Grow Lights for Cannabis
When growers do not have the option of growing cannabis outside, they will have to decide on the best cannabis grow lighting for indoor growing. Growers have a challenging task when deciding what grow light to use for cannabis indoors. Grow lights can also be needed for growing cannabis in greenhouses. Greenhouse grow lights for cannabis will have very different functions than grow lights for indoor cannabis cultivation. Aside from picking the right type of light, there is an abundance of marijuana grow lights terminology that can be confusing. Understanding grow light terminology is essential for creating the best indoor cannabis grow.
Daylight Extension Lighting vs Supplemental Lighting
Long-day plants like spinach and lettuce also exist. These plants need a critical long day length to initiate flowering. Greenhouse growers may need daylight extension lighting to flower long-day plants or keep short-day plants from flowering. Greenhouse growers of short-day plants will also need to use blackout systems to ensure the successful flowering of short-day plants like cannabis. Supplemental lighting is a different type of lighting that can help support greenhouse plants when days are very overcast and there is not sufficient natural light.
Photosynthesis in Cannabis
Photosynthesis is an important metabolic process in plant growth. More than 90% of the dry matter of a plant is created from the photosynthetic conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Elevations in CO2 can accelerate plant growth and improve photosynthetic productivity. Doubling CO2 concentration has been shown to increase total crop yield up to 30%.
In order to convert maximum amounts of CO2 plants need to have good lighting and proper temperature to fuel the process. Photosynthetic uptake of CO2 and production of plant material in cannabis are optimized when temperatures are kept around 25°C.
How Plants See powerful led grow light
Plants can differentiate light based on its electromagnetic wavelengths. Light that is not visible to humans, like ultraviolet (UV), is visible to plants. Plants can also tell the time of the day from light, and based on the length of daylight, they can tell the season. In order to do this, they must be able to sense the brightness and intensity of light, light exposure length, and location of light sources. Phototropism is a common phenomenon in plants where they bend towards light sources. There is evidence that blue light wavelengths help the plant locate the light source.
Plants do not have a nervous system to translate light into pictures like humans, but they are very much able to “see” in a way that is as complex as human sight. Cryptochromes are blue light receptors that plants and humans both have. Blue led grow lights samsung is not photosynthetically active, but it helps cue the plant’s internal clock.
Phytochrome is another special plant molecule. This molecule becomes primed when it is exposed to red light, then phytochrome can absorb the next wavelength which is far-red light (nearly infrared). Phytochrome regulates many stages of plant development like germinations, stem and leaf growth, and flowering. There is also evidence that phytochrome helps the plant sense temperature.