There are many types of lighting systems that can be used to grow marijuana. Lets see, there is Metal Halide, Sodium Vapor, Fluorescent, Halogen, LED and Incandescent may work! When we talk about lighting, scientists usually refer to color temperature. Generally marijuana prefers a little more of the blue for growing and red for budding. I will try and explain this.
The measurement of color expressed in Kelvin (K). The reason this measurement is called a “temperature” is because it was derived from a theoretical object called a “black body radiator.” When the radiator is heated, it changes from black to red to yellow to white to blue. The lower the Kelvin rating, the “warmer” or more yellow the light. The higher the rating, the “cooler” or more blue the light. See white balance.
Color temperature
You can see from this chart the correlation between temperature and lighting.
You can also see it in the chart below.
Most growers usually use several types of lighting systems so they get the intensity of the Metal Halide for its white-light and Sodium Vapor for the yellow and Mercury Vapor for the blue. This can be very expensive so just stick to Metal Halide if you can. I will attempt to explain the benefits and drawbacks of each type. These are all considered to be HID (High Intensity Discharge)
Metal Halide is probably the best system to use. It has the highest spectrum of light in its wattage output range. They are very energy efficient lights but that doesn’t mean your light bill isn’t going to shoot through the roof! These bulbs are usually in 400 or 1000 watt range. Ya better wear your sunglasses walking around these!
The drawbacks are they usually run on 220VAC so you either have to have the transformer with the light so you can plug into 110 VAC or you have to do some additional wiring and install/wire some transformers. These units can run up to $400.00 depending on the enclosure. These bulbs also put off some heat so you have to have a well ventilated area. The are also there are issues with the bulbs, you do not want to touch these with your hands and leave any oil on them or they could explode!
Sodium Vapor lights put out more of a yellow spectrum of light and are the size roughly of a incandescent light you would use in your house. They are usually 110 VAC and will usually come in a housing with a little transformer/starter. You can buy the bulbs and receptacles separately and design your own fixture. There are some higher output Sodium Vapors and they run on 220 VAC. They can run up to $150.00. They have about a 400 hour life and put out a good yellow spectrum.
Not really any drawback except not a full spectrum bulb, lower wattage so less electric bill! Less heat output but still with a few lights need ventilation!
Mercury Vapor lights are about the same as the Sodium Vapor but use a little different technology. They are the oldest of the HID lighting and put out more of a blue spectrum. Very inexpensive to get and setup. Not really any drawback except not a full spectrum bulb, lower wattage so less electric bill! Less heat output but still with a few lights need ventilation!
Florescent lighting is also available and will work, it has the temperature but it is a very low wattage light. unless you wanted to set up a tanning booth! You can buy grow bulbs with high output or watts, they run about $15.00 each and up. Fixtures are very inexpensive.
Incandescent lighting work but for the same reasons that fluorescent bulb has drawbacks, this bulb has really no color spectrum and is very hard to grow anything with the output power. Don’t even try it! Waste of time unless you put a whole sh*t load in!
LED lighting is a newer technology. It uses 80% less power than conventional grow lighting so it can save you a fortune in electric bills. Some of the new LED lighting systems are fairly high output because of the new 1 and 3 watt LED bulbs they have come out with. A good LED light will probably run about $300-600.00 but in the long run save you $60.00 per month per fixture.
Hello Everyone, i just wanted to ad a little here. Sometimes I write faster than my brain works or is that the opposite?? Anyway, I just wanted to point out that any of these lights will work to grow but to grow quality you need wattage. I personally use florescent lights. I build my own fixtures. I usually wait till I see fixtures on sale somewhere when they go on sale for about $10.00. I also watch for bulbs on sale, you can usually get 2 for $5.00 if you watch. I put 8 dbbl fixtures on the back of some thin plywood and tie all the wires into one junction box and ad a cord with a plug. I hang this with several pulley’s for adjustment.This gives me about 500 watts, I also ad the new Curly Que 300 watt bulbs, wire 3 of these in a string and ad two strings together. This ads 1800 watts for a total of about 2200 watts per fixture and I mount this on plant yo yo’s. This allows me to move those lights up and down within the plant group. Giving me great light penetration down lower. I am running four of these fixtures and the cost of electricity is about that of 2 1000 watt metal halide fixtures. I just wanted you to see that you can use whatever you like but you need the wattage to get those hard tight buds and the quality you are looking for… I would love to go LED but the cost is out of my range, for now! Later Snake
As far as LED lighting, they are great but for a 1000 watt LED the cost is $1100.00 to $2000.00 each depending on where you find them. I would offset these with some florescent and my bill would be about 80% of the $250.00 it’s costing me now! Led lighting for some is not a proven thing but as an electrical engineer and an avid grower, I am sure they work even if I had to offset them with a couple extra florescent fixtures. I’ve done a lot of research on LED technology and they now have 5 watt LED and are able to put a 1000 watt fixture in a pretty small package. The cheapest 1000 watt fixture I’ve found so far is about $1100.00… The cost to run one? about $20.00 a month and if you are into solar, you are all set! LED’s run on low DC voltage, usually 5 VDC each or 12 VDC for a fixture and have little draw which makes them ideal for solar!
80% less I meant! See I told ya!