The lack of commonly accepted standards within the cannabis industry is the source of many questions among growers. One of these is what kind of light is best suitable for growing cannabis in large scale operations. According to Age Bakker, indoor climate advisor with Freshlight, growers struggle to make this transition because of the great number of lighting companies in the market. “Cannabis growers have been used to growing under HPS lights,” Age explains. “Therefore, the majority of the benchmarks has been done with HPS. Thus, if a grower cannot rely on a horticulture background, she can find this transition both extremely difficult and costly.” In addition, according to Age, a substantial number of LED solutions out there are not good enough to ensure a healthy crop. “There are too many LED lighting companies that put out a product that cannot afford everything that a cannabis plant actually needs,” he points out. “Therefore, it could happen that a grower utilizes a cheap LED light which does not give the expected results, thus preventing her from actually seeing the benefits that a quality LED light brings compared to HPS.”
Full sunlight spectrum
That is why Freshlight, a developer of lighting solutions, has developed LED lighting systems capable of reproducing the full sun spectrum. “This is the added value of Freshlight lighting solutions,” Age remarks. “Reproducing the full sunlight spectrum means that our lights also afford UVA and UVB.” Age further explains that these are very important to the growth of the plant. “If you do not provide the plant with the full spectrum required for the photosynthesis, then plants grow ‘lazy’, so to say. By giving them the full spectrum, the plant grows faster, and healthier.”
Fighting pathogens
Having an unhealthy cannabis plant might result in pest outbreaks. “The recurring problems in cannabis operations are powdery mildew, botrytis and fusarium,” Age points out. “When it comes to crop protection, there aren’t many solutions available in the medical cannabis space. This results in growers encountering many difficulties when they have to fight these sorts of issues.” That is why Freshlight has brought the ionization process to cannabis cultivation. “Ionization is a naturally occurring process that we bring into the greenhouse. Negatively charged ions attach themselves to fine dust and to pathogens which then falls to the ground as residue. With ionization, the air is cleaned of fine dust, particles and viruses and the spread of fungi such as Botrytis is effectively controlled. We have been able to successfully reduce fine dust, ammonia and bad odor coming from chicken and cow farms, for instance.”
The LED lights and the ionization system can be either tied together or implemented separately. “The ionization is actualized by small brushes that generate a great number of negative ions,” Age explains. “The lighting systems and the brushes can be implemented as one, but we advise to split them up for greenhouses: one roll of LEDs, and one roll of ionizing brushes.”
The benefits of structurized water
Freshlight has also recently developed Freshwater, a water device that increases the amount of oxygen within the liquid, in order to provide the plants with healthy nutrition. “Additionally, we deploy structurized water,” Age remarks. “Our clients using this system have seen positive results after a short time. The plants grow faster, and they are healthier, which are the most important things for a medical cannabis grower.”
For more information:
Freshlight
Maagdenburgstraat 56
7421 ZG Deventer
+31 (0)55 30 20 021
info@freshlightgroup.com
freshlight.eu