Pot lights

No pot will grow without lights. Pot plant requires much more light than is available in daylight. So give Your plant a proper lamp and the pot thc levels will be high.

Marijuana Lighting Tips

• Although natural sunlight is the best form of light for growing plants, their life cycle can be controlled more effectively with artificial lighting
• The life cycle of the Cannabis plant is determined by the daily photoperiod (hours of light per day).
• A young marijuana plant tends to grow faster if it is grown under continuous light for the first two months of it's development.
• Although the lamps should be kept as close as possible to the growing tips, they should never be allowed to touch the plants.
• The best light for plant growth emits high intensities of the blue and red bands of the light spectrum.
• Fluorescent light is one of the most effective source of artificial light readily available to home growers.
• Metal Halide lamps are better than most fluorescents, because they radiate more light in the blue and white bands of the light spectrum.
• If your lights, after being on for a while, are too hot to touch with your hand, they are probably also too hot to be close to the growing tips.
• The amount of light you supply your plants depends on the size of the garden, but at least 20 watts per square foot is recommended.
• Although Metal Halide lamps are generally considered a better light source for marijuana growth, they use a lot more electricity than fluorescents..
• Under artificial light, a marijuana plant can grow from three to six feet tall in three to four months.
• Plants entering the vegetative stage enjoy up to twenty two hours of light per day, while twelve hours or less is required for flowering.
• The more light you give your plants, the faster they will grow.
• Lamps should be fixed to the roof in such a way that they can easily be raised as the plant grows in height.
• The use of aluminum foil reflectors ensures that the light is spread more uniformly around the plants.
• To increase the humidity of the air in a small, enclosed garden, place a small bowl of water in the growroom.
• You could use a small fan to cool down your plants, if the lights in a small growroom raise the temperature too much.
• Plants grown in conditions of varying daily light patterns will not settle into a regular life cycle and will grow poorly.
• If there is insufficient light in the growroom, the plants will often grow tall and thin, in search of the light.
• Do not "wake up" your plants by switching on the lights if they are in the dark period of their daily light cycle.
• Plants grown with a long daily photoperiod, will require more frequent watering than those grown with less light.
• Although incandescent, or screw-in light-bulbs are usually not suitable for good growth, they can be used in conjunction with fluorescent tubes.
• If the edges of the leaves near the lights and growing tips start curling up, it usually means that they are getting too hot.
• A Cannabis plant will grow with as little as six hours of light per day, but requires more than twelve hours per day for good strong growth.
• A plant grown with insufficient light may sometimes develop disfigured leaves with only one or two blades per leaf.
• If your growroom has a window, you should consider covering it up to prevent daylight from interfering with your own photoperiod.
• Paint the walls, and even the floor and roof of your growroom white, for better reflection of the light onto your growing plants.
• If you have a few plants growing unevenly under one light, you could raise the pots of the smallest plants by placing them on a few bricks.
• Although easy to control, the daily light photoperiod is the single most important factor influencing the growth of your plants.
• Cannabis plants require less than twelve hours of light per day for at least two weeks before you can expect to see the first signs of flowers appearing.
• Never increase the daily light photoperiod to more than twelve hours, once your plants have started flowering.
• A marijuana plant grown indoors with lots of light will often grow larger and more potent than a similar plant growing outdoors in natural light.
• To increase the amount of light available to the lower branches, you could mount extra fluorescent tubes vertically, onto the walls of your growroom.

You have to decide on the right light fixture to get. Metal Halide (mh) or High Pressure Sodium (hps) are the light fixtures to get for growing pot.

Metal halide light is close to regular room light or cool fluorescent light (blue spectrum) and is best for vegetative (beginning) growth. While high pressure sodium is in the red end of the spectrum and is best for flowering (later) growth.

You can run

1. either mh or hps light through both stages of growth (good)
2. run a mh light through the veg phase of growth followed by hps light through flowering (very good)
3. run both mh and hps light through all phases of growth (best)

You can't use a standard high pressure sodium bulb in a metal halide fixture, but you can use a metal halide bulb in a high pressure sodium fixture of the same wattage. I didn't think this was possible till several years ago when someone I trust told me it would work.

So I decided to try using a 400 watt metal halide bulb in my 400 watt high pressure sodium fixture during the vegetative growing stage. It is now several years later and the plants are growing better than they did under just the high pressure sodium bulb.

I use the mh bulb during vegetative growth and hps during flowering. When I want to use the high pressure sodium bulb, I simply remove the metal halide bulb and replace it with a high pressure sodium bulb and vise versa.

What light should you get? In a perfect world both metal halide (mh) and high pressure sodium (hps) would be used during both the vegetative and flowering stages of growth.

But this is not always possible because the cost of two light fixtures will be double that of a single fixture. Two lights will also use more electricity, take up more space, and produce more heat than a single unit.

If you can only afford or only want a single fixture, I strongly recommend getting a high pressure sodium fixture and a standard metal halide bulb and a standard high pressure sodium bulb rated for the same wattage as your light fixture. Use the metal halide bulb for vegetative growth and the high pressure sodium for flowering.

There are hps bulbs that can be used in a mh fixture and vice-versa. But these are special bulbs and cost about double the price of a standard bulb. Whatever your light source, replace bulbs after 6 to 12 months of use.

400 watts is about the best size of light for growing pot in a personal garden. You should be able to grow 4 to 12 plants at a time. If your growing system has space for more than 12 plants, I suggest limiting the number of plants to 12 if you only have a single 400 watt light fixture.

If you plan on growing more than 12 plants at a time, get two lighting fixtures rated at 400 watts each rather than a single 1000 watt light. This will allow you to spread light more evenly over the plants. It also enables you to use both metal halide and high pressure sodium light at the same time, a very good idea.

If you want to build your own metal halide light fixture, plans are located here. By adapting the plans you can also build a high pressure sodium fixture.

If you decide on buying a light expect to pay $200.00 to $400.00 for a 400 watt lighting system designed for growing plants. See the examples below for a better idea.

There are 250 watt mh or hps light system available, these should be good enough for about 2 to 4 plants. Any light less than 250 watt will limit the size of your garden to one or two plants, unless you can supplement it with strong sunlight.