DankOfOrmy
New Member
I am about to start my first grow and I was wondering about the light bulbs one for veg and one for flowering, will it matter too much on my first grow as long as I have one or will it be fine?
Scientific
New Member
One type of light will work just fine. The most important thing is that you have LOTS of light--like noontime sun on a sunny summer day. Fine tuning the spectrum is a fine point that can wait.
Are you asking whether or not you need a different type of lighting for each phase? If so, people have been growing for years with just HPS lighting (for flowering and vegetative growth). I had pretty good luck years ago with 430-watt HPS setups (they had an extra "blue element" to them, which gave extra light in that portion of the spectrum and actually gave me decent internodal spacing... wish I still had them). There are benefits to running different lighting setups for each cycle - not least of which is the ability to do both at once, lol, so that the grower can add more plants to the flowering room whenever it is convenient instead of shutting down the flowering for the couple months (+/-) it takes to vegetate new plants. But, no, it's not a requirement. Some of the LED grow light panels available have two switches, and the ad copy generally states something to the effect that the grower flips one switch on for vegetative growth and flips the second switch on when he/she switches to flowering; many people just flip both switches on for everything for the extra illumination.
If you are asking something else, perhaps wanting specific recommendations... You haven't provided enough information. For one thing, your budget, lol. Recommending a light source that costs hundreds of dollars wouldn't be helpful to someone on a baloney sandwich budget, for example. Also, the size of your grow room would be important information. As mentioned, you want a lot of light. Specific recommendations might be overkill for your space - or far from adequate. Those big lights in department stores do not seem unnaturally bright when lighting the building - but stick ONE in a small closet and... you'll have to wear sunglasses
. The size (and shape) of one's grow room is very important information when determining the lighting requirements. Not just size/wattage, but there is a question of whether ONE light - regardless of its output - can adequately light a given space or, instead, there would be areas that are inadequately illuminated while the area directly under the light is quite bright, possibly even with more light than needed.Et cetera.
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DankOfOrmy
New Member
Thank you both for your replies they both helped me and I was just checking about the different lighting for each phase. I will just order a HPS light for now then. Thank you for the help
If you are concerned about stretched internodal lengths, you can always add supplementary blue light during the vegetative phase (or the entire grow, for that matter).
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DankOfOrmy
New Member
What would you say a good light cycle to use?
Scientific
New Member
Have you decided yet whether you will be growing conventional, "photoperiod" plants (that are sensitive to day length) or "autoflower" plants (that are not)?
You usually grow photoperiod plants with 16 hours of light a day until you are ready to force them to flower, then you switch to 12 hours.
Autoflower plants don't need to be switched to a 12 hour light cycle to flower. In fact you can give them light 24 hours a day.
There are lots and lots of great growing tutorials here and on YouTube. I would strongly recommend that you study up before you start.
Good luck and have fun!
