Selecting the Right LED Grow Light

Guides

January 11, 2017

Choosing the right Cultivate Tech grow light for you will depend on several factors. The most important of which are the size of your grow space and how many plants you intend on growing under a single fixture. Cultivate Tech light fixtures range in size and power providing options for large scale operations for crops grown commercially and also options for the home grower with a much smaller space.

Spectrum and Controls

Cultivate Tech LED grow lights have been designed for maximum efficiency, using only the colors of the light spectrum your plants will need to flourish with no wasted energy spent producing unneeded wavelengths that your plants can’t even use. Since light from Cultivate Tech fixtures don’t come from a single source but from a series of light emitting diodes (LEDs), specific wavelengths of light crucial to plant growth are targeted giving your plant the exact spectrum of light it’s asking for throughout all stages of the grow cycle providing consistent healthy growth and maximum flowering.

Unlike more traditional grow lighting (and also many other LED brands), Cultivate Tech fixtures are designed to be full-cycle and will grow a plant to its full potential from seedling to flower all under one fixture. With several dimming options available on Cultivate Tech fixtures, complete control is given to the grower allowing them to introduce different colors of the light spectrum at varying degrees of intensity during different stages of plant growth. Providing more intensity in the blue spectrum during the vegetative stage will encourage upward growth and produce strong roots and stems with thick healthy leaves. Dialing back the blue and increasing red intensity during the flowering stage will tell the plants “winter” is approaching and trigger them to start producing larger, more potent flowers.

Size of your grow space

The size of your grow space will dictate the size and number of fixtures you will need. For a small scale home grower or hobbyist, the Original Growtech Series 2x2' fixtures are great for growing 1-3 plants. For larger scale growers we have our more powerful Growtech X Series that come in 2x4' and 4x4' models and range from 240-660 true LED watts. These can be used to outfit grow facilities of any size.

Below is a quick reference chart designed to help you determine the desired wattage based on your grow space. If you have a larger grow space, you can scale up from these numbers. Remember: 1 sq ft of grow space requires 20 watts of actual LED power.

Grow Space	Wattage	Suggested Fixture(s)	Suggested Supplemental Fixture(s)

4 sq ft (2x2)	160	Growtech160	1-2 Bud Boosters
8 sq ft (2x4)	240-320	GrowtechX240 GrowtechX320	2-4 Bud Boosters
16 sq ft (4x4)	320	GrowtechX320	4-6 Bud Boosters
32 sq ft (4x8)	480-660	Growtechx480 GrowtechX660	6-8 Bud Boosters
64 sq ft (8x8)	1320	Two GrowtechX660’s	8-10 Bud Boosters

Distance between light and plant

Cultivate Tech grow lights run very cool, so keeping them closer to the plant will not cause burning issues that you have to worry about with more traditional grow lighting like HPS. This provides yet another benefit to using LED grow lighting since you can position the light at much closer distances to your plant, using the light to shape and grow the plant any way you would like.

With that in mind, keeping LEDs too close to your plants can still be harmful to them and cause discoloration or stunted growth.

Typically Cultivate Tech fixtures should be kept no lower than 12” and should not need to be kept any higher than 60”.

Hanging the light higher will decrease intensity and give a larger footprint, and hanging the light lower will increase intensity but decrease the footprint. The intensity of the grow light will diminish the greater distance that it travels so the higher your grow light is the more your plant will stretch to reach for the light source. For shorter, bushier plants you can keep the light source closer.

For growers who require less light intensity (vertical farmers who need the light source very close to plant canopy, for example) The Original Growtech series can be dimmed using the free Cultivate Tech Bluetooth app from any mobile device. The Growtech X Series can be controlled with an optional gateway/controller system (sold separately) via any mobile device through WiFi.

Supplemental Lighting

Cultivate Tech’s Bud Booster is designed as a supplemental light fixture to work alongside your overhead fixture in any sized grow room to help maximize yield. The Bud Booster is a 2' long fixture and is completely waterproof. This means you can place it directly under your plants regardless of your watering methods without worrying about damaging the light. As the leaves of your plant grow, they will start blocking light from reaching the lower half of your plant. By introducing the Bud Booster, especially during the flowering stage, a specially designed spectrum of light will now be hitting these once dark areas of your plant, turning what would normally be “fluff” into fully usable buds. The Bud Booster has been proven to increase yields on plants by up to 10%.