Not many years ago, multitier cannabis cultivation was an anomaly. Using tiers in veg was uncommon, and tiered growing in flower was even more rare. But that situation has changed dramatically, as evidenced by the trends uncovered in the Cannabis Business Times annual “State of the Cannabis Lighting Market” report.
For 2024, CBT’s exclusive research revealed that when it comes to the vegetative stage, 65% of commercial growers cultivating indoors or in greenhouse under supplemental light are either already using tiers or considering going vertical within the next year. For flower, that percentage now stands at 45%. How do LEDs figure into this equation? We reached out to two multitier cultivators to find out.
LEDs and the Vertical Advantage
When Bostica COO Jarrod Falite co-founded the Massachusetts-based cultivation company with his father, neither one of them had prior cannabis experience. But they did have a taste for hard data and solid research—and a family business background in HVAC, construction and real estate development.
“I was a completely blank slate,” Falite says. “I had zero biases toward any light in particular.” At first, he considered HPS (high-pressure sodium). Then he discovered LEDs—and double-tier mobile racks. Today, Bostica’s 50,000-square-foot facility runs all LEDs, with double-tiered flower, triple-tiered veg, and quadruple-tiered clones.
The ability to dim zones and fixtures, instead of raising and lowering lights, has been a major LED benefit for Bostica.Photo courtesy Bostica
Falite says looking at one metric alone, like yield, doesn’t give the full picture: “I can double my square foot in canopy size. I can reduce our load, which means I can reduce all the HVAC equipment, and it’s going to cost us less to run per square foot. It just was a no-brainer for me at the time.”
When Jason “Jake” Shockey, founder and general manager of Michigan-based Peninsula Gardens, designed the Peninsula facility, the big question was whether to go LED or use HPS and metal halides. Small-scale LED trials made the decision easy.
“We saw that LEDs were going to be the move from an efficiency standpoint, from an environmental operations standpoint—and the rate of growth. The plants really like the LEDs,” Shockey says.
“In today’s market, where the cultivation space ... is now, it’s almost a given at this point to use LEDs. There’s a lot of good companies out there,” he adds, noting that finding what’s right for your specific plans, including your budget, is important.
For multitier, Shockey first trialed three and four tiers with clones. Then he moved into a two-tier system for veg, where he runs between 1,000 and 1,800 plants at any given time.
“Having the LEDs and being able to fit a lot more plants in a much smaller square footage space really made a lot of sense. Also, you can save a lot of money from a mechanical standpoint having all these plants growing vertically rather than just stretching out the square footage of your room,” Shockey says.
Benefits of LED-Lit Vertical Racks
When Falite tallies the benefits of LEDs and tiered growing, reduced heat load, energy consumption and HVAC are high on the list. But Bostica enjoys other benefits as well.
Falite says the grow currently produces more than 100 grams per square foot, with high test results, dense trichomes, and multiple cultivars over 4% terpenes (one strain hitting nearly 6%). He credits those results, in part, to the lighting spectrum provided by his LEDs.
The ability to dim zones and fixtures, instead of raising and lowering lights, has been a major benefit. “It gives you a lot more flexibility as to growing multiple strains in a room or making adjustments based on different plant heights in a room,” Falite says.
At Peninsula Gardens, Shockey is sold on LEDs throughout the facility’s 18,000 square feet of canopy (including some subcanopy lights in flower, which so far is not in tiers). He believes LEDs help with consistency of test results throughout the grow.
Vertical growing is a challenge, Shockey says, but it’s also very rewarding. “I think the biggest value to multitier is the efficiency standpoint, whether you’re limited on space facility-wise or license space,” he says, noting that some states limit cultivation by footprint. “If you have 2,000 square feet, but you can tier that as many times as you want, you’re just increasing the bottom line.”
The ability to get lights closer to the canopy in vertical racks is another major benefit to LEDs. “There’s a ton of brands, but most LEDs you can get within about 8 to 12 inches of the light itself before you’re going to have photobleaching with your buds, so that’s really big value,” Shockey adds. “With HPS or metal halides, it’s more like three feet or two feet minimum, so you’re really limiting the height of your plant depending on the tiers you’re building. It only makes sense to use LED in a multitier setting.”
Multitier Cultivation Challenges
Shockey shares that airflow is the biggest challenge Peninsula Gardens has seen with their multitier veg room. “Depending on if you’re two-tier or three-tier, airflow is a big thing,” he says. “So, make sure you create the proper airflow and an even, homogeneous environment throughout the whole space. You’re really going to get that optimal growth rate and consistency throughout your plants.”
Falite agrees that ventilation is a key consideration and challenge. “With the multitier setups, [the question] becomes how do you move the air? These lights do generate heat, even though they’re LED. So, how do you move that from underneath on the lower tier?” he says, adding it takes hands-on, in-room readings and tweaking to perfect.
Moving plants from one stage to the next takes care in any facility. But if you’re new to tiered growing, LEDs or both, the challenges can intensify.
Falite says, “You have to be careful not to stress the plants or shock them with the light, either too little or too much. You have to really figure out what that transition and what the light settings are, and how your plants are going to respond to different adjustments in the dimming and the intensity, and spectrum, too.”
Shockey doesn’t see a big difference in using LED for tiered cultivation vs. non-tiered, but he says the switch to LED from HPS is a complete environmental change, namely due to the lower heat load—both directly on the plants and in the room—of LEDs. “You have to be ready for it. You have to understand it. You have to do your research and you have to trust it,” he says. “You’re going to be running your rooms a lot hotter, a lot more humid. The VPD is going to be slightly different. … So, … you have to be ready and know what you’re doing.”
To that end, both Falite and Shockey say that fixtures designed specifically for your purpose—veg, clone or flower—can help optimize the benefits of LED-lit multitier growing even more. “It gets back to buying lights from a company that has that data and has that kind of proven track record, and can guide you through that process, as far as what fixtures you need where,” Falite says.
Nuts-and-Bolts Considerations
When looking at tiered grows and LEDs, cultivation impacts aren’t the only factors to consider. “Available power is a huge consideration, and the lighting fixture you choose plays into that,” Falite says. “It’s easy to get sold up front on something based on how it’s going to grow and how the plants are going to respond. But when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of it, can they fit into your design based on your available power?”
Bostica runs about 2,100 fixtures in its facility. When Falite originally specced the lights, only one mainstream lighting manufacturer could offer a 480-volt driver. “Each light draws approximately 1.3 amps at 100%. If you go to a 277-volt light, it’s going to draw almost twice as much,” he explains. “When you’re talking 2,000 fixtures, one amp per fixture, that’s 2,000 amps. That’s a big difference. We have this whole facility running on a 4,000-amp service, with additional capacity. So that was a huge consideration.”
While having Bostica’s volume of lighting, all on mobile racks, is a challenge in itself, Falite hasn’t seen any real challenges with the lights themselves. Rather than using the manufacturer’s dimming unit, Bostica’s LEDs tie into the facility’s main environmental control system.
Falite advises growers to stay very aware of the wiring involved in multitier grows, from wiring diagrams to actual receptacles on ceilings and walls and how they’ll all tie together. Add in dimming zones and he says, “You have to really pay careful attention to how you’re going to achieve that.”
With all the consideration surrounding LEDs and multitier cultivation, both Falite and Shockey emphasize choosing your lighting company carefully. Both advise choosing a company that has a track record and is going to be around to continue to provide support along the way—and has tech people with horticultural backgrounds who can help you work through issues and make adjustments.
“A lot of these companies kind of come and go,” Shockey says. “… Having a company that you trust, not only their technology, their quality, their support, but their warranty and that they’ll be around if you have issues is critical. Because at the end of the day, it’s kind of a partnership. If you’re a large-scale cultivator, when you’re choosing something like that it can be up to a several-hundred-thousand-dollar decision.”
Jolene Hansen is an award-winning freelance writer and editor specializing in the commercial horticulture, cannabis and CEA industries. Reach her at [email protected].
