Whether you are a professional or recreational grower, you want your time, effort and money or
result in the highest yield possible. There are many factors that determine if you will achieve the
highest yield from your harvest, but none are as important as your grow lights.
Which Lighting system to use?
Each grow room and grower is different,The wants, needs, and requirements for your grow
room will be different from mine or someone else’s.in a word The type of lighting you choose will
be based on the area you need to cover, the amount of ventilation you have available, and the
amount of money you want to spend. We have already covered the basics of each lighting type.
Let’s take it a little farther this time.
How far away should my lights be?
There are a number of factors for this question. Do you have heat issues? What kind of light is it?
Does it have secondary optics? How much room do you have?
For HPS/MH lighting, a good rule of thumb is: hold the back of your hand out over your plant.
Raise it until you start feeling the heat from the bulb. The distance that your hand is from the bulb
is 1 inch too close for your plant to be.
For CFLs and Tube fluorescents, it is almost impossible to bleach or burn your plants.Remember
that the closer they are the less area they are going to cover. Other than that2 to 3 inches is more
than enough distance.LEDs are where it starts getting tricky. It largely depends on the light. Does
it use 1 watt diodes or 3 watt or even 5 watt diodes led grow light? The lower power the diode the
closer the light can be. Does it have secondary optics (lenses) over the LEDs? If so, you should start
at around 24 inches and slowly move it down until you see the leaves starting to bleach. Move the
light up 2 inches and that is the closest you want to keep the light at any given time. If it does not
have secondary optics, start at around 18 inches and perform the above method. There are simply
too many variables and differences in LED systems, panels, manufacturers, and diodes to give exact
numbers.
