Growroom

"A growroom, or grow room, is a room of any size where plants are grown under controlled conditions. The reasons for utilizing a growroom are countless. Some seek to avoid the criminal repercussions of growing illicit cultivars, others simply have no alternative to indoor growing. They can be grown with the use of artificial light, sunlight, or a combination of the two. A grow room will often become excessively hot (relative to temperature range ideals for plant growth), due to the heat generated by the high power lamps; the use of supplemental ventilation fan is often necessitated.

Growing methods

The plants in a growroom can be grown in soil, or without soil via means such as hydroponics, and Aeroponics. Not only is growing in a soiless medium more cost effective, sometimes one also gets a much higher yield.

Lighting

The three most common varieties of lighting for indoor growing are High-intensity discharge lamps (the most prevalent for this application being: high pressure sodium and metal halide), Compact fluorescent lamps, and traditional Fluorescent lamps.

Incandescent and halogen lamps generate excessive heat per watt, with a low lumen to watt ratio.

Luminous efficacy

High Intensity discharge lamps have the most efficacy in terms of Lumen (unit)s of light output vs. power input. Compact fluorescent are slightly less efficient than HID lamps, however they produce far less excess heat in comparison. Traditional fluorescent lamps generally do not produce enough concentrated light to be a primary light source for most indoor growing operations. Fluorescent and Compact Fluorescent are excellent light sources for young plants (seedlings). They are also excellent for supplementing the light generated by primary HID lamps.

Light = Plant Food, everything else that we provide to a plant is to help it digest and use the light. The bigger the plant gets the more light it requires, nothing else will make a plant grow larger if there is not enough light.

For indoor gardening one of the most important topics is light density or lumens. Lumens are the amount of light intensity striking the surface of the plant. A lumen is a convenient measurement that goes as follows: 1 LUMEN = 1 FOOT CANDLE or 1 candle of light intensity per square foot held 1 foot away.

The metric version of a “Lumen” is call the “Lux”. The Lux is equal to the amount of light falling on one square metre: 1 LUX = 1 METRE-CANDLE or 1 candle of light intensity per square metre held 1 foot away.

Ventilation and temperature concerns

Growing plants in an enclosed environment inevitably leads to concerns regarding temperature. The excess heat generated from artificial lighting are usually the largest contributor to increasing the ambient temperature in the growroom.

Ventilation and air flow concerns

An enclosed environment offers many advantages in terms of controllability versus an open alternative. However, issues arise with the finite resources (i.e. oxygen, carbon dioxide etc.), in the finite space (i.e. the closed growroom), being consumed faster than they can be replenished.

Adequate gas exchange is necessary for optimal plant growth.

Clandestine usage

Cultivating marijuana is illegal in many countries, thus some choose to grow marijuana indoors, mitigating the risk of doing such. However, excessive monthly electrical usage, along with the heat generated from grow lamps (identified from outside a home using thermal imaging cameras/FLIR/infrared cameras) can be used by law enforcement to identify such growers.

Growers tackle this risk again by isolating and decoupling rooms physically from outer walls of buildings, and leading exhausts into canalization or chimney.

References

ee also

*Grow box
*Water chiller
*Hydroponic dosers