor Masayoshi Shigyo, Faculty of Agriculture, Yamaguchi University. Compared with conventional LED-based plant growth facilities, the new method shortens shipment cycles and increases the amount of harvest through the irradiation of red and blue lights at optimized ratios for plant growth, using LED chips produced by SDK.
 
Kawauchi Village has decided to adopt the new cultivation method (the Shigyo method) and SDK's LED chips at its new plant growth facility, recognizing the advantages of the method. SDK has decided to license the technology for free to assist the village's reconstruction efforts.