Love or hate this chilly time of year, it is a glorious time to be an indoor grower. Temperatures for the most part are a lot easier to control, and with some simple steps and slight tweaks to your room, most growers find their best success during these colder months. Seeing as we are in the thick of winter, it may be hard to be able to see past the freezing cold nights and the frosty winter mornings – but with Spring just around the corner, we begin to think about preparing for our next few crops, particularly with the hot weather expected to make waves throughout most parts of the country in the next couple of months and beyond the first few months of next year.
While previously we would be dimming down our ballasts at the expense of yield, the LED Revolution has made that sacrifice a thing of the past. The lack of heat that good LEDs produce eliminates the need to choose between either maintaining a reasonable temperature or a heavy yield. With the price of electricity soaring, most growers have come to the ‘LED party’ and the success they are having has been welcomed with open arms.
Aside from switching from a high-pressure sodium or metal halide lamp to LED, what can we do to keep those temperatures down?
Having the right air flow and air circulation is one of the biggest, if not the most important part of achieving that ideal environment for your plants to thrive in. Extraction fans (air out) and Intake fans (air in) are the most effective ways of removing heat and recycling the fresh air in your grow space as well as filtering the air. You will always want more air going out of the room than going in. A common mistake amongst novice growers is having the air extracting into the same area that the tent is pulling fresh air from. For example – if you have a grow tent in a bedroom you wouldn’t want to extract that air out of the tent and into the bedroom as that same air will be immediately drawn back into the tent. The correct way to do this would be to extract the air out a window or into the roof cavity as an example.
Even though fresh air intake and proper air extraction is the most effective way of creating your ideal environment, this won’t be the sole solution for some growers. An evaporative cooler is a great inexpensive and low power consumption way to control temperatures during the hotter seasons, however the trade-off is that they can increase humidity quite a bit, leading to mould in the last few weeks of the grow schedule. Dehumidifiers are the natural solution for this, although they can be quite pricey to purchase depending on the size of your grow area. Grow Room Dehumidifier Bags are something that all Just Hydroponics stores are equipped with that are an extremely cheap, yet very effective option.
Portable air conditioners also do an amazing job of dropping the temperature of your grow room those vital few degrees without the trade-off of causing extra humidity. By simply ducting the hot air produced by a portable air conditioner into the roof or into a window you can achieve significantly lower temperatures without any added humidity to your grow room however the trade-off being that they are quite expensive to run.
Which of these two options are right for you really depends of the size of the grow room and the results you are trying to achieve. Luckily for you we know exactly what works best in every situation and are more then happy to help you chose the right cooling system for your needs.
CO2 is also a very affective way to combat the hotter months. Although adding CO2 won’t drop the temperature in your grow room it will effectively help your plants deal with the higher temperatures as by helping the tree breath more easily, they won’t feel the effects of a high temperature grow room as harshly. There are easy ways to get more CO2 into your room without having to run confusing CO2 burners or CO2 bottles, options such as Exhale Bags and Green Pads, simply hang either one in your grow room and enjoy the benefits.
Controlling your temperature on your own can be quite challenging. Having the ability to reduce the fan speed has become somewhat essential in keeping the ideal environment in your grow room. Though effective, this can take a lot of ‘playing with’, as outside temperatures can vary daily, thus changing the temperature of your grow room. A ‘quality of life’ improvement you can implement in your grow which can be a game-changer are Fan Speed Controllers and Hybrid Controllers. These can be brand specific for some fans such as Can Fans, Iso Max and Hyperfans. There are also universal controllers available which will work with most fans. These controllers communicate with the fan or fans in order to maintain your set temperature. However, these controllers can wreak havoc with some fans and even void their warrantees, so I would recommend coming in and speaking to us for help with choosing the right controller for your fan. When chosen correctly, I have seen these controllers be the turning point for some growers in summer as previously they wouldn’t be able to stay on top of their temperatures resulting in loss of yield and overall unsuccessful crops.
While it’s hard to think ahead to warmer times when the weather is this dreadful, getting ahead and preparing yourself could be the best thing you have done all year, and with so many ways to achieve your ideal grow environment – why wouldn’t you get in before the rush?