Medicinal Plants Cultivation Tips: How To Set Up Indoor Grow Lights
Indoor crops are one of the best ways to grow your own plants; you can adapt the temperature to one that you deem necessary, making it possible for you to grow plants all year round. Today we’re going to talk about how to set up indoor grow lights.
Contemporary indoor medicinal plants cultivation usually involves at least one of three artificial light sources: HID, CFL, and LED. Frequently, growers use a combination of grow lamps. Of course, there are other, more antiquated lighting technologies, but they are all pretty much “Betamax” lamps. This blog will focus on the most common lighting used by the 21st-century medicinal plants cultivator. We are going heavy on the practical grow room advice without relying on the pseudo-scientific stats.
HID or high-intensity discharge lamps have been the grow lights of choice for every kind of indoor grower from beginners to pro cultivators since the early 1990’s at least. Over the years, lamps have become more efficient, ballasts have gone digital, and reflectors have gotten bigger and better. Growers that favour HID are big believers that lumens are the only output statistic that matters when it comes to lights.
If we want explosive plant growth during the vegetative phase, then Metal Halide lights are one of the best options. Their spectrum is perfect for this stage and we can find lamps with much greater intensity than fluorescent and CFL lights. This type of lightbulb needs a ballast to operate, which often are compatible with both MH and high-pressure sodium or HPS, the bulbs most commonly used for the flowering stage. If you are going to use the same ballast for growth and flowering phase, you must take the wattage into account. Therefore you must use, for example, bulbs of 400w with ballasts of 400w, and so on. These lamps are most commonly found in 250, 400 and 600w.
Metal Halide lamps also offer excellent results during the pre-flowering phase (first 2-3 weeks of flowering) because their light spectrum helps to prevent stretching when compared with HPS lighting, creating plants with a more stocky structure, perfect for abundant flowering.
To talk about HPS lighting is to talk about the most popular lamps in any flowering space, although in recent years LED panels have been gaining them ground gradually. We can find HPS mixed light (dual spectrum), used both in growth and flowering, or specific for this last phase. Traditionally it has been said that it’s the kind of light that offers the best overall performance, although its main problem is its heat emission and that its spectrum is not at all adequate for a proper growth. To reduce the heat it radiates, many growers used a cool tube reflector, air-cooled reflectors that connected to the extractor, diminish a few degrees the room temperature. Normally, you can find them of 250W, 400W, 600W and 1000w, being those of 600W the best in spaces of more than one square meter (1,5 m2 approximately).
LED or light-emitting diode is the up-and-coming breakaway technology that looks to end the reign of HID for medicinal plants cultivation. The latest generation of LED systems are now capable of producing comparable, and in some cases, superior quality medicinal plants than the average HID set-up. PAR or photosynthetically active radiation is the metric that LED zealots consider most important.
It’s best not to get too obsessed about the various new measures of light and modified light spectrums. Keep it simple. Think of light in terms of watts and electricity bills. Next is the question, “How much power consumption?” Followed by, “How much heat will the lamp produce and how much light will it emit?”
OLD SCHOOL HID
In ordinary decent stoner terms, HID has gotten some new bells and whistles, but the core principles of cultivating medicinal plants with this kind of artificial light remain the same. MH for vegetative growth and HPS for flowering. Although, the dual spectrum HPS lamps are a popular alternative and probably even better for autoflowering strains.
400W and 600W bulbs are the most suitable for indoor medicinal plants cultivation. Lights need to be hung level. The optimal light height or OLH is between 30-50cm above the plant canopy. This means carefully fastening the reflector to the ceiling or roof of the grow tent with either easy roll hangers or rope ratchets.
It’s best to use fixtures that can be easily adjusted and repositioned as the plants mature and grow taller. However, seedlings and cuttings may find a 600W MH too intense and a 60cm+ distance overhead might be more appropriate.
Don’t mess with light rails unless you’ve got the engineering credentials. Stationary lights that don’t wobble with a level, horizontal bulb housed in a clean, open reflector is professional, standard cultivation. Ideally, use a large reflector, or as big as will squeeze into the grow space, with a wide spread to utilise the entire area.
Glass filters, light, and air-cooling lamps are expensive. Therefore, cool tubes are really only suitable for closet grows as they have some of the worst reflective properties of any reflector on the market. Adding more lights and more fans means higher power bills.
Below are some of our best grow lights recommended for you.
Yearld Pro 170W Quantm Board LED Grow Light
- Dimmable industry-top efficiency Mean Well driver (17W-170W)
- High-efficiency Samsung LM301B + Guoren 3535R Red LEDs
- 3000K & 5000K white true full spectrum enhanced with 660nm deep red for optimal canopy penetration
- UL 8800 certificated, secure and qualified for commercial grows
- Industry-top efficacy: 2.5 umol/j
- Reliable passive-cooled design (no cooling fans required)
- Ideal for seedling to harvest growth
- Replaces a single-ended 400W HID while only drawing 170W from the wall
- Auto-sensing power supply (AC100-277V)
ECO Farm WaterProof 200W 301B LED Grow Light
No need to add extra ballast with the LED grow light.Grow with Full Spectrum grow light, more yield, more energy saving and less heat.
- Professional - High pressure die casting aluminum with anodic oxidation treatment.
- Dual-use - Indoor and outdoor waterproof IP65. Incomparable Cooling - Huge Aluminum heat sink with fins, 3D heat design can conduct rapidly
- to keep light source a lower temperature and extend its lifespan. Quality Components - Powered by MEANWELL and Equipped with agricultural LED lighting branding
- partners USA made high intensity CREE & Korea Samsung LM301B SMD diodes.
Eco Farm ES 150 LED Quantum Board
Design with 60pcs 660nm and 320pcs 3500K, infinite close to natural light, best for all plants all stages growing, rapid plant response from seed to flower and increase yield & crop quality.
With SMD chips LED technology provide highest PAR/LUMEN output, designed to replace a single-ended HPS light.
Low power consumption+high energy efficiency, makes you get more yields than other brand led grow lights. Eco Farm quantum board makes you get 30% higher yield compare with old led lights, max 2.2g yield per wattage. Over 90% light energy can be absorbed by plants, higher intensity and more even coverage in a grow tent, reflective area, or by crossing over using multiple grow light.
Adopted innovative fanless design, New Generation Led Grow Lights provide a silent grow room for you.
