TSRgrow: Advanced LED Lighting Solutions
TSRgrow’s advanced LED lighting solutions were developed in cooperation with university and industry leaders and are engineered to maximize energy efficiency. With design and manufacturing in the USA, TSRgrow Lighting as a Platform™ (LaaP), GROWHub, and TOTALgrow Solution featuring remote power servers, environment monitoring, and full lighting management, is designed for commercial cultivation. As a full-service horticulture solution company supporting hundreds of thousands of square feet of canopy, TSRgrow works with growers, owners, and operators in all aspects of their operations. Company president and co-owner Mikhail Sagal and Gary Arnold, vice president and co-owner took time to answer our questions about the business.
How did you come up with the name TSRgrow?
The founder, Mikhail Sagal, was a development engineer from the plastics industry. He had more than 35 patents in developing thermally conductive plastics that could be molded into housings for electronic components and subassemblies, like LEDs. The company was founded to bring thermal engineering and product design solutions and expertise to LED lighting in 2009 –TSR – and upon expanding into the horticulture industry, the company was renamed to TSRgrow.
How important is safety when you’re engineering new products?
Safety is paramount at TSRgrow. All our solutions and products are industrial and commercial grade as we know they will be subjected to harsh environments that are wet with high temperature swings, so our lighting is certified to the highest UL standards for safety and horticulture including UL 8800. Our GROWHub application modules that operate our lighting and CEA in each growroom are designed to allow operators to monitor, track, and diagnose every event in a proactive and secure way to prevent product damage, and ensure personal safety and performance. GROWHub is adaptive based on all variables maintaining quality, scheduling, and productivity for plants and personnel.
What are some new innovations you are using in your products?
TSRgrow listens to our customers and, being cultivators ourselves, we realized commercial cultivators have many more challenges to manage effectively to succeed in this business. Obviously, we developed the most efficient full spectrums for the plants that we are illuminating; we simplified the fixtures to remove the individual drivers and place a central digital power-server technology outside the growroom. This not only removes heat, vastly improves maintenance, and service but also decreases the installation costs of mounting, wiring, and controlling these fixtures.
We are incorporating independently assignable zones so that each strain can have its unique lighting recipe for optimal growth characteristics and yields. Our GROWPod features industry leading modeling for the growrooms to identify micro-climates and provide immediate data to adapt the plant’s production to these changing conditions. Master recipes for each strain ensure peak cultivation performance at the lowest cost of energy and people’s time.
Any new innovations/technology you are working on that you can tell our readers about?
GROWHub modules are being developed for Management Key Performance Indicators (MKPI) to help analyze current and past crop results to allow adaptive changes to improve product yields, maintain quality, and squeeze out costs in product care and energy used.
Production Key Performance Indicators (PKPI) allow calibrated crop steering to the most efficient use of labor, energy, irrigation, and nutrients to deliver consistent results.
Maintenance/Service Key Performance Indicators (SKPI) allow proactive and preventive planning through diagnostics and alerts to eliminate damaging downtime or interrupts caused by failures.
Regulations will be changing to ones we do not even know yet. Our GROWHub and integrated lighting solutions are future proof in that they can be re-programmed and adapted to meet new regulations when they come—they are not silent fixtures and systems that will need to be ripped out if electrical or other regulations relegate them obsolete.
What are some steps TSRgrow has taken to improve its environmental responsibility?
Our TOTALgrow Solution approach is a sustainable use of energy for the highest efficiency, alternative energy sources such as solar, battery, CoGen, wind, and hydro. Carbon dioxide emissions are minimized, and water is recovered through our reclaim and reuse GROWHub module. Our crop Steering Module is based on least cost to targeted product quality yields; it’s the only way to have a repeatable product result.
Our customers can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in rebates and incentives from utilities due to the energy reductions with our system. The numbers are very impressive.
What are your top-3 selling products right now?
- TSRgrow’s TG-1000HVR 0-1000W LED top light fixture for indoor and greenhouse cultivation.
- TSRgrow’s TG-100HVR 0-900W LED vertical fixture for multi-level cultivation.
- TSRgrow’s GROWHub modules for integrated lighting and environment control.
Why should consumers or corporations choose TSRgrow over the competition?
TSRgrow is a 13-year-old company. We design, engineer, and manufacture the industry’s best LED lighting solutions but do not sell lighting—we sell TOTALgrow Solution, which is a holistic approach to your complete cultivation requirements that of course includes our recommended lighting as part of the long-term solution. Couple that with a full suite of consultive solutions from design, build and supply with 24/7 coverage from inception of your dream, to implementing your project, to commissioning and start-up to on-going support. We are your partner not a company selling a product that gets dropped off—we don’t leave; we succeed with you. We will continue to be there as you grow.
Do you have any expansion plans?
To stay ahead of the industry growth, developing more efficient solutions with quicker payback is not an option: it is what we are doing every day, month, and year. So, expansion is continuous and never ending for one reason only—we are the gold standard because we listen and work with our customers.
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What are you doing to retain staff?
Attitude is key in our company. It is how we project to our customers, our partners, and our company teams. Our company is made up of dedicated individuals, that feed off customers’ success from the efforts TSRgrow provides to those customers. We all look for the same things: how to work for a common goal of customer satisfaction. We all know what we need to do, we all share in challenges and successes, and we never leave anyone until the job is completed. We all like our contributions, results, and successes—we are a team from side to side.
What are some challenges you’ve come across in marketing your products and how have you overcome them?
This industry has no blueprint to design to, no two customers are the same, expectations are challenging, and some are not reachable. Facilities are unique, yes, every one of them. So, our customers are unique and that is the marketing challenge. Our approach is you need to know more about a customer, and we do that from direct contact.
How are you keeping pace in such a fast-moving industry?
Where we have the history and experience over 13 years, so we can measure and predict the trends and prepare for them. Our culture is based on nothing less than the success of our customers—of course that is our key to success too. We listen to our customers; we plan for our customers, and we deliver what our customers need.
Describe TSRgrow’s company culture.
Our customers come first. We work with our customer by pulling up a chair to their table. We team up; we share; we laugh; we have the attitude that delivers—it is the culture of TSRgrow.
What are your thoughts on the future of cannabis industry?
We are excited to be part of the cannabis industry. We are at the forefront of exponential growth and product developments in medicinal benefits. Consider the reality of a plant-based treatment system yet to be developed but quickly evolving that will be a life-giving solution to millions of people in all stages of health. We know that when looking back from five years in the future, we will say with pride that we were part of the reason for this wonderful plant-based medicine, helping so many people and by then, will be the largest employment industry in the world. Did I say we are excited, yes?
Anything else you’d like to say about TSRgrow?
TSRgrow is just like this industry: poised for super growth, excited about our contributions, embracing the industry regulations that are coming, and looking forward to working with companies that want to make a difference in this world with great products and a commitment to their employees to share their contributions for a healthier world.
 Business Address: 60 Alhambra Rd, Warwick, RI 02886 Phone Number(s): O: 401-515-3269, M: 617-233-5826, M: 401-388-0533 Number of years doing business: 13 Company motto: Growing Together |
