The concept of intracanopy lighting is not new. Historically cultivators would drop lamps without reflectors or air-cooled tubes in between plants to increase yield. It was usually too hot, you would burn leaves and destroy the close proximity flower to see gains a few feet away. It usually didn’t pan out.
Now with tried and true intracanopy lighting developed for CEA we can get lights closer due to less heat, prevent bleaching thanks to spectrum control, and get light to places that get dark in the late stages of growth. Intracanopy can also benefit transition plants and prevent stretch, increase production of mother plants, and accelerate the hardening-off period for veg plants.
Sounds pretty good right…so let’s dive into some of the pros and cons of intracanopy lighting for cannabis cultivation.
There are two distinct schools of thought when it comes to inter-canopy lighting applications.
- Add intracanopy and reduce top lighting to allow the plant to most efficiently utilize photonic energy. This will help reduce “B size popcorn buds” and increase the ratio of “A buds”.
- Keep top lighting high (1,000 PPFD) and add inter-canopy lighting to increase yield and optimize phenotypic expression