Recent advances in high-performance LED Grow lights have turned the heads of many cannabis cultivators looking to improve their yields while lowering their overhead. While one reason might be enough to make the switch, those who change their systems will find several more that will make them fall in love with their new lighting system, including financial savings, superior output, and unrivaled efficiency.
1. Full Spectrum of PAR light
Plants require a specific type of light in order to produce photosynthesis. This light, known as Photosynthetically Active Radiation, or PAR, is within the visible light spectrum, so we can see which colors plants respond to best. HID lights can only produce either yellow-gold light with high-pressure sodium bulbs or blue light with metal halide bulbs. LED grow lights made for plant growth will have a variety of diodes that can produce different colors of photons without the need to move the plant or change the bulbs. These diodes allow the light to emit more than just yellow or blue light, but the full spectrum of PAR, which in turn will make plants flourish.
It’s important for plants to get light throughout the range of PAR, and not just yellow or blue because the different colors of light have benefits that should not be overlooked. Colors of light that are often overlooked, like green, have been shown to increase the activity of secondary pigments, supplying the plant with more photons, and improving its terpene profile and THC content. Greenlight in particular is excellent at penetrating plant canopies to deliver more light to more of the plant.
Know the difference between PAR, PPFD, and DLI
2. No Infrared Spike
While HID lights like High-Pressure Sodium can deliver PAR light to plants, they also emit a ton of infrared radiation. In fact, roughly 30% of an HID light’s power goes into creating infrared radiation. This radiation is beamed directly onto the surface of the plant through radiative heat transfer and raises the temperature of the leaves that it hits.
In order for photosynthesis to work as efficiently as possible, leaf surface temperatures need to be within 85-88º Fahrenheit, the goldilocks zone for cannabis plants. While photosynthesis occurs throughout the plant, the areas with the most photosynthesis producing chloroplasts are the leaves of the plant, so any rise in leaf surface temperature beyond the goldilocks zone will result in the plant entering photorespiration, burning more carbon than it consumes.
HPS grow rooms have to pump in a lot of cooler air to counteract the heat, and cold air drops. This results in a crop with really high temperatures at the top and really low temperatures at the bottom. The low temperatures at the bottom keep that section of the plant from performing optimally within the goldilocks zone. Only the sections of the plant at or near 85º F are performing photosynthesis efficiently, while the rest suffers outside optimal growing conditions.
This effect is nowhere near as pronounced in a properly illuminated LED environment, which is why these environments produce cannabis with much more dense intracanopy bud development and less larf.
3. More Energy Efficient
LEDs do not have an infrared heat spike because they are designed to convert energy specifically into PAR, the photons that plants use during photosynthesis. They also run a lot cooler than HID systems, and when diodes are kept cool, they use energy more efficiently. It takes less time to warm up LED lights, as well, so they are running at their optimized output longer. LEDs also require less additional parts, like power boxes and separate cooling systems. With less energy being diverted into tertiary features, LEDs are able to spend the majority of their energy on their original function: providing light.
4. Cooler to the Touch
LEDs run at a lower temperature than HID systems, but LEDs featuring proper heat dissipation will be even cooler to the touch. This feature is ideal for quick cleaning, as lights can be turned off, unplugged, and unhung without having to wait for the fixture to cool down. This ability to dissipate heat is what makes Fohse lights so special. (In fact, Fohse fixtures have high Ingress Protection ratings and can be cleaned where they hang without unhanging them.)
While HID lights will increase not only the leaf surface temperature, but also the ambient room temperature, Fohse lights feature heat sinks that properly distribute heat away from the diodes, and into finned receptacles of aircraft-grade aluminum. These corridors allow heat to be wicked away via convective heat transfer by the airflow in the room.
5. Longer Life Span
An efficient grow light will also have an extended lifetime. While High-Pressure Sodium and Metal Halide bulbs need to be changed out, LEDs will slowly dim over time. The A3i from Fohse boasts some of the best photosynthetic photon efficacy figures of any LED grow light in the world. With the highest intensity on the market, and record-shattering PPF figures, its dimming capabilities allow it to be run at a lower output, closer to where other lights max out. Since it’s not working as hard, the light is running more efficiently. This efficiency increases the lifetime of the fixture, providing decades of light from one fixture with no replacements.
6. More Control
Thanks to their ability to mitigate heat and the option to dim output, LEDs offer cannabis cultivators more control over their grow environment. LEDs can be programmed to deliver precise levels of photons in specific ranges to help the plant grow and flourish. Fohse LED systems come with a built-in control center preprogrammed with 3 spectral output settings, which allow growers to take their plants from the vegetative stage of growth, when the plant bulks up, to the flowering stage. At flowering, the plant requires more light to produce large, healthy buds, and the ability to provide that extra light without changing bulbs or moving your set up means that growers can get more done with less work. The Fohse Central Control system also comes with additional features such as sunrise/sunset ramping, automated schedules, and temperature sensors that auto-dim the fixtures should ambient temperatures get out of hand.
7. Less Maintenance
HID systems are complicated. They usually include multiple separate parts, from cooling units to hoods, separate lenses, power centers, and more. The operations of an LED grow light, on the other hand, could not be easier. Without all the extra parts and pieces, it’s relatively simple to hang and operate LEDs because they require less external parts, and are mostly self contained.
Fohse LED grow lights are hung from an easy-to-install hook, and can then be daisy-chained to each other and into our touch screen control center, or, for our greenhouse lights, a wireless touch screen controller. Other than the hook, the cord, and your controls, the light is complete as is, and doesn’t need additional parts. You just hang it and plug it in.
8. Higher Yields
Growers who switch to Fohse LED break their own recorded yields exponentially. Our clients have had to rework how they handle their heavier harvests to compensate for the increase in product.
“Our typical harvest was 80-90 pounds with our old LEDs.” Said Steve Cantwell, Owner and Operator of Green Life Productions. But, after switching to Fohse LEDs, he noticed a stark increase in his harvest. “The last one was 197 pounds! We didn’t plan for this much weight [in this facility]. We’re having to rethink how we dry and store the increase.”
Mike Howard, former director of cultivation at popular Las Vegas Dispensary, The Grove, also found that, after switching to Fohse LED from an HPS system, their yields grew while their energy consumption fell sharply. “Using 16% less energy [than HPS], the system generated 27% more light and increased our yields by 65%!”
The numbers don’t lie. An LED upgrade can lower cost and energy consumption, while optimizing plant growth and increasing crop yields; a few things that anyone could fall in love with.
