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So thanks to the invention of HID lighting, indoor gardening became possible. Now we’ve got this whole booming industry growing up around us. We’re moving into decades of legacy. This is the technology that made it all possible.
We’ve got metal halide high-pressure sodium lighting. We had our typical screw-in bulb style, right? This has been there for us for 25 years. It’s been great. One of the biggest things that growers are always after is what’s that new lighting? Is it LED? Is it plasma? What is it? What’s going to be, fiber optics? There’s always so much hype around these things. But then when it comes to stable crop production, getting paid, being reliable, we’ve only been able to count really on the HID lighting. We see a little bit of mixing of LEDs here and there, but.
We’re moving away from this archaic screw-in situation to the next level with what we’re calling double-ended, DE, so that’s how you’re going to hear about it.
This is the 1000 DE by Gavita. This is really a professional-grade commercially viable unit. As you can see, it’s not remote ballast. What we’re looking at is the ballast directly connected to the ignition sites with high-temp LEDs. The bulb is being fired from both ends, so we’re seeing the most complete ignition of gas as possible. We are seeing the most amount of light for 1,000 watts that we’ve ever seen before.
They’ve really taken the time to make this commercially viable. The reflector is replaceable, which is very important. In my opinion, if you ever buy a reflector where you cannot replace the actual reflective material, it was really a waste of money because reflective materials do not last forever. If this material is not giving you the proper light balance, then you’re just wasting money. You can replace this reflector every 2 years and therefore keep your high-end unit in optimum production. The bulbs will need to be replaced every 2 years, and so essentially, as I said, these units are being hung with the ballast attached to the lighting commercial style.
Another really massive advancement with this is we’re no longer plugging all of these in to timer boards and having these timer boards switching large loads. We’re able to get away from these. We’re plugging these to constant power sources and then the Gavita Master Controller is linking up to these units with little phone cords. The little phone cords are plugging in to theses jack right here and simply telling the unit to turn off and on. This is in my opinion one of the biggest advances that I have seen in this industry in a long, long time. The Gavita Master Controller has got sunrise to sunset options. The options on this thing are amazing. Go in your garden. Turn off the breaker to your air-con, watch the heat in your garden start rising, and simultaneously automatically all your lights start diming. Wow! Right? This is truly smart technology. We’re definitely going to the next level.
There is one other great aspect to this. They are covering a larger footprint. I have hung these units from my forklift, put down black and white, grid it out square feet, and used a really high-end PAR meter to measure every square foot and the 750 Flex is solidly covering a 5×5 square; the 1000 DE is solidly covering a 6×6 square. So you definitely have to keep this in mind when you’re mapping out your garden.
Then the other aspect that we have to consider is the requirement of high ceiling height. In general, I’m being told not to sell these units to anyone with less than a 9-foot ceiling because in general we are placing the plants in 60 inches away, so 5 feet away from the lighting and while allowing the plants to grow into 36 inches away, 3 feet away. Now not everyone is growing the same strains around the world, so it is quite possible that you may have a strain that can take a little more light. In fact, I had one client who had to get a little closer than the recommended distance in order to induce the rate of transpiration that we was looking for.
Keep in mind there’s a little bit of flexibility with this, but this is not a lighting fixture that you can just take home and put 18 inches above your plants like you will see plant damage. So I definitely see this as the next big thing, the big advancement that we’re going to see. This is the future for the next 5 years. If you’re building something new, chances are and you got a ceiling height, chances are you’re going to want to put these in there.
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