HOW TO GROW CANNABIS USING LED LIGHTS?

You may have heard or might think that growing marijuana indoors is a difficult process but this online course will bring you up to speed one step at a time until you have the confidence to grow. Anyone can grow cannabis it only requires the will to learn, a few minutes a day to watch over and maintain your cannabis plants and some space for your grow.

Cannabis has many slangs; weed, pot, marijuana, bud, ganja and many more. These refer to the dried and cured buds of a female cannabis plant. Cannabis plants grow all over the world in many different climates. Female cannabis plants produce famous flowers that you think of when you think of weed.

The flowers of these female cannabis plants contain the potent ingredients that people are looking for; THC and CBD. It is these flowers that are harvested, dried and cured to produce usable marijuana. The cured buds are used to smoke, vaporize and consume via edibles.

It used to be that lighting was one of the most expensive aspects of growing marijuana. A good set of HID or CFS lights could set you back a couple hundred with all the required equipment. Now, thanks to LED lights, cannabis grow lights are much more affordable, making growing cannabis at home much more attainable.

Why Use LED Lights?

There are many reasons to use LED lights when growing cannabis.

Affordability

For many, the main reason is that they are relatively inexpensive when compared to the much pricier HID setup. This is especially true if you are growing a smaller number of plants. Full spectrum LED grow light is highly recommended, which provides plants in all stages from veg to flower with everything they need in the natural sunlight.

This was not always the case. When LEDs were first gaining momentum among growers, the technology was still fairly new and had not entirely been perfected. Think about how expensive and inconvenient cutting-edge technology like smartphones were when they first came out, and it often wasn’t worth it. For example, many agree that the first-generation iPhone was not the greatest. However, today’s smartphones are much more affordable, and they are everywhere.

Energy Savings and Privacy

Another thing to consider is how much money LED cannabis grow lights will save you on your energy bill. HID lights are good at what they do, but the amount of energy they use will cause your energy bills to skyrocket. This not only hurts your pocketbook, but it can also draw unwanted attention in your direction either by a landlord, a nosy neighbor, and/or the police. When people had to keep their marijuana growing activities under wraps, spiking electricity bills often gave them away. While cannabis is legal in more areas now, this does not necessarily mean that you want the whole neighborhood knowing what you are up to.

Reduced Water Usage

Not only are LED lights more energy-efficient, but you’ll also save on water usage as well. As you are now aware, HID lights use a lot of energy, which in turn produces more heat. This dramatically increases the temperature of the grow room, causing your plants to consume more water. Cannabis is already quite the water hog when compared to other plants and growing even just a small amount of plants uses a lot of water. Any way to reduce water consumption is great for the environment, not to mention great for your utility bill.

Durability

Finally, LED lights last longer than HID or CFL bulbs, ensuring many years of good use before they need to be replaced. Traditional cannabis grow lights last for only 20 thousand hours. In contrast, LED bulbs last more than twice as long, for up to 50 thousand, or sometimes even 100 thousand hours. That’s five times the life of HID lights!

What to Consider for Each Stage of Cultivation?

As we touched on earlier, many types of LEDs have a fixed light spectrum that works for both the vegetative (growing) and flowering phases of cannabis. This way, you can just use the same light throughout your entire grow from seed until harvest.

Although this is convenient for most, there are those who want to fine-tune their lights for best results and optimal efficiency in each growing phase. For this purpose, some commercial LED lights have a switch to activate a veg light spectrum or a flower light spectrum. Here are some more factors to consider throughout each stage of growth.

LED LIGHTS AND SEEDLINGS

As soon as your seeds have sprouted, your soon-to-be cannabis plant will need light to grow. Compared to more mature plants, however, your seedling is much more sensitive to intense light. Because of that, you should be careful when starting out with strong LEDs.

If your LED has a dimming option, turn your light to a lower intensity. If this isn’t an option, consider moving your lights further up, away from the seedling. On the other hand, ensure that you do not move the lights too far up, as this could cause the seedling to grow spindly and lanky.

Likewise, if your LED has a switch to activate either a vegging or flowering spectrum, set it to veg, where the light normally emits a “cooler” blueish light, which is optimal for this stage. Set your timer to 18 hours of light per day, with 6 hours of darkness.

As your seedling grows taller, stronger, and approaches the most robust part of the vegetative growing stage, you can then gradually increase the light intensity.

LED LIGHTS DURING VEGETATION

Set your light to 18 hours per day and 6 hours of darkness. Some growers choose to grow with 20–24 hours of light to maximise vegetative growth.

Monitor your plant’s development; if all goes well, it should grow healthy, strong, and bushy. If it grows lanky and spindly instead, this is likely because your plant is not getting enough light. Increase the intensity by lowering the light toward the plant canopy or turning up the intensity using the dimmer if your light has one.

How long you want to veg your plant will normally depend on how much space you have available. You can technically let your plant grow under 18–24 hours of light as long as you want, but there will likely come a time when you want to switch to flowering, as the plant would otherwise simply grow too big. Know that some cannabis strains can stretch considerably (up to 2x or more) during early flowering. Take this into account upon deciding when to initiate the switch to bloom.

LED LIGHTS FOR FLOWERING

Photoperiodic cannabis starts to flower in late summer when the daylight hours naturally begin to diminish. Indoors, the grower is responsible for inducing bloom by setting the light schedule to 12 hours of light and 12 hours total darkness. If your LED light has a flowering switch, turn it to flowering mode.

When you flower indoors on a 12-12 schedule, it is important that the 12 hours of darkness are not interrupted. So make sure that your tent or greenhouse doesn’t have any light coming in from outside. This would otherwise revert your flowering plant back to veg or potentially cause other issues such as hermaphroditism.

If your LED has a dimmer, now is the time to turn your light to its maximum intensity, or lower your light to the recommended distance from your plants for the flowering stage. If you are not sure what this distance is, most grow light producers have recommendations available.

Important: if you change anything with your lights, such as when you increase intensity and/or lower their position, make sure to do so gradually over several days, rather than in one go. Too sudden of a change can stress your plants too much.

Start Growing with LED Lights

Cost is not the only reason to make the switch to LED lights. Experienced growers know that seedlings and plants in the vegetative stage benefit more from blue light, while flowering plants need red light to thrive. Before LEDs, growers would have to purchase two different types of lights: metal halide for the vegetative or blue light stage, and high-pressure sodium bulbs for the final flowering stage.

With LED cannabis grow lights, this is not the case. Different color LED bulbs give a grower the ability to manipulate the color spectrum, thus allowing you to use the same light setup for both phases of growth. This not only eliminates the need to purchase two different types of lighting setups, but you’re also guaranteed the best results in your plants!

The benefits of using LED cannabis grow lights are many. The next big question is how to grow marijuana using only LED lights. A good rule of thumb is one light per every 1.5 square feet. This generally will yield you up to 6 ounces per plant, which ends up covering what you spend on the light and will definitely end up saving you money in the long run. If you are growing only 1-2 plants, our single 75 watts LED light supplies plenty of light for your plants.

Even if you’d like to grow more than a few plants, you don’t have to go for the more expensive HID lights. Simply add to your setup with either a few larger LED bulbs or several of the smaller ones. If you opt to go for the latter option, make sure that your plants and your lights are spaced out correctly, as you want to make sure that each plant gets adequate amounts of light. Using too few lights can cause stretching, whereas using too many lights leaves you at the risk of light burn, as well as energy overconsumption.

If you are willing to step up the quantity of your grow, that is, really take it to the next level, you should be prepared to spend a little bit more cash. A large scale 350-400 watt LED operation that will outdo the average 600 watts HID lighting system is not going to come cheap. However, a larger LED light setup will still be more cost-effective than an HID setup of the same size. 

Drawbacks to LED Lights

If there is one drawback of using LED grow lights, it is that your plants’ grow time will be slower than if you were using HID lights. Again, this is because HIDs emit more energy than LEDs, leading to faster flowering.

You should also be aware that while LEDs don’t put out as much energy, your plants are still susceptible to light burn. So, like any other lights, make sure that you are keeping your lights a proper distance from your plants.

With LEDs, you don’t have to place your plants as far away as you would with HIDs. Keep lights below 300 watts about 30-70cm away, or just around 12-27 inches. Lights above 300 watts should be kept at 70-80cm away, while gradually decreasing space when flowering. Larger wattage like 450 should be close to 80 cm or 31 inches.

Be careful when making any changes to your light setup. Decreasing the space between plant and light too quickly might have detrimental effects. Keep an eye on your plants and take it slow!

Getting Your Grow Lights

ECO Farm Newest Quantum Board With Dasiy Chain

ECO Farm LED Grow Lights utilize the latest in high yielding LEDs technology today-Samsung LM301B diodes, high Energy Efficiency with 2.7 umol/J, delivers powerful light output and uniform canopy penetration to resulting maximum higher yields. Running 50% less power than the HPS or other SMD LEDs or Blurple lamps.

Upgraded series growing lights have a dimming knob and light switch. A single light can be adjusted the light intensity at liberty. Multi-light Connection with unified dimming especially beneficial for large area of indoor growing and commercial planting.

Excellent full spectrum - white, blue, red and IR (3000K, 660nm and IR 760nm and UV 395nm). 3000K diodes providing more reddish light. The 660nm red and IR light is especially useful during bloom, where it speeds up flowering time and boost yields. Turn your seeds into your own supply. And the light looks fairly natural, so it's good for accurately monitoring plant health.

No Fan Noise Free. High Safety performance MEAN WELL Driver, Fair Waterproofing. Update aluminum board is thick and sturdy, doesn't put out a tremendous amount of heat, high-quality protective covers for cables; User-Friendly Packaging. Quality components mean the light lasts longer, but they also save you money.

Conclusion

Modern LED grow lights, for example COB lights, can emit light that is as intense as that from HID. If your plants are too close to your LEDs, this can lead to “light burn”, with discoloured or bleached leaves, nutrient deficiencies, and all sorts of growing troubles. Because of this, it is important to keep your LEDs the proper distance away from your cannabis plants.

There is no “one size fits all” recommendation for the right distance for all types of LEDs, since this varies greatly by type. It depends on the amount of light your LED is emitting, whether your lamp also uses lenses or reflectors, and so on. The manufacturer of your lights should clue you in to the recommended lamp distance from the canopy, either on the instructions that come with your lights or on their website. As a general rule, however, most LEDs should be about 30–45cm away from the tops of your plants to support healthy and vigorous growth.