Cultivation systems

A facility performs to the level of its weakest subsystem.

Lighting, cooling, dehumidification, airflow and irrigation act as one system. In practice they are specified separately, and then one component quietly limits all the others.

The most common finding in existing facilities is a gap between installed lighting power and the ability of the equipment to remove the resulting moisture load. The cultivation plan assumes the light; the facility can only follow it up to the point where dehumidification runs out.

We work the interaction through against your actual cultivation plan and name the limiting factor before money is spent. In existing rooms a substantial part can often be recovered without major investment, through control strategy, airflow and scheduling alone.

Environmental parameters through the crop cycle

Schematic illustration

Propagation

High relative humidity
Low VPD
Low light integral
Gentle airflow

Vegetative

Moderate humidity
Rising VPD
Rising light integral
Active mixing

Early flower

Falling humidity
Stable VPD
Peak light integral
High dehumidification load

Late flower

Low humidity
Narrow VPD window
Light integral held
Canopy climate critical

Drying

Controlled humidity
Low temperature
No light
Slow air movement

Schematic illustration of the controlled variables by growth stage. Actual set points are defined per facility and per cultivar and are deliberately not given here.

Room concept and workflow

How rooms are arranged, how people move between them and in what order work is done. Hygiene and crop risk are largely decided here, not at the point of treatment.

Room layout and space utilisation
Separation of growth stages
Routes, airlocks and hygiene concept
Workflow between rooms
Room for expansion

Lighting

Light strategy by growth stage and cultivar, judged on distribution and heat load rather than on installed wattage alone.

Fixture selection and layout
Photosynthetically effective light distribution
Daily light integral per growth stage
Heat load and its effect on climate equipment
Efficiency per gram produced

Climate, airflow and CO2

Stability matters more than the ideal set point. A room that hits its target on average but swings widely through the day manages a crop worse than a conservatively set, stable room.

Temperature and humidity by growth stage
VPD strategy across the daily cycle
Airflow, mixing and canopy microclimate
CO2 strategy and the limits of its usefulness
Dehumidification capacity against transpiration
Behaviour during the dark period

Irrigation, fertigation and substrate

Root zone, nutrient solution and irrigation rhythm as one unit. Substrate choice and irrigation strategy cannot be decided separately.

Substrate selection and root-zone volume
Irrigation rhythm and shot size
Fertigation and nutrient solution management
pH and EC frameworks
Runoff monitoring and what it tells you
Nutritional troubleshooting

Sensing and monitoring

Measurement points in the right places, in sufficient number, with records you can actually analyse. Without reliable data every optimisation is a guess.

Sensor selection and placement
Measurement at canopy level, not only room level
Logging interval and data retention
Alerting and threshold design
Calibration and plausibility checks
Data prepared so it can be analysed

Energy and facility efficiency

Where the energy goes, what it costs per gram, and which measure improves that ratio most.

Energy consumption analysis by subsystem
Efficiency of lighting and climate equipment
Dehumidification strategy and its energy cost
Load shifting across the day
Benchmarking against comparable facilities

Planning a room, or running one that underperforms?

Before you invest we work the specification through. In an existing room we find the limiting factor.

Request a technical consultation