Too many grow lights for our indoor grow setup actually does damage. Using fewer grow lights on LightRail light movers gives us much better results.
Actually, we see this mistake a lot. And, the grow equipment thinking is that more must be better, right? If light equals yield, then let’s go all out with our indoor plant lights. But wait. Would we then have too many grow lights? Is there a down side to having too many grow lights in our grow rooms? The answer is absolutely yes, and here are the scientific reasons along with one super smart solution.
First, if we are doing this as part of our grow room design, we are doing the opposite of what is cost-effective and green. That’s a lot of grow lights that will need to be purchased up front. And, all these grow equipment components will need to be replaced over time. Those replaced bulbs and light bars then end up in the landfill. And, as a huge grow room design factor, we have the monthly electrical costs of all of operating all this excess. No matter the grow light numbers and stats, stationary setups will let us down.
Cut our costs by how much?
Conversely, we can use grow light movers and cover 50% more per grow light. So, for just one grow light, we can cover 50% more linear area. This is a huge potential savings in grow equipment up-front costs. And, this gives us major savings in the area of grow equipment replacement costs. And, as important as anything, we can reduce our electrical usage proportionally. Note: The actual LightRail Motor uses only about 5 watts of electricity, so it’s super green on multiple fronts.
Natural sunshine does this
In addition to the fact that using too many grow lights in our grow room setup is horribly expensive and icky for the environment, we see this. We actually get substantially poorer results by using too many grow lights. And, here is where the science comes in. In nature, the sun interacts at angles and it varies throughout the day. So, plants have adapted to this reality over millions of years. In the indoor grow room, plants actually receive the indoor plant light at a better rate if indoor plant light can mimic the sun. That’s because the plant receptors actually open more when the indoor grow light is very intense, but with this caveat. The grow light then has to go off center a bit and then come back, and again be very intense. So, we are not literally duplicating a slow motion 12 hour day. Instead, we are changing the angles and intensity repeatedly to replicate the idea of nature. The sun is not always at the noon position, and occasionally a cloud goes by. By using LightRail light movers, we are more aligned with nature at the same time we are more aligned with being green.
Are we wasting with too many grow lights, then wasting trying to undo?
So, it’s really two grow light events that need to happen at once. The grow light system needs to first have sun-like intensity. We can’t do that with grow lights positioned too far away from the canopy. It’s an Inverse Square Law thing, and that’s geometrical as it affects light with distance. For instance, at 5’ away, all of our grow light quality numbers are exactly cut in half. Then, at 7’ we are operating at about 25% of our grow light potential. At 9’, we are at about 10% strength for our indoor grow light realized output. And, chances are we are doing this very thing if we are using too many grow lights. We are first wasting by having too many. And, we are then wasting again by trying to undo the damage of using too many indoor plant lights. We do this by keeping those grow lights lifted too high in our grow room setup.
Grow lights overhead, then offset, then once again overhead
So, let’s do this differently. How about we go back to the grow room design of using fewer indoor plant lights. And, let’s get each of our indoor grow lights to better mimic the sun. To do that, we first need sun-like grow light intensity. And, we can get that by using good grow lights and then by getting our grow light systems closer. So, let’s shoot for a 1-2 foot (.3-3m) distance to the plant canopy at the most. That’s for traditional grow lights and a little higher for the high intensity, oversized LEDs. You can go even closer with certain grow lights, but only with grow lights that moves. Then, for optimum Leaf Area Index, we need our indoor plant light to be overhead, then offset, then once again overhead. The plant receptors respond positively to those variations in our grow light systems. And, LightRail light movers give us that needed grow equipment movement.
We can create this sun-like, grow light system morph very effectively by using grow light movers. And, we’re not moving our indoor grow lights very far. So, just about 3 feet (1m) of grow light system movement might be just right. For larger LEDs, and using the LightRail RoboBar, a movement of 4 feet or more could easily work.
Fewer actual grow lights giving us much better results
When we use too many grow lights, we create unneeded indoor grow room issues. But, when we move our grow light systems on LightRail light movers, we get fewer actual grow lights to give us much better results. So, LightRail 3.5 Kits, LightRail 4.0 Kits or LightRail 4.20 Kits will give those results including faster growth, more even canopies, better light penetration and much higher yields. You can only get this with LightRail. Intense, sun-like grow light interaction that penetrates to more of the plant at just the right amount of time per surface is what we want. In other words, nature is typically right. So, getting as close to nature as possible in the grow room setup will give us the best results. LightRail light movers deliver the solution of more sun-like penetration. And, it provides the only way to use fewer grow lights while getting better grow room results. Whether in a greenhouse or grow room, and whether for indoor farming or cannabis cultivation, LightRail light movers are the perfect solution.
Better yields, fewer lights. LightRail light movers are ranked as the single best grow light efficiency product on the market.
