In this episode of FAQ with AGIQ, we're going to talk about LEDs and their impact on leaf temperature. We all know that this industry, again, is striving for better energy efficiency and lower operating costs. And one of the ways that many growers are hoping to achieve that is through the use of LED lighting technologies.
Episode Transcription:
In today's FAQ with AGIQ, we're going to talk about LEDs and their impact on leaf temperature. We all know that this industry, again, is striving for better energy efficiency and lower operating costs. And one of the ways that many growers are hoping to achieve that is through the use of LED lighting technologies. LED lighting in general is much more efficient on a micromole per joule basis or micromole per watt basis.
But there is an impact on your leaf surface temperature. And if you're trying to achieve the same or similar yields, you're going to need to do something to increase your leaf surface temperature. There's a couple of impacts here that are at play. Obviously, in the discharge world, you were actively cooling your space to ensure that your leaves didn't get too hot and those leaves were getting too hot because of the intense infrared radiation coming off your discharge bulbs.
Very typical for a flower room, for instance, to be at 75 degrees. In an LED lit room, you've got much less infrared radiation, not none, but much less of it. And so that means that your leaf surface temperature isn't getting as warm from the lights. And even more than that, as natural by-product transpiration, that leaf surface is actually cooling off through evaporative cooling.
Your room, instead of being at 75 degrees, might need to be at 85 degrees to maintain the same leaf surface temperature. And that's really important because that leaf surface temperature is one of the primary drivers of the overall growth of that plant. Having that leaf surface temperature to cold can shock the plants, put them into a dormant state, or just prevent their growth altogether.
In order to achieve, again, an efficient facility, you need to raise your air temperature in order to raise your leaf surface temperature, in order to maintain your yields or that growth curve that you're expecting. This can have really serious impacts on your HVAC system. However, we're going to talk about that in another episode…
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