CANNAINVESTOR Magazine December / January 2016 | Page 50

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MEDICINAL PLANTS

Growers of medicinal plants are at the cutting edge in terms of investing in new technology, lighting and growing methods in order to ensure high quality and high profitability. The legalization of cannabis cultivations in the US has caused price reductions which force market changes. In addition to this making it necessary to streamline costs, taste and quality have become important in terms of competition. Heliospectra’s products offer direct energy savings and make it possible to control the cultivation so as to reduce the growing time and improve quality.

Energy consumption is a large part of the cultivation cost of the cannabis plant. By using Heliospectra’s LED lights, the energy consumption can be reduced by up to 50 percent. Because the lights do not generate any heat, there is also no need for any cooling systems thus eliminating the increase in cost of first heating something and then cooling it down. This means that the payback time for replacing the HPS lights with LED lights is short. The indoor cultivation also ensures increased efficiency as it enables more harvests per year. Cannabis is a short-day plant. This means that it blooms and spreads its seeds when the days get shorter. By growing indoors, it is possible to control light and repeat the growing cycle three or four times per year.

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