Lighting

Having optimal lighting intensity & spectrum is very important to achieving great results. Knowing the PPFD (photosynthetic photon flux density) your plants are receiving is crucial indoors. You can purchase a light meter off amazon, or what we recommend most people do is download the Photone app on your smartphone. Its free and you can get quick and easy measurements, just put a piece of paper towel across the front facing camera to act as a diffuser. In veg we usually shoot for a PPFD reading of 600+, while in flower we shoot for 1000-1800. A PPFD of 700 in flower would be the minimum recommended intensity, but it’s always important to keep an eye on your plants as some may be more light sensitive than others. Fun fact, the sun midday in the summer is putting out 2000+ PPFD.

When it comes to spectrum, the closer we can mimic the sun the better. Mix matching light sources can provide good results, whether its LED which generally has lots of blue in the spectrum, HPS with lots of red, or CMH which includes UV. HPS lights are still recommended in cold environments and LED’s in hot ones.

Light hours? A photoperiod plant will typically stay in veg as long as it’s given over 14.5hrs of light per day. We usually shoot for 16-20hrs of light in veg. We find a dark period to be important. That being said it doesn’t have to be a continuous 16-20hrs of light, it could be 12 on – 2 off – 5 on – 5 off for example. For flowering, 12hrs of light is the standard but you could run 11-10hrs as well. 11hrs of light may be beneficial for a highly sativa plant, which would help it finished slightly quicker. The point is there are many ways to do things and it’s important to find what you like/works best for you.