A Quick Guide to Increased Demands from Under Canopy Lighting

We designed Faven lights to integrate easily into any grow, but you’ll still need to adjust a few things after installing under canopy lights:

• Increased light means the plants will have an increased need for water and food,
• You'll need to compensate for increased humidity,
• And there's the added task of cleaning and stacking the lights between runs.

None of these changes require much extra labor or significant adjustments to your workflow, but you need to pay attention to them as you integrate UCLs into your facility.
This is a general guideline. Obviously, every grow is different, and you'll develop your best practices with some time, but these guidelines will be a good place to start.

Food and Water Levels

Since you are increasing the demand being placed on your plants through UCLs, you need to meet that demand with more resources. 
Recommended parameters for increased demands:

• About 10%-15% more water volume is standard
• About 10% more EC, though not everyone sees the need to feed at a higher rate.
  

Managing Humidity Increase

The more water used and the higher your plants' overall biomass, the more transpiration will occur, leading to higher humidity levels.
The obvious solution is to increase your dehumidifying capacity. However, we've found that reducing your plant count is easier (and helps promote airflow in the lower canopy).
Going from four rows of plants down to three rows of plants per table has shown to be plenty of compensation without needing to add dehumidification capacity. If you are already at three rows of plants, then consider your plant count per 4’x4’ or 4’x5’ of bench space. Our general rule of thumb for 4x4 space is to be around 9 plants on single tier and 12 plants on multi-tier setups. 

Less Labor, but New Labor

Overall, under canopy lights will decrease labor time and requirements, thanks to the decreased need to skirt or lollipop your plants. However, the added tasks are cleaning, clearing, and stacking the lights after harvest.

We timed four workers removing 180 lights and then cleaning and stacking them in less than 45 minutes. So it's not that much of an added burden (just make sure you're cleaning them properly, especially considering the drop in labor from a decrease in plant work.
The lights are also just fine staying in place during harvest. They can handle a plant hitting them, so there's no need to remove them before you're ready to clear the whole room.

Know Your Own Grow

Every strain reacts differently, so the most important thing is to pay attention. We always recommend that people start Faven lights out at a low intensity and slowly increase them over the first few weeks.
As you increase intensity, keep an eye out for added plant stress. If you see any added stress, reduce the light intensity for a few days to let the plants bounce back. If you incrementaly increase intensity 5%-10% every other day, you wont see much plant stress. At the end of the day, youre the expert of your plants and facility. As long as you're paying attention, no one will know better how to adjust your levels than you.