Ultraviolet light:
Ultraviolet light is made up of three different types of light. When the sun is out, UVC (200-280nm) can cause sunburn and damage to humans' eyes. It has the shortest wavelength and the most energy. The good news is that for humans and plants, most of the shortwave UVC light is absorbed by the atmosphere.
Exposure to UVB radiation can also cut down on a plant's biomass, height, and leaf area, but it can also make leaves thicker, terpenes, and resins more likely to be made. They may use Metal Halide lighting, which gives off some UVB radiation, or add UVB reptile lights to their current lighting to boost the amount of terpenes and oils in their cannabis.
Infrared Light:
Far-red and infrared light are found at the end of the spectrum (>700nm), where there are a lot of different types of light waves. These two types of light have very long wavelengths, but they have very little energy. There are some wavelengths of light that can't be seen by the human eye, but can be felt as heat. When blue and red light is combined with far-red/infrared light (700-760nm), the Emerson effect makes photosynthesis speed up. This is because the Emerson effect makes plants grow faster. There is only one protein that can sense far-red and infrared wavelengths. Phytochrome is the only one. It helps plants know when to switch from being in the vegetative state to flowering and when they should flower because of how long the day is or how much artificial light they get.
Why does the light matter?
In the grand scheme of things, growing cannabis isn't very different from growing other plants at all. Plants need a lot of different things to live and thrive in the wild as well as in a grow house. These things can be reduced to water, food, and light!
Seed and Smith, a cannabis dispensary, takes a lot of time to think about how to choose the right light for growing weed. We need to know how light works. But for now, we're going to talk about the basics and why light is so important for growing weed, so let's start with that.
When a cannabis plant is in its vegetative stage, it is called "growing." When it is ready to bloom, it is called "flowering."
The vegetative stage is when the cannabis plant is getting ready for its flowering stage, which is called flowering. This means it is strengthening its roots, growing leaves, and putting more strength into its arms and legs. Plants that are in their vegetative stage need light that is in the 400-500nm range in order for them to grow. In this case, it's blue light! Cannabis can be kept in the vegetative state by giving it more than 18 hours of light a day, which makes it look like spring and summer. The amount of light and darkness can be anywhere from 18 to 24 hours a day. Botanists will have different preferences, and other things can affect the split, like the temperature, the cost of electricity, and the strain of cannabis being grown.
Cannabis plants need to be kept in their vegetative stage for the amount of time they need to grow strong roots. Then they can start flowering, which is when the plants produce their buds. To make a cannabis plant go into flower, you should cut the amount of light it gets down to about 12 hours a day and change the wavelength to about 620-780nm. During the fall and winter, the days get shorter and the sun is at a lower angle. This way, it looks like this. They are more red or orange in color.
Benefits of UV Light
- Growers can use UV light to make their indoor plants act like they are still living in the wild.
- Pests have less of an impact when there is UV Light in the room.
Plants don't stay the same. plants learn from their surroundings and respond to what they see. The ultraviolet light from the sun makes plants release chemicals that protect them from pests and tell other plants that predators are nearby. The defense compounds make the plant less appealing to pests, but they make the plant taste, look, and have more THC and CBD. When a grower uses UV light, he or she can "trick" a plant into becoming more fragrant.
Increase the THC content:
Sunlight that is high in UV rays makes people get a tan, which is a natural way to protect them from the sun. Plants, too, make their own kind of sunscreen. Cannabis makes more trichomes, which protect the plant from the sun and store THC and CBD. The more trichomes there are, the more THC and CBD there are, too.
Speed up the process of growing plants:
UV light also speeds up the process of germination, which is when seeds start to grow in the soil. They can do this to get plants ready for high-intensity light by moving seedlings to places with more intense light, like a window. Exposure to UV light in the early stages of growth shortens the shock time, which speeds up the process of growth.
One way to make sure your plants have strong stems, good node spacing, and a lot of flowers and fruit is to make sure they get enough far-red or infrared light. IR radiation can also be dangerous because most of it is felt as heat in the plant. Growers who use traditional 1000W HPS lights, which make a lot of heat by emitting IR radiation, have to spend a lot of money to keep their plants cool. Too much IR radiation can cause plants to stretch out and spread out the plant nodes. This can make the leaves turn yellow or even kill the plants. Choose a light that has the right amount of far-red and infrared light so that your plants grow in a healthy way.
People who grow cannabis like the way IR light makes them grow. We've talked about this before, but IR light has a lot of possible benefits for cannabis plants, including:
- The production of cannabinoids has risen (THC)
- A better way to make resin
- Better protection against pests and bacteria
Because of the Emerson Effect, IR light may be one of the main reasons it is better than other types of light. There is more energy for the plant to grow bigger and stronger when it has a lot of photosynthesis going on at once. With cannabis plants, more IR could lead to bigger buds because the extra energy it gets from more photosynthesis could help it grow bigger buds.
As we said, plants that get IR light will grow outward because they don't want to be in the shade. That's good for cannabis plants because they have more surface area to get more PAR. Finally, thanks to a plant protein called phytochrome, IR light may be able to move cannabis plants from vegetative to flowering stages more quickly, which could speed up the process.
When growing cannabis, it's good to use a small amount of UV light at all times to mimic the light from the mother plant. The size of the crop doesn't change. If you want to help your cannabis plants grow, you can give them more UV light. Some growers add UV-B light to their cannabis plants to get more THC.
During the last three weeks of flower, growers will use extra UV light 2 hours a day. This will help them get more THC. It's important to remember that more UV will make the cannabis plant produce more THC-rich trichomes to protect itself from the sun. If you want to use UV lighting, you'll need to use 1-2 watts of light per square foot. To be safe, don't use more than 1 watt per square foot of UV light per day.
The last half of the veg stage is also better off with less extra UV light. UV light can help make the cannabis plant more durable and stop powdery mildew from growing on it. Also, keep in mind that UV rays can slow down and stress cannabis plants if they're used in other stages of growth, or if too much is used in a day.
For IR lighting:
No harm will come from a small amount of IR light being used during the life cycle of cannabis. It could even be good. When cannabis grows in its natural environment, IR light is all the time. This means that there's no reason the plant would be harmed by IR light.
Because your plants will grow longer and taller if they get enough IR light.
As long as your LED grow light has a good mix of IR and red lights. If your LED grow light has the wrong ratio, your plants may grow too tall or they will feel too hot to grow. This could hurt them. If you want to use IR during the germination stage, you should not do that at all.
Some LED grow light manufacturers may not have the right amount of IR, which could hurt your plants. When you buy LEDs with IR light, make sure you buy them from a reputable LED company. Your seeds may not grow at all under IR light. If your grow lights don't have an IR spectrum, you can use an IR light bar to make up for it and get better control.
Many growers use the extra infrared light to initiate the sleep phase of the cannabis plant," which helps it grow. IR (or far-red) lights are turned on 10 minutes before the lights go out, and they stay on for another 10 minutes. This makes the cannabis plant think that night is coming, so it goes into the regenerative phase faster. They might change the lighting schedule so that the plants have an extra 1.4 hours for photosynthesis. That extra photosynthesis can lead to a lot more yields than if you used the normal 12/12 cycle.