In simple terms, Photosynthesis is the ‘Knitting’ together of Carbon Dioxide molecules from the air and water molecules from the soil/medium to produce simple sugars, the building blocks for plant development and growth. And the energy needed to do this ‘knitting’ comes from light.

Plants cannot survive without adequate light to operate the the process of photosynthesis. Usually this high intensity light is obtained from the sun. However Plants can be grown successfully with artificial light in complete absence of sunlight. Beans, tomatoes, cereals and many ornamentals will grow happily indoors if the light intensity is 1000 footcandles or more.

Natural daylight on a clear sunny day is about 5000 footcandles, the amount of photosynthesis is directly proportional to the light intensity received by the leaf surface. Excess light doesnt equal more photosynthesis efficiency, light intensity above 5000 footcandles is of little benefit, causing heat exhaustion and undue drying of plants.

This setup will cover a maximum area of 1.5 x 1.5 metres (2,25 square metres- 25 sq feet). If hung 1.8 (6ft) above the plant canopy. This area is considered maximum and assumes that a good reflector and reflective material is used on the walls. In practice, to obtain vigorous growth, a 400 watt light should cover no more than 1m x 1m (10sq feet).

What area will a 1000w light cover?

This setup will cover a maximum area of 2.5 x 2.5 metres (64 sq foot) if hung 2.5m (8ft) above the plant canopy. This area is considered maximum and assumes a good reflector and reflective material is used on walls. In practice, to attain vigorous growth, a 1000w light should cover no more than 2m x 2m ( 40sq ft).

The light from a lamp diminishes quickly by the square of the distance. So the further away a plant, the dimmer the light. At 2 metres away the lumen intensity from a 1000 watt lamp will be around 1000 footcandles, the general accepted minimum requirements for good growth, but if you have 2 500w lamps, which equals 1000watts, positioned 2 metres apart, then the area is going to be brighter because its coming from 2 points. So, 2 x 400watt lights are more efficient than 1 x 1000watt. They are not as bright, but overall they will give you more even coverage.

i.e. At 1 ft ( 30cm) the irradiance from a 400 watt lamp is 36, 000 lumens ; at 2 feet (60cm) , 9000 lumens; and at 3 feet ( 90cm) 4000 lumens and so on.

The addition of a light mover to your growing environment will massively increase efficeiency, as instead of using 3 x 400w stationary lights, you could use 2 600watt lights and a linear mover , this will improve unifority during growing as there will be a much more even spread of light for your plants and more area of the plant will receive light as the light will move from one side of growroom to other.

There are a few additions to light rails which also help with uneven growth, using 2 x 250 watt lights hung vertically each side of your 600 watt horizontally mounted light means you can supply your plants with light underneath the canopy which usually slows down lower flower formation due to lack of light intensity.

The use of air cooled lights is yet another efficeiency improver, as the intensity from a 400w light at 1 ft from lamp = 36.000 lumens, whereas at just 2ft from lamp the light intensity drops dramatically to 9000 lumens, and drops exponentially the further away from light source.

With aircooled light setups, it allows you to place the light literally on top of the plants, thus delivering a constant 36000 lumens to your plants throughout their lifecycle. The increase in growth , flowering and yields when using low mounted lighting is staggering, come into showroom and see aircooled being demo'd. We have 3 excellent aircooled hoods in stock, we will demo one for you so you can see just how much heat is removed and the extra lumens you can deliver to your plants.

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