At Hydro-Grow we leave the PROVING of our products to independent growers just like you! It's not that we don't do our own testing, as we most certainly do, it's simply that we understand the fact most people are skeptical of the results they see from the manufacturer of any product, and we'd rather take that skepticism away. Over the past 12 months we have proven the claims behind our products to the medical communities online, and now we are paving the way to prove our products to the rest of the world! Over the past several months we have spoken to many different companies and individuals interested in taking on the challenge of showing what our products can do, and after much deliberation we settled on 3 Independent testers who we sent free products to for their unbiased opinions. The testers we chose are: The University of Washington (UW), A+ Hydroponics in Caledonia, MI, and the Urban Hydroponic Growers Union. You can follow along with the progress of their testing by browsing below, or by clicking the links to their grows depending on availability.
Urban Hydroponic Growers Union (UHGU): urbanhydro.org/tag/hydrogrow-penetrator-345-test/
"UHGU is focused on growing and pioneering distributed urban agriculture, which means we don’t want to spend all of our time doing tests of different lights or products unless by doing so we can advance our agenda of finding proven methods of efficient indoor cropping. Our current lights seem to do very well for many crops such as peppers and strawberries, not to mention lettuce and herbs. However, to every manufacturer we have said, “But full-size tomatoes have eluded us this far. If you think your light can bring a couple Roma Tomato plants to production, you have our attention.” Until, now most manufacturers have either been hesitant to step out and say that they could give these results or they were less than eager to be compared to our “cheap ebay lights”. Well I have to give it to Hydro-Grow-LED for their confidence and willingness to put their light where their mouth is. They have provided us with their monster Penetrator 345 to give those Romas another go. Let me be clear that at this point UHGU is not endorsing any light over another, but we are very thankful to HydroGrow for allowing us the use of this light to help us accomplish our goals.
A few things I like about Hydro-Grow-LEDs lights
– They are very upfront about what spectra of LEDs compose the light
– The provide a chart of the light output of their light at different heights in micro-moles/sqinch
– They have chosen not to exaggerate the coverage area of their lights.
– The square shape of the light is good for square tents.
– Have you seen their vertical LED light? Super cool.
Some questions the test should help us answer
– Can LED lights produce Full-size tomatoes?
– Will the use of 60 degree bulbs provide for better light intensity and canopy penetration?
– Is it worth the smaller coverage area? (Our 345W test light has a 3′x3′ coverage area)
– Will the addition of IR bulbs help fight leaf edema?
The one known downside to this light?
– The Cost. I think this baby retails for ~$1200, but honestly if it can produce some Roma Tomatoes and other lights can’t, I’ll give it a round of applause.
First look at this thing…Wow! what a monster! That light pattern is really cool looking too. Looks like this light does have some ingenuity put into it that Chinese Ebay lights don’t. Can’t wait to get started. We got the plants started several weeks ago so all lights are a go for this test." - Zach (UHGU), June 28, 2010
"So here are the specs for the grow. One 47″X47″ Growlab. Two Roma tomato plants. Two General Hydroponics Power Growers. Couple of Axial fans. One oscillating fan. Subculture -M, GH Floramato 1.2 EC & pH 6.2, Flora-blend being used as foliar spray. Photoperiod 16L 8D. Irrigation 30 minutes on 1 Hour off during the light period. Two 30 minute irrigation periods during the night mainly just to keep the solution aerated. Whenever irrigation is happening the exhaust and intake fans go to work to bring in fresh air and keep the temperature prime. The oscillator runs all day(Or manually adjusted). The light is set at 21 inches above the plants (according to Hydro Grow’s graph on the website this should provide ideal quantity of light for the toms, don’t worry forgot to lower the light before taking those last setup pics it is lower than shown there). I have placed a temperature sensor in the tent so i’ll provide the min/max temps soon." -Zach (UHGU), June 29, 2010
"The Romas are growing fast (almost doubled in size the first week) but initially struggled a bit from transplant shock. I am hoping the plants will grow out of their tendency to “roll” their leaves up a couple days after growing them. This condition is known as “Tomato Physiological Leaf Roll” and current research says it is purely cosmetic and does not affect growth or yield. We shall see! The current nutrient concentration is EC 1.8 and pH is 5.8" -Zach (UHGU), July 7, 2010
So we set out to complete our Roma tomato setup with a scrog screen and some bases to put the powergrowers on. We figured this would be the last change to take the plants out of the tent to do a good nutrient flush so we did that two. I am really happy with the way the screen came out and hope the results are as good. There is no doubt that these tomatoes are growing faster than I have ever seen under LED, especially since they are already starting to bud. The leaf curl seems to be improving albeit slowly since I reduced the irrigation cycle. -Zach (UHGU), July 14, 2010
I’m so excited about this grow I could hardly sleep last night! Every day the plants just look better and better not to mention the fact that flowers are opening all over the place and we already have a couple baby tomatoes on the vine. Last time I tried to grow these things it took over 100 days for me to get anything like this going, and that was from a pretty sizable soil transplant. pH 5.8 EC 2.0 Using General Hydroponics Floramato, CalMg+, and Florablend (as a foliar spray). The daytime temps have been a little higher than I would like (max 87 min 75) since one of our AC units at Studio Logic is down. We are trying to use the ultrasonic fogger to keep the humidity around 70% but it ranges from 50-80. Looks like the new intake fan I installed is going to keep it a little cooler right now 80.9 degrees and 58% RH. -Zach (UHGU), July 27, 2010
University of Washington (UW): Link not available.
This test is being conducted by a Professor at the University of Washington who wishes to keep their identifying information anonymous. The test being performed by the Professor is a different kind of side-by-side comparison, focusing on the effects that spectral output makes on plant growth. The first test in a series of many to come, focuses on basil and lettuce growth under LED and High Output T5 Fluorescents. The test is being performed in a lab room, inside of a 4' x 2' x 6' grow tent. The upper 3' of the tent is reserved for the LED plants, while the bottom 3' is reserved for the T5 plants. The LED section is lit by 4x63W Hydro Grow Penetrator lights, consuming 57-58W of electricity each. The T5 section is lit by a 4' Sunlight Supply unit, using 4x54W High Output bulbs. All equipment was brand new out of the box for testing. This test has been balanced on the quantum level using a Li-Cor 25A Quantum light meter. This means that each set of plants is receiving 500 micromoles at the canopy level from both light sources, giving both sides an equal amount of PAR lighting. The only difference is spectrum, with LED using 440nm, 470nm, 640nm, 660nm, 740nm, and 6500k white, and the T5 using 2x3000k bulbs and 2x6500k bulbs.
06-30-2010 Room Setup & Planting
07-14-2010
07-22-2010
08-02-2010
A+ Hydroponics: Link Available Soon
Photos and Information Coming Soon!