Hiya DJWIMBO! With a reminder as to how this thread was started
I guess many induction grow lights up until this point are bunk (what iGrow said).
I still tip my hat to guys lilke SteveyG who is an early adopter of the igrow products and can man up and apologize (sort of) when he's wrong. From my end it's not bickering. I try to respectfully lay out any facts that I have at hand or request backup to claims, such as patents, or NDA's which others have made. It's ulitmately up to you what you take from these exchanges but if anything I've said inclines you to maintain your ongoing relationship with HID systems that was not my intention. As to side by side comparisons for these two products I think that is a wonderful idea!
Inda-Gro does in house garden grows. You can see the live stream @
http://www.inda-gro.com/cam.html or the high res galleries of those gardens @
https://picasaweb.google.com/117165142682869295633/LiveStreamGarden#slideshow/5828940839173888818 where you can see an exact side by side in a 3 x 6 ebb and flow garden with their own 420 against their 420 with the accessory pontoons. The notes below the images show side by by days from start, days from flower, fruit production/size, brix readings and notes. As you can see for yourself by a review of the conditions and the historical images this is a fair side by side of their own products whereby everything in the garden is subject to identical conditions with the only variable being the lighting.
A true side by side with the igrow vs inda-gro would require that igrow provide the tester with both a veg and a flower lamp. Inda-Gro would still happily agree to this type of comparison. As you can see by the aforementioned high res galleries the flowering aspects of the single lamp IG 420 are well documented there as well as by myself, spliff and others who freely contribute to these forums with images of their gardens. I can tell you some things that will happen from this test. When switching lamps at flower the plants may take up to a week or more to start showing pistils. After being exposed to the shortened photoperiod those same plants under the Inda-Gro will be showing pistils the next day. I've seen this happen so many times I can't recall it ever taking even a second day for pistil formation. Changing lamps and photoperiod simultaneously creates plant stress whereby the plant might hermaphrodite and is less able to fight off disease and infestation. When changing lamp spectrum's and photoperiod simultaneously the plant must recalibrate photomorphogenesis for the new and available spectrum's which the gardener has thrust upon it in the interest of 'flowering'.
Changing lamps is expensive, cumbersome, subject to breakage over your garden, and won't produce results that warrant this 'traditional' approach that has enrichened the lamp manufacturers and retail outlets for the better part of forty years. A broad spectrum spectrum approach works and I suggest from my own past experiences with comparing phopshor based single broad spectrum to 'narrow spectrum, veg/flower lamp combinations the grows under broad spectrum will typically come in a week early and dry weights when compared to both approaches have favored a single lamp approach. But I won't make a sweeping statement re weights because any variation in mfg blends of phosphors in veg/flower combinations will result in different returns. I would be willing to go on record that the results favored broad spectrum single lamp over dual lamp approaches in that the weight differences more often than not favored single lamp broad spectrum, in some cases by more than 10% but the quality in the comparison between the two always seemed to favor the single lamp broad spectrum garden.
Here's why I believe that to be the case:
As in nature; when the plants are exposed to broad spectrum UV, B regions the trichome, oil and resin production goes up in defense of these spectrum's. Compared to the spectrum's emitted by a 600 watt HPS lamp being used at flower the trichome geometry between the following two images makes a stark contrast as to how trichomes will be formed (Ace of Spades side side with an IG 420) when not exposed to what would generally be referred to as vegetative spectrum's when subject to a broad spectrum UV/B-R/FR at flower. The HPS trimchomes are globular and offer a lazy defense to UV bombardment while the trichomes formed under the broad spectrum lamp look like cut glass. This is a photochemical response to wavelengths the plant is seeing under the broad spectrum that it is not seeing under a 'flowering' spectrum lamp. If the igrow flowering spectrum lamp they offer is meant to emulate the traditional approach to flowering with an HPS spectra emission this is the type of trichome production one could expect as opposed to the broad spectrum approach that IG brings to the market.
Inda-Gro would have no problem with running a side by side with their single lamp 420 with the suggested combination of the igrow veg and flower lamps. But what I would find of even greater interest, and since there is a built in variance to this side by side anyway with igrow using two lamps to inda-gro using one lamp from veg-flower, is how the igrow lamp combination performs against the 420/pontoon combination that offers a 660nm chlorophyll B peak with 1/2 peaks at 650 and 670 as well as the 730nm Pfr switch that extends flowering by 1.5 hours per night. This is an infrared image of the 730nm diodes being run for 5 minutes at lights out off of lithium-ion batteries built into the Made in the USA pontoon housngs. All their products are UL approved for use in Canada and the USA. You can see their product listings on the UL database @
http://database.ul.com/cgi-bin/XYV/cgifind.new/LISEXT/1FRAME/index.html type in Inda-Gro on the search query and hit enter.
I was unable to find igrow or their products listed by model number under the same search query but it's possible they're filed with a listing agency other than UL. However for use in Canadian gardens the manufacturer must have a CUL listing or it may not be sold, or even offered for sale, in Canada.
Different company's with different approaches and innovations on how to bring the best value to the gardener. A side by side would be warmly welcomed.