The LED grow lights that you use inside of your grow will have to feed your plants the light that they need. You see, in the natural world they would be receiving sunlight that that features light from the entire range of light wavelengths. This ranges fromUltraviolet light, that humans can’t see, to infrared, which is also invisible to humans. In between, there is violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. Depending on the kind of growing and the cycle you are in, different portions of the spectrum will be important to you.
What Are Full Spectrum LED Grow Lights?
Plants growing in the great outdoors have a number of benefits over plants that are grown inside. Primarily, they have the benefit of sunlight that offers the entire spectrum of visible light. In order to be able to provide your plants with everything they need, including light for both vegetative and flowering growth, you will need a full spectrum LED grow light.
HPS and fluorescent grow lamps have been used for many years when it comes to indoor growing. Many people still swear by them. There is a great advantage to having the very powerful light that they produce, which includes rays from all over the spectrum, although that comes at a cost. In exchange, people have turned to LED lighting, but many neglect to still make use of the full spectrum that is necessary for growing plants through a natural life cycle.
Many people make the mistake of only using one kind of LED grow light. That simply can’t provide your plants with what they need for both stages of growth. A full spectrum LED grow light, in comparison, will provide a wide range of blue, red, white, andultraviolet light.
There is a lot that goes into full spectrum LED grow lights, including different ratios of the different colors that your plants need, but we will look at that next. Understanding what each kind of LED has to offer will allow you to truly take charge of your grow and ensure you have better results than ever.
The Colors of The Spectrum
Natural sunlight features the entire spectrum of light. When constructing LED panels, the manufacturers use only certain kinds of LEDs that will provide a specific color in order to feed your plants what they need. Here we will look at the different colors, including what the best combination is for your grow operation.
Ensuring proper growth and plant health means making sure they have the right blend of light. Natural outdoor grows have the benefit of living in a world where all of the right wavelengths are provided to them, although it is relatively simple to replicate that indoors.
For the optimum ratio of different colors, you should have the following in the panel that you are using. As long as it is close, you will be fine.
There are many growers that attempt to simply use one set of red LED grow lights and one set of blue LED lights. The problem with this is that it lacks the ability to provide your plants with the full range that they are used to having in nature. During an outdoor growth cycle, the kind of light that it receives fluctuates and moves as the days and months progress. Replicating that inside of your grow room is an important part of successful harvests. Leave no stone unturned and no helpful wavelength left out.
What Do You need To Know About Light Cycles
The type of cycle that your plants are currently in will determine what kind of light you use and how many hours a day they are turned on. It is important to understand these if you are going to have the best chances of success.
In a natural outdoor grow, plants will receive a great deal of light at the beginning of the growing season. As the months carry on, entering the fall, the days grow shorter, with longer periods of darkness. When growing your plants indoors it is necessary to recreate this artificially.
Spending more time in the vegetative stage results in larger overall plants, which can be a problem when you are growing indoors. Theoretically, plants can be left in the vegetative stage forever. This will allow you to what are known as “mother” plants. These can be cloned over and over again, saving a great deal of time by starting out with miniature plants, rather than seeds. That also means you can create exact copies of the favorite plant in your crop.
The Bud Stage is more temperamental. Spending too much time in this stage will result in poor flowering, making it a more “hands on” time for the grow.
Cannabis Light Cycle
For growing cannabis, it is important to have the right amount of light and dark each day in order to stimulate the right amount of growth in both vegetative and flowering stages, in addition to ensuring proper THC production.
Vegetative Growth
The vegetative growth cycle is where you’ll end up saving money on electricity bills since your plants don’t need incredibly intense light. What is most important to them is having steady, color coordinated LED light for long periods of time.
During the vegetative stage of growth, your cannabis plants need to have 16 and 18 hours of light each day. Depending on your growing method, this could last longer due to the excess growth needed for things like Screen Of Green techniques. With this much light, they will build strong roots and a solid main stem that will support your buds, in addition to lots and lots of foliage, including the famous five-fingered sun leaves.
This is an important stage in terms of light wavelength because you must ensure that the leaves and stem are healthy, this is where the carbon dioxide and light will be converted into food through photosynthesis.
The blue light we discussed above is what is used here. In the 400 – 500nm range, the plants will activate photosynthesis as well as phototropism. Phototropism is only activated by blue light, and is responsible for your plant knowing where the light is coming from, but red light can also help activate photosynthesis as well, making a full spectrum LED grow light ideal.
Typically, four to six weeks of this stage is necessary under the right kind of lighting. LEDs fit in that category. Once your plantsstart showing what are known as “pre-flowers,” they are ready to start budding whenever you are happy with the size that they have reached.
Flowering
Here you will see the results that you have been looking forward to. Before, LEDs shined blue wavelength light on your plants for 18 hours a day, but now we are going to change that up as they get ready to start sprouting the buds that deliver everything you could have hoped for.
The flowering stage involves 12 hours of light followed by 12 hours of darkness. This is when your plants will start showing their sex and begin budding. During the first two weeks, you will be able to tell whether or not they are male or female, an important factor in determining which plants you should get rid of if you aren’t interested in breeding. The flowering stage carries on with the same light cycle until the time is right to harvest.
Of course, simply changing the light cycle is going to convince your plants that they should begin producing buds, but the addition of red light helps the process along greatly. Again, you want to think about using blue as well, since it is better overall for photosynthesis.
Keep in mind, LED grow lights cause your plants to use up fewer nutrients. It is easy to over feed them since you may be used to using stronger lights that place added strain on the plants.
Also check out this video to know more about cannabis light cycles.
Why LEDs?
It may seem that any kind of light can help a plant grow, as long as it is on for the right length of time. That may be true, but LED lights cause a special reaction inside of your plants. The LED lamps will be formulated in a way that targets the part of the plantsresponsible for activating photosynthesis. This kind of laser targeting almost works like a cheat code for your indoor grow. You can skip all of the problematic parts like excess heat and wasteful light, while jumping right into perfect growth cycles that deliver massive harvests time and time again.
What Are Full Spectrum LED Grow Lights?
Plants growing in the great outdoors have a number of benefits over plants that are grown inside. Primarily, they have the benefit of sunlight that offers the entire spectrum of visible light. In order to be able to provide your plants with everything they need, including light for both vegetative and flowering growth, you will need a full spectrum LED grow light.
HPS and fluorescent grow lamps have been used for many years when it comes to indoor growing. Many people still swear by them. There is a great advantage to having the very powerful light that they produce, which includes rays from all over the spectrum, although that comes at a cost. In exchange, people have turned to LED lighting, but many neglect to still make use of the full spectrum that is necessary for growing plants through a natural life cycle.
Many people make the mistake of only using one kind of LED grow light. That simply can’t provide your plants with what they need for both stages of growth. A full spectrum LED grow light, in comparison, will provide a wide range of blue, red, white, andultraviolet light.
There is a lot that goes into full spectrum LED grow lights, including different ratios of the different colors that your plants need, but we will look at that next. Understanding what each kind of LED has to offer will allow you to truly take charge of your grow and ensure you have better results than ever.
The Colors of The Spectrum
Natural sunlight features the entire spectrum of light. When constructing LED panels, the manufacturers use only certain kinds of LEDs that will provide a specific color in order to feed your plants what they need. Here we will look at the different colors, including what the best combination is for your grow operation.
- Blue. Blue LED lights, in the mid-400nm range, are ideal for vegetative growth that creates tall, leafy plants. During the flowering and budding phase, though, blue light is not very helpful and it can cause bushy plants without many buds.
- Red. In contrast to blue light, Red LEDs in the 600-640 nm range will help encourage budding and flowering. Much like the way that blue light doesn’t help with flowering, too much red light will not help with vegetative growth, creating unhealthyplants.
- White. White LEDs are a source of contention for many people, but if nothing else they are beneficial for you in order to see inside of your grow room. With only red and blue LEDs inside of your operation, it will be almost impossible to see problems accurately and correct them. There is a great deal of speculation, as well, centered on the balancing of the spectrum that they provide.
- Ultraviolet. Ultraviolet light is not used in all LED grows, but it can be something worth experimenting with. The theory on using these originally comes from people who noticed that equatorial strains of marijuana had a much higher potency, despite having the most “damaging” rays of light going to them. Research has found that it could beneficial to use ultravioletlight in short bursts when you are looking to increase THC production.
Ensuring proper growth and plant health means making sure they have the right blend of light. Natural outdoor grows have the benefit of living in a world where all of the right wavelengths are provided to them, although it is relatively simple to replicate that indoors.
For the optimum ratio of different colors, you should have the following in the panel that you are using. As long as it is close, you will be fine.
- *55% Red LEDs rated at 660nm
- *20% Red LEDs rated at 630nm
- *15% Blue LEDs rated at 470nm
- *10% Blue LEDs rated at 425nm
There are many growers that attempt to simply use one set of red LED grow lights and one set of blue LED lights. The problem with this is that it lacks the ability to provide your plants with the full range that they are used to having in nature. During an outdoor growth cycle, the kind of light that it receives fluctuates and moves as the days and months progress. Replicating that inside of your grow room is an important part of successful harvests. Leave no stone unturned and no helpful wavelength left out.
What Do You need To Know About Light Cycles
The type of cycle that your plants are currently in will determine what kind of light you use and how many hours a day they are turned on. It is important to understand these if you are going to have the best chances of success.
In a natural outdoor grow, plants will receive a great deal of light at the beginning of the growing season. As the months carry on, entering the fall, the days grow shorter, with longer periods of darkness. When growing your plants indoors it is necessary to recreate this artificially.
Spending more time in the vegetative stage results in larger overall plants, which can be a problem when you are growing indoors. Theoretically, plants can be left in the vegetative stage forever. This will allow you to what are known as “mother” plants. These can be cloned over and over again, saving a great deal of time by starting out with miniature plants, rather than seeds. That also means you can create exact copies of the favorite plant in your crop.
The Bud Stage is more temperamental. Spending too much time in this stage will result in poor flowering, making it a more “hands on” time for the grow.
Cannabis Light Cycle
For growing cannabis, it is important to have the right amount of light and dark each day in order to stimulate the right amount of growth in both vegetative and flowering stages, in addition to ensuring proper THC production.
Vegetative Growth
The vegetative growth cycle is where you’ll end up saving money on electricity bills since your plants don’t need incredibly intense light. What is most important to them is having steady, color coordinated LED light for long periods of time.
During the vegetative stage of growth, your cannabis plants need to have 16 and 18 hours of light each day. Depending on your growing method, this could last longer due to the excess growth needed for things like Screen Of Green techniques. With this much light, they will build strong roots and a solid main stem that will support your buds, in addition to lots and lots of foliage, including the famous five-fingered sun leaves.
This is an important stage in terms of light wavelength because you must ensure that the leaves and stem are healthy, this is where the carbon dioxide and light will be converted into food through photosynthesis.
The blue light we discussed above is what is used here. In the 400 – 500nm range, the plants will activate photosynthesis as well as phototropism. Phototropism is only activated by blue light, and is responsible for your plant knowing where the light is coming from, but red light can also help activate photosynthesis as well, making a full spectrum LED grow light ideal.
Typically, four to six weeks of this stage is necessary under the right kind of lighting. LEDs fit in that category. Once your plantsstart showing what are known as “pre-flowers,” they are ready to start budding whenever you are happy with the size that they have reached.
Flowering
Here you will see the results that you have been looking forward to. Before, LEDs shined blue wavelength light on your plants for 18 hours a day, but now we are going to change that up as they get ready to start sprouting the buds that deliver everything you could have hoped for.
The flowering stage involves 12 hours of light followed by 12 hours of darkness. This is when your plants will start showing their sex and begin budding. During the first two weeks, you will be able to tell whether or not they are male or female, an important factor in determining which plants you should get rid of if you aren’t interested in breeding. The flowering stage carries on with the same light cycle until the time is right to harvest.
Of course, simply changing the light cycle is going to convince your plants that they should begin producing buds, but the addition of red light helps the process along greatly. Again, you want to think about using blue as well, since it is better overall for photosynthesis.
Keep in mind, LED grow lights cause your plants to use up fewer nutrients. It is easy to over feed them since you may be used to using stronger lights that place added strain on the plants.
Also check out this video to know more about cannabis light cycles.
Why LEDs?
It may seem that any kind of light can help a plant grow, as long as it is on for the right length of time. That may be true, but LED lights cause a special reaction inside of your plants. The LED lamps will be formulated in a way that targets the part of the plantsresponsible for activating photosynthesis. This kind of laser targeting almost works like a cheat code for your indoor grow. You can skip all of the problematic parts like excess heat and wasteful light, while jumping right into perfect growth cycles that deliver massive harvests time and time again.
.... a must read for noobies, using LED's or not,...
