MJBizMagazine September 2021 Lighting Buyers Guide - 12

MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Lighting
mjbizdaily.com
THE EVOLVING CANNABIS
MARKETPLACE
Growers should consider the operational
costs of their lighting system, not just now
but over the next five to 10 years, Mattos
said, pointing to a maturing cannabis
industry and increasing market saturation.
" If you think you can make a lot of money,
well, other people think that too, " Mattos
said. " Market saturation will happen really
fast. "
Further, cannabis consumers are
increasingly concerned about the cannabis
carbon footprint, Higginbotham said, and
energy savings with LED lights is a big
selling point.
THE FUTURE OF LIGHTING
While old-school metal halide and
HPS lights aren't going away soon, the
future of horticultural lighting is really in
LED technology, van Iersel and others
interviewed said.
Using wide-spectrum LEDs to reflect
different spectrums and even dim the
amount of light they emit helps growers
adopt automated " smart farming "
technology.
" Control with HPS is always going to be
crude, " van Iersel said. " With LEDs, you can
literally make them do anything you want. "
LEDs allow growers to be " more dynamic "
and respond to changes in weather and
energy prices, Mattos said. Just controlling
lights more precisely can return 25% to 30%
in energy efficiency.
Especially as researchers learn more about
the optimum spectrum needs for cannabis,
Mattos predicts the industry will continue
moving toward LEDs, adding that cannabis
growers are leading the way into LEDs for
other horticultural sectors.
" Five years from now, I don't know if
growers are going to be buying HPS lights, "
he said.
Does Lighting Influence
Pest Problems in Cannabis
Crops?
That's the question
Purdue University
Department of
Entomology graduate
student Eze PojmannEzeonyilo
is hoping to
explore in his Master's
degree work looking
at how LED lights may
be useful for managing
pests on CBD hemp
production.
Poymann-Ezeonyilo's
studies were inspired
by intriguing results
coming out of other
horticultural crops.
University of Florida
researchers, for
example, recently
discovered that
irradiation with
ultraviolet light killed
the eggs of both spider
mite pests and the predatory mites used for
biological control in strawberry crops.
Stalk of a hemp plant infested
with hemp aphids. Photo courtesy
of Eze Pojmann-Ezeonyilo
Pojmann-Ezeonyilo will study hemp aphids and
hemp russet mites and how the manipulation
of spectral quality of LED lights can be used to
minimize pest damage and optimize biological
control methods in indoor hemp production.
He will explore whether using different LED
lights can bolster hemp's natural resistance to
aphids and study how different light regimes
influence the natural life cycle of pests.
" If it ends up being an effective way of
controlling pests, it helps fill in the gap where
we don't have the chemical controls that other
crops have, " Pojmann-Ezeonyilo said.
" We're also looking at integrating this
with organic solutions that people are using
with pests. "
12
Copyright 2021, MJBizDaily, a division of Anne Holland Ventures Inc. You may NOT copy this report, or make public the data and facts contained herein, in part or in whole.
For more copies or editorial permissions, contact CustomerService@MJBizDaily.com or call 720.213.5992 ext. 1.

http://www.mjbizdaily.com

MJBizMagazine September 2021 Lighting Buyers Guide

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of MJBizMagazine September 2021 Lighting Buyers Guide