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Vertical farming and LED lighting system made a turning point in grow history

Published by RioTinto 2024-01-22

Vertical farming and LED lighting system made a turning point in cannabis grow history

 

In 1996, California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana with the Proposition 215, which opened the prelude to the nationwide legalization of medical marijuana. Initially, The law allows growers to grow only a certain number of plants, So this law limited the scale of operations. "It all depends on the number of plants you can grow," Francisco said, the director of a California-based cannabis company. That means everyone here is very good at growing large plants and needs to produce as high quality products as possible." 

 

 

From the number of plants to the size of the canopy

But that changed when recreational marijuana was also legalized. " this change that led to the new rules," Francisco explained. "One of them is that we can choose the size of the canopy -- the actual square foot area -- instead of planting plants, which allows us to rethink the way we plant. After that a company introduced a combination of vertical farming and LED lighting systerm.

 

 

After a year of testing, we converted to vertical planting and adopted a more efficient LED lighting system. This is definitely a turning point, because we want to grow vertically, andLEDs are the best lighting solution in vertical agriculture. After that, we held an emergency meeting to analyze the benefits of the vertical rack system, which allows us to place multiple canopies in a room. "

 

 

"Instead of growing hundreds of large cannabis, we planted 10,000 small plants now." Francisco continued to explain that the implementation of the vertical system not only allowed them to re-evaluate their planting methods, but also other aspects of the cultivation. "The tree canopy are tripled, and the yield tripled,but energy costs have been greatly reduced."

 

 

As the industry moves towards consolidation, operational efficiency will play a greater role in cannabis cultivation. Francisco observed:”For this reason, vertical farming is one of the best choices we have found.The combination of optimized farming space, smooth work flow and LED lighting makes vertical farming a production with resources and hindsight. It’s a particularly good solution for those who adopt this method. We think this will be particularly important, because the most efficient operation should be able to produce higher quality end products with lower operating and environmental costs. For our farm, we hope This will help attract more customers and retail partners."

 

 

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