Optimal performance of horticultural lighting systems boosts competitive advantage of your indoor cultivation facility. There are diverse strategies and many types of equipment you can use to accomplish your goals. The crops you grow - food, floriculture, or cannabis - influence your controlled environment agriculture (CEA) lighting system approaches. Understand the process application for your lighting and control systems to choose efficient lighting products, reduce energy use and operating costs for resilient indoor operations, and maximize incentives from your local utilities and efficiency programs.
Topical areas include:
How CEA Crops Use Light
Benefits of Using LED Lighting
Optimizing Lighting System Design
Maximizing Financial Incentives for CEA Lighting
LED Lighting Best Practices for Vertical Farming
Automating Indoor Cultivation with Lighting Controls
Commissioning Sole-Source Lighting Controls
Benchmarking Lighting System KPIs
Efficiency Program Examples
Target audience:
Cultivators
Operations & Facility Staff
Design & Construction Partners
Property Owners
Utility & Government Representatives
| Funded with support from: |  |
| California Efficient Yields: Lighting Best Practices for Efficient Controlled Environment Agriculture (19.9 MB) | Download | ||
Kenda Branch is a Sr. Design Engineer at Hawthorne Gardening Company, where they work with the Design Team in the Professional Technical Services department and provide cultivation designs and sales/customer support for horticultural facilities.
Kenda has been with Hawthorne for three years but has been in the lighting industry for over ten years; they got their start working for ETL as a lighting engineer. While at ETL, they tested nearly every type of lighting product out there, which included safety, photometric, and photobiological testing according to various standards, and they also assisted customers with certifications for Energy Star, DLC and Dark Sky recognition. Since joining Hawthorne, Kenda has created thousands of designs for hundreds of growers all over North America and has expanded into hardware, airflow, and irrigation/fertigation designs.
When not on the job, Kenda enjoys hiking, powerlifting, and karaoke.
Rob has over 30 years of experience in plant growth facility management, plant research and commercial production. At Purdue University, he brought online and managed a computer- controlled 40,000 ft 2 research facility, made up of 25 greenhouses and over 60 growth chambers and grow rooms. He was responsible for hundreds of CEA studies involving flowering, food and medicinal species. He served on design teams for greenhouse projects and one of the first automated machine-vision phenotyping centers in the country. In his consulting role, he supported major hydroponic produce growers AeroFarms and Bright Farms; Big Ag companies Dow AgroSciences, Novozymes and Indigo Ag; and several cannabis operations including Clade9. He wrote cultivation plans for cannabis licenses awarded in Missouri and West Virginia.
Rob’s protocols for optimizing greenhouse production have been downloaded over 70,000 times in 104 countries. He participated in the publication, A Practical Guide to Containment: Plant Biosafety in Research Greenhouses, recognized throughout the world as a primary resource for safe production of genetically modified crops. In 2016, he was a member of the International Committee for Controlled Environment Guidelines that published Guidelines for Measuring and Reporting Environmental Parameters for Experiments in Greenhouse Facilities, the seminal document of quality assurance protocols for plant science research.
In his free time, Rob enjoys gardening, growing microgreens under LEDs, baking and winning croquet matches against his three grown children.
Casey Rivero is an all-around cannabis business professional who has created many efficient cultivation business models with well-established companies in multiple states. Spending more than 20 years in the cannabis community with various enterprises, Casey understands what drives businesses and how to design and build facilities as well as implement efficient operating procedures. He utilizes a commercial design approach when creating a custom solution for any need. Casey is an influential leader in the industry, working hands on to develop new methods and scientific understanding to ensure successful business planning.
Casey maintains a high level of botanical and horticultural understanding. He has designed studies for many leading product manufacturers including lighting, nutrients, soil, software, and HVAC equipment. Casey also lives to educate. Throughout the year you can find him teaching various workshops or giving presentations at conferences around the world.