Growing Commercial With Gavita 1700e LED
This is the third part of my ‘Growing With Gavita’ series. In Article #1 — ‘The Incredib(ly) Affordable Gavita 1700e LED Cannabis Grow Light’ we discussed why we chose LED lighting and specifically why we began our cannabis company under Hawthorne’s Gavita brand. In Article #2 — ‘1 Year / 5 Harvests With The Gavita 1700e LED Cannabis Grow Lights’ we showcased a year’s worth of experience, costs, triumphs, hiccups and end product results. Now, our company Montana Canna Co or ‘MCC’ for short has tiered up and we’re doubling down on these 645watt fixtures with a facility expansion to 44 lights. While small to most commercial cultivators in this industry, we’re pretty stoked about it.
At this point of our business life cycle the decision was still difficult because LED aren’t cheap and there’s not even a bulk discount on these units. My rad (and local) gardening supply store did the best they could but I’m pretty sure we were both sore about negotiating on an item with very little wiggle room for markup and stressing about online pricing vs supporting local. Never-the-less, we wanted to stay consistent with our lighting, were already in $9,000 on our first batch and had the controller, adapters and a good idea of what the Gavita’s could grow. With happy customers, and a thriving start-up business, I wasn’t it too much of a hurry to change the formula. However, as mentioned in article #2 I had purchased some Flexstar units to R&D. At 60% of the Gavita price and as far as I can tell, the specs are almost identical it crossed my mind to go generic on the equipment front.
There were two main considerations that kept me from going with a cheaper fixture… like literally almost any other grow light on the market ;)
- There’s so many companies coming up right now and they’ve all been able to learn from and model their products after the predecessor manufacturers. So even though I’ve little doubt they’re a quality product, I do have to wonder if they will be around 2-4 years from now when the hardware starts getting finicky. With Gavita’s 5 year warranty and my own personal experience of having to replace a defective unit (see Article #2), I’m resting a lot easier knowing I’ve parked a huge chunk of money in a solid company that has a customer service reputation to uphold. They are the mother ship after all.
- I hadn’t found the time as I alluded to 6 months ago, to do a side by side flower test between the Gavita’s and the Flexstar’s. I’m ashamed to admit it but my lofty goals of providing high quality video journalism on a light showdown were sacrificed to bring in a large harvest in early 2021 after we nearly sold out of flower at our dispensary. Not then complete with our expanded facility, I had to make use of hallways, the kitchen and parts of our workroom to flower as much product as possible. If there was empty floor space and we could afford to keep it dark 12 hours a day, there were plants growing there and lights plugged into anything that would support the required amperage. It wasn’t much fun to stay on top of but we successfully brought in a nearly double harvest and limped into spring. Even our spare KIND LED finished off x6 Blue Gelato’s :)
I also have to say that I was tempted to follow other industry leaders like the Jungle Boys and just copy their cultivation equipment and techniques. They’re pretty liberal with sharing their SOP’s and methods or at least what equipment they’re using. So, I did price some Luxx Lighting but ultimately decided that I had been very happy with my experiences with the Gavita’s and the future of our industry is looking pretty green so I figured it was a low risk to stay the course and fork over the big bills to deck out our two new 600 sq ft flowering rooms.
Okay, so that brings me back to my late promise to do a side by side by side flowering comparison which I do promise (fingers crossed behind my back) to do before the end of 2020. I also need to educate the community on what happens when you put young plants into an LED environment without a controller to lower the power output to 50%… can you say ‘LIGHT STRESS!’
With that I’m going to wrap up this post and get back to the garden. Cheers and give a follow on IG would ya?
- The INCREDIB(ly) affordable Gavita 1700e LED Cannabis Grow Light
- 1 Year / 5 Harvests with the Gavita 1700e LED Cannabis Grow Light
- How To Decide Which Marijuana Strains To Grow For Your Dispensary
- @Montana_Canna_Co on Instagram
- www.MontanaCannaCo.com
Until next time.
-Montana Canna
#shegrows #gavita1700eLED #gorillagrowtent #cannabis #LEDlighting