Key Takeaways
- Abhay Thosar brings over 25 years of combined plant physiology and greenhouse experience to his role at Sollum.
- Dynamic, four-channel LED lighting enables growers to adapt light spectra to crops rather than forcing crops to adapt to fixed lighting.
- ROI, not marginal yield gains alone, is central to evaluating LED lighting strategies in commercial greenhouses.
- Integration of LEDs with AI-driven climate, irrigation, and energy systems is expected to define the next phase of greenhouse technology.
- Growers are increasingly prioritizing long-term support, consistency, and future-proofing when selecting LED partners.
Abhay Thosar on Bridging Plant Physiology and Commercial Greenhouse Operations
Chief Horticultural Specialist at Sollum Technologies. Image provided by Sollum Technologies.
Abhay Thosar’s career has been shaped by a deliberate decision to move beyond academic research and into commercial greenhouse production. Trained as a plant physiologist, Thosar spent more than 12 years working directly in greenhouse operations, applying plant science principles to real-world cultivation challenges.
“I didn’t want to do research in a sandbox,” Thosar said. “I wanted to see how plant physiology actually applies in practice and how we can improve crop performance in terms of quality and productivity.”
This combination of theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience positioned him at the early stages of the horticultural LED transition. In 2013, he joined Philips Horticulture LED Solutions as the first hire in North America, at a time when static-spectrum LEDs represented the most viable commercial option. For more than a decade, Thosar worked across greenhouse lighting deployments, observing firsthand how growers adapted—or struggled to adapt—to new lighting technologies.
