Advanced Lighting Strategies for Maximizing Profits in Controlled Environment Agriculture

Controlled growing environments make it possible to grow high-value crops quickly and with relatively little space. However, the cost of inputs such as fertilizer and electricity can also be high. According to recent research, the electricity required for lighting accounts for over 30% of the recurring cost of growing in a controlled environment. Recent advances in LED grow light technology, including dimmable LED grow lights and high-intensity LEDs have made it possible to re-think how photosynthetic lighting is managed in controlled environment agriculture.

For many crops, including cannabis, providing more light will always lead to more growth. But, when considered in terms of overall profitability, increasing growth by providing more light is not always the best strategy. Over the course of a grow, the increased electricity expense may outweigh the added gains in yield. Successful management of indoor crop lighting to get the highest profits requires finding the right balance of input costs and yield. Either minimizing the cost of lighting without compromising on yields or improving yields without spending more on electricity for lighting is key to maximizing the profitability of a controlled environment grow.

High intensity, dimmable LED grow lights have enabled the development of a highly effective light management strategy for cannabis. Keeping lights dimmed to a very low level during the vegetative phase and ramping them up to high power during flowering has led to record bud yields, using about the same amount of electricity as using 1000-watt lights for the entire growing period. This was recently demonstrated by a number of growers, and it shows that utilizing the automated dimming capability of LED grow lights can improve lighting efficiency, not only improving yields, but also increasing overall profits.

While many of the LED grow lights available today are fully dimmable, Boulderlamp’s PerfectPar™ MoonWalker SB1 with patent-pending sequentially moving periodic light beam technology provides an unprecedented level of control over photosynthetic lighting for controlled environment agriculture. Rather than dimming the entire fixture, as is the case for all other commercially available dimmable grow lights, our MoonWalker SB1 lights dim each bar separately, precisely, and automatically. This improves light uniformity over the growing area and gives you high precision fine-scale control over the amount of light your crops are getting, as well as the amount of electricity you are using.

We are conducting growth trials comparing our Moonwalker SB1 to a conventional lighting management strategy. We expect our lights will improve bud yields dramatically without any additional electricity by using our fully automated sequentially moving periodic light beam lighting formula.

These revolutionary grow light comes in four-bar models with easy to program controllers, and many options are available. Contact us today for more information!