GrowONE

Better Plants   More Efficiency   Higher Profits

GrowONE encourages everyone to experiment and pursue their own cultivation techniques. Every crop is different and everyone has different goals. However, our internal research has given us insight into several strategies we would like to share.

  • GrowONE lighting systems deliver high levels of PAR, typically more than experienced in nature. Adjustments to H,O, CO,, RH , nutrients, and temperature are typically required.
  • Mount the light bars 6” from the top of your canopy to ensure optimal light-use efficiency and uniformity. The GrowONE was designed to provide uniform light dispersion and requires precise deployment. A 1” variation in either direction will cause a significant change in uniformity and PPFD (which may or may not be desired).
  • Many plants prefer increased temperatures when exposed to high PPFD. Experiment with higher temperatures to achieve higher yields. Canopy temperature and room ambient temperature often vary. For accurate results, test at the canopy level to gauge leaf surface temperature.

It’s an interesting concept. so the 90% Savings is a very common savings people claim. That is based off of the visible light output of LEDs vs Incandescent. For example – our 4W LED light is as bright as a 40W incandescent light bulb.

So where that is not accurate is in terms of HID bulbs vs LED. For a parking lot light – we would replace a 400W Metal Halide light fixture (actually it consumes 460 watts overall) with a 120W or 150W LED and it will be equal if not brighter. That is based on the number of visible lumens the light generates.

Plants are different. The phrase they say is “Lumens are for Humans” – so plants require a full spectrum of light in order to photosynthesize properly, not just the narrow spectrum of visible light that humans need. LEDs are not full spectrum by design because it is very inefficient, whereas a High Pressure Sodium Light or Metal Halide (these are both in the category of HID) are filament based and do generate that full spectrum. Therefore, to match the light output needed by plants of a HID, you need to make a full spectrum LED fixture meaning that you usually need a combination of 3 different LEDs each with a
specific frequency of light that when combined create that full spectrum. It ends up being around a 10 – 30%reduction of actual energy consumed on the light.

So – you are probably asking – why LEDs? Well there are a whole bunch of environmental and maintenance benefits of LED, however, what wins people over the drastic reduction in heat. An HID can be over 500 degrees, where as our LED light is like 100 or so. If you consider that these lights are all crammed into an insulated room with plants that can be very sensitive to high temperatures, the sheer amount of ventilation that is needed is massive. So if you are trying to retrofit a facility to be an indoor grow facility – you need
to upgrade all of the power service to the location – so change it from 277V AC to 480V 3 phase, then upgrade the electrical panels and sub panels to power all those lights and HVAC units. Then you need to redo the ducting for the plan and install a bunch of AC units on the roof. With an LED, you don’t need to do that in most cases and can just change out the existing AC equipment to be made for plants instead of people + computers. That often saves $1 – $5 million in retrofit construction costs, depending on the size of the facility.

With respect to vertical farming – you for sure want to use LEDs because you can just hang it and plug them in and not worry about turning your home into an oven set to 325 degrees.

The software component makes a ton of sense for vertical farming. For cannabis, it isn’t super necessary, but collecting data and having the lights adjust accordingly is a big plus.