What type of grow light for cannabis?

When growing marijuana indoors, we try to imitate the best outdoor sunlight conditions. This means having similar levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen, temperature, humidity, etc., especially the light required to replicate cannabis plants.

We all know that light is one of the most critical factors for plant growth, including marijuana. Although natural sunlight is usually the most suitable for marijuana cultivation, many growers prefer to grow indoors for a variety of reasons. First, the climate for outdoor cultivation is very limited. Secondly, indoor cultivation involves regular artificial lighting, so that growers can better control the vegetation stage and flowering stage of marijuana.

For many growers who cannot grow marijuana outdoors in sufficient free sunlight, plant grow light is a necessary condition for successful indoor marijuana cultivation. The grow lamp replaces the sun and provides power for the growth of plants and their buds. Light is like the “food” of plants, so without a lot of bright light, even healthy cannabis plants will not produce too many buds.

Choosing grow lights for your cannabis plant is a vital investment. Before choosing a plant grow light for your marijuana, you should consider the following important factors:

1. Cost

Your budget is the most important consideration before you choose which grow lamp to buy. In addition to the price of plant grow lamps, you must also consider the energy cost. Different lights consume different amounts of electricity and will have different effects on your electricity bill. Heat is another factor that increases the cost of lighting setup, because hot grow lamps need to buy fans or cooling systems to eliminate heat. In addition to the cost of additional fans, they also increase the extra cost.

2. Ventilation

Ventilation is another consideration. The quality of ventilation you can use will determine which type of grow lamp you can use.

3. Safety

You must ensure that your circuit breaker board can provide enough power to handle all electrical equipment you need to supply power. These include grow lamps, fans, humidifiers, etc. This is very important because these devices need to operate continuously for several months. Overload of circuit breaker board will significantly increase the risk of fire outbreak.

4. Number of grow lights

The number of lights required to operate an indoor cannabis garden depends on the size of the garden.

5. Growth stage

Cannabis plants at different stages need different spectrum of grow light.

In fact, there are many options for plant grow lamps in the market, which can grow marijuana well indoors, and different plant grow lamps have different advantages and disadvantages. The following are more common plant grow lamps from growers;

1.) fluorescent grow lamp

Compact fluorescent lamp (CFL)

T5 grow lamp (and other fluorescent tubes)

2.) High intensity discharge (HID) grow lamp; including Metal halide (MH),High pressure sodium (HPS) and Ceramic metal halides (CMH, LEC, luminescent ceramics)

3.) led grow light

Fluorescent grow lights – fluorescent bulbs are ideal for plants with low to medium light requirements. They are also suitable for growing vegetables indoors before planting outdoors. Fluorescent lamps consume 75% less energy than incandescent lamps.

HID grow lights – high intensity discharge growth lamp is an economical and efficient light source for indoor growth and cultivation. Hid plant lamp is much cheaper than LED lamp. Although the effect is poor, it is still the choice of many indoor marijuana growers. There are two types of HID lamps, MH or metal halide, and HPS or high pressure sodium bulbs. For best results, it is recommended that you use both types of HID bulbs – HPS and MH. HPS corms can increase plant yield at flowering stage. MH corms maintain vigorous plant growth in the vegetative growth cycle.

Led grow lights- the energy consumption of LED plant grow lamp is 60% to 90% lower than that of other lighting systems. This is because they don’t burn anything to produce light. Although the cost of LED lamps is slightly higher than that of traditional plant growth lamps, their durability and efficiency make them cheaper in the long run.

In terms of spectrum, cannabis plants receive blue light (450-500 nm) during vegetative growth and red light (610-750 nm) during flowering.

Many planters use blue fluorescent bulbs or CFL at the first stage of rooting. Before plants grow and bloom, many people will start using lamps with the same spectrum but higher power, such as metal halide lamps. This encourages the structure of the plant to become stronger and harder, ready for her rich flowering.

spectrum

Energy saving bulb or CFL spectrum

Red spectrum lamp is used for flowering marijuana plants, because it is the color range that can best imitate the sunlight spectrum in autumn, when outdoor marijuana blooms naturally. In this case, the most commonly used is HPS lamp. Because the LED system has good effect, low energy consumption and, most importantly, low heat emission, it is increasingly followed, which is the main problem of high-pressure sodium system (HPS).

On the contrary, most green light is reflected by the leaves, so it has no effect on the cannabis plant, which makes it the perfect color spectrum for growers to choose when they want to work on flowering plants with the lights off, without destroying them in dark times and pressure.