In 2019, Purdue began growing corn and soybeans around solar panels in Indiana; after 4 years, even the most shaded corn plots lost only 7.7 percent of their yield

In 2019, researchers at Purdue University in Indiana began studying whether corn, soybeans, and solar panels could successfully share the same farmland. Instead of treating agriculture and solar energy as competing land uses, they established an agrivoltaics research field where crops were grown beneath and around photovoltaic panels. After four years of monitoring corn yields, the study found that even the most shaded plots experienced an average yield loss of only 7.7 percent, suggesting that carefully designed agrivoltaic systems can support both food and energy production.

A field designed to share sunlight

Purdue’s Agronomy Center for Research and Education began its agrivoltaics research platform in 2019. The field was divided into five blocks, each having twelve rows with crops grown using the corn-soybean rotation system. Corn and soybeans have been grown on this field since the system’s establishment. Crop productivity, environmental factors, and solar efficiency were studied yearly by researchers.


This arrangement enabled researchers to study the effects of varying levels of light on crops grown under and near the solar panels. The sensors measured the amount of light that reached different parts of the field, while researchers recorded the growth and yield of crops. Researchers did not make assumptions about all rows receiving an equal amount of shade but rather measured the differences in exposure.

Why the position of a solar panel matters

Solar panel arrays create shade beneath them, but the amount and movement of that shade depend on the design and operation of the system. In the case of photosynthetic plants, constant shade is capable of preventing proper plant development and decreasing yield. The amount of lost sun energy is based on the location of the panels, the duration of time when the shadow stays on one row of crops, and other factors influencing the plants.

Purdue’s experimental system featured mobile sun-tracking panels, which allowed the position of the shadow to change according to movements of the sun throughout the day. This means that one row of corn plants might get a different amount of sun energy throughout the day. The array was also tall enough to allow agricultural machinery to operate on the plot. It is a quite important issue since the solar panel system should allow farming activities alongside energy production from the same piece of land.

What the four-year yield result revealed

The most interesting result related to the corn plants grown in the most heavily shaded area. Over four years, the average percentage loss of the yield from corn grain was 7.7 percent, while the average shade for this area was around 20 percent. Such a result didn’t mean that each plot was losing 7.7 percent or that each solar farm would provide the same results. It was an average result achieved for a certain section of Purdue’s test field. The difference between the shade and the yield should be noted. A 20 percent reduction of sunlight doesn’t imply a 20 percent reduction of harvested grain. There were several conditions affecting plant behavior, such as soil moisture and the amount of light.

Researchers found that both soil moisture and light exposure had a significant influence on corn performance. Their work therefore looked beyond a simple comparison between shaded and unshaded rows to understand why some parts of the field produced better results than others.

Making crop production and electricity work together

While many current experiments involve specialty crops, corn and soybeans cover vast amounts of U.S. farmland. Developing successful methods of combining these crops with solar energy production can allow landowners more flexibility in producing energy without sacrificing agricultural activity.

A separate research report published in 2024 described how researchers used crop-growth and light models to examine alternative panel heights, spacing, and operating patterns. Researchers could conduct tests using simulations, thus skipping the need to wait out the whole growing season for each design. These models can help developers and farmers to evaluate the potential benefits and drawbacks before building the system. Designing panels to maximize the amount of electricity produced might provide a different shadowing than designing panels to maximize crop yields. It is all dependent on the land, the crop, solar equipment, and goals of the operators.

The next question is whether the model can scale

A successful research plot does not automatically establish that every commercial farm can adopt the same design. Farmers use different machinery, grow different crops under different soil and climatic conditions, and face varying installation and maintenance costs for solar technology.

There is a possibility that is worth exploring: the use of electricity produced on the farm to manage water. Electricity could be used to irrigate the farm and gather agricultural runoff. Such a system could give an additional function to the installation of energy, particularly when water management is a big issue for the farm. This possibility transforms the question from the amount of land occupied by the solar panels to the intelligent design of the whole plot. The value of the field may be measured by harvests, electricity production, and the practical benefits of shared infrastructure.