This article originally appeared in the September/October print edition of Cannabis Business Times. To subscribe, click here.
In cannabis cultivation, light is everything. So, it is a good idea to understand what kind of light levels a design will deliver to the plants long before the plans are drawn up.
Designers need to be careful not to save electricity at the expense of yield and profit. The potential annual yield of any greenhouse design is linked closely with the light the design delivers to the plant. Understanding a design’s light performance early in the planning process can help inform expensive decisions and set reasonable expectations for the facility’s performance.
Indoor facilities deliver steady light controlled with an on/off switch. All indoor growers we work with still favor HPS (high-pressure sodium) lights for their flower rooms, and there is ample data that says how much yield those lights produce. But the cost of HPS lighting drives people to consider greenhouses as an alternative.
When considering greenhouses, cultivators need to know how much that greenhouse can produce in comparison to their indoor operation. The answer to that question can be found by looking at photosynthetic light levels in both conditions.
Yield is driven by light, among other key factors; so, all other things being equal, a greenhouse facility that delivers similar light levels as an HPS indoor operation will deliver similar yields and quality.
To read the full article in Cannabis Business Times' September/October edition, click here.
In cannabis cultivation, light is everything. So, it is a good idea to understand what kind of light levels a design will deliver to the plants long before the plans are drawn up.
Designers need to be careful not to save electricity at the expense of yield and profit. The potential annual yield of any greenhouse design is linked closely with the light the design delivers to the plant. Understanding a design’s light performance early in the planning process can help inform expensive decisions and set reasonable expectations for the facility’s performance.
Indoor facilities deliver steady light controlled with an on/off switch. All indoor growers we work with still favor HPS (high-pressure sodium) lights for their flower rooms, and there is ample data that says how much yield those lights produce. But the cost of HPS lighting drives people to consider greenhouses as an alternative.
When considering greenhouses, cultivators need to know how much that greenhouse can produce in comparison to their indoor operation. The answer to that question can be found by looking at photosynthetic light levels in both conditions.
Yield is driven by light, among other key factors; so, all other things being equal, a greenhouse facility that delivers similar light levels as an HPS indoor operation will deliver similar yields and quality.
To read the full article in Cannabis Business Times' September/October edition, click here.
