Marijuana Daily Gardening. Henry Woodward
that lights are firmly secured – a fallen light is a costly mistake in its own right. It would also mean certain death for any plants underneath.
The devil’s in the details: take the time to set up your grow room well and you will avoid headaches later.
Timers should be set and checked to ensure that they are working accurately. If you have dedicated veg and bud rooms, you will need dedicated timers for the lights in each room. If you live in a jurisdiction that has different charges for electricity depending on the time of day, you might want to set timers to light the rooms during the cheapest periods possible, generally at night. You can avoid snagging wires by securing them well before you begin your grow, particularly if they will hang down (for instance if you must run an extension cord across a ceiling). Spend as much time as possible perfecting your setup, anticipating even the smallest problem, and this will go a long way to reducing headlines down the road. It will also increase your chances of enjoying a successful grow.
Three cheers for green lights! A green spectrum LED flashlight is also a great tool to have on hand.
There is one other light, a non-specialized one, in which you will want to invest. A green spectrum light for the area just outside your grow room(s) is a must if at all possible. Cheap and widely available, a green bulb is necessary for those times that you must access your garden when one or both parts are in their dark cycle. This is something that all gardeners must do from time to time, for instance, if you need to water plants early when leaving for an overnight trip. Having this light and a couple of spare bulbs on hand is a great decision to make. When your green bulb burns out after the stores are closed and you desperately need to get into your grow room while it’s dark, you’ll be thankful that you thought ahead.
Small fans should be present in each grow room. If you have vented your room(s) (in a light-tight way, see diagram: venting your grow room) to allow for passive air exchange as you should have, fans aren’t necessary, strictly speaking. However, they provide important air circulation and promote growth of strong stems by forcing plants to strain against the air currents they create. Moreover, they will moderate temperatures if things get too hot in your grow rooms. They’re cheap, they’re quiet and they are easy. Use them.
The first question for the new grower is what type of lights to purchase. Whatever type you ultimately select, ensure that they are equipped with a reflective hood to maximize light absorption. White polyethylene sheeting to increase the overall reflectivity of the room is also a must.
There are four main considerations in choosing lighting apparatus:
1. Wattage or “lumens” of light produced. Generally, more is better and will increase your yield. However, more is not always better.
2. Cost of the light. You will want to purchase the best, most efficient light you can afford. The best light is likely the one that will best maximize the size of your grow room or closet. Important: never, never, never skimp on lights that may be unsafe. A burned down home is your worst grow result of all time!
3. The amount of energy required to operate your light. Remember that these lights will be on most of the time. You should calculate how much new lights will add to your energy bill on a monthly basis. Also, keep in mind that as a security consideration, increased energy use is more likely to raise suspicion from authorities. For this reason, growing with T5 fluorescent lights is more secure than HPS and other more powerful lighting systems - they are less likely to cause telltale energy spikes on 18/12 and 12/12 cycles that a utility company might be tracking.
4. Heat produced by the light. A high amount of heat energy released is inefficient in terms of energy use; though it can warm a cool grow room. However, too much heat may require you to use additional fans or air conditioners to reduce room temperatures. This can be a hassle, is costly, and may not be an option depending on your grow conditions. As a rule, I would suggest that it is easier to warm your rooms than to cool them.
Obviously, increased wattage/lumens produced increases your grow potential. However, the hotter the light, the further plants must be moved away from it, which of course reduces the amount of lumens received. This might seem like a Catch-22, so what is the solution?
I would suggest a good T5 light. Although a T5 is a fluorescent light, it is the highest efficiency fluorescent. This is decidedly not your typical industrial fluorescent. The advantages of the T5 make it an easy choice: it produces more than sufficient lumens to conduct a successful grow with impressive yields. It is both cheaper to purchase and (much) cheaper to operate than High Intensity Discharge (HID), High Pressure Sodium (HPS) or Metal Halide (MH) lamps. These ones are for the “pros” and are overkill for most home grows. Given how much heat these lights produce, they also present the potential of an increased fire risk when compared to T5s, a real consideration if you are growing in cramped conditions. Also, because the T5s are so much cooler (and don’t require a separate ballast system that adds to setup cost, energy use and heat generated), you can snuggle your plants very close underneath them. This maximizes light exposure and absorption, and makes up for being less powerful compared to their more traditionally used cousins.
What’s the downside? Keeping your plants close to the lights can cause burns if you don’t check your plants frequently. Checking them is a daily job and can be a bit of extra work jockeying lights around on chains and/or moving shelves around to most effectively situate the plants. Still, this is the safest, cheapest, easiest setup for most novices. Even the sales staff at my local hydroponics store advised I go this route when I got started, and they were giving up the possibility of me purchasing a more expensive light setup. I continue to appreciate their honesty and good advice!
You will also want to purchase both “warm” and “cool” bulbs. The former are in the red light spectrum and are meant for use in the bud room, the latter are in the blue spectrum, and are meant for vegetative growth. Though these will last for months at a time, it is a good idea to have several spares of each on hand, in case you lose a light to burn out when your local hydroponics store is closed or otherwise inaccessible.
With lights assembled and installed in the grow room(s), they must be put on timers. Marijuana will grow or “vegetate” without budding when in light for more than twelve hours per day. The exception to this are “auto-flowering” strains, which come with other pros and cons. We will consider these more fully elsewhere.
When the plants are reduced to a cycle of twelve hours of light, twelve hours of darkness, they will begin the process through full maturity to budding. Why? Because this light schedule approximates the end of a natural outdoor growing season, when the plants usually bud. This is where you’ll finally be able to see the bud you’re doing all this work to produce.
That’s it. You’re lit up and ready to grow.