Lighting

Plants need a number of conditions to be met for proper growth. For indoor and off-season growth, artificial lighting becomes a primary requirement. The most important aspects of artificial light to consider are intensity, color, and duration. If you can come close to duplicating sunlight, plants will fluorish. For vegetative growth a bluer spectrum of light is beneficial (wavelength of about 440 Nm). This promotes close node lengths for a tighter flower or fruit on your plants. This is usually best provided with metal halide lamps or the new T5 fluorescents with grow bulbs in them. For flowering and fruitation, plants want about the same intensity of light except in the red-orange part of the spectrum (wavelength of between 640 and 700 Nm). Sodium vapor (High Pressure Sodium) lights provide these frequencies. The new L.E.D. (light emitting diode) lighting that is hitting the market will eventually be the way most people will flower their plants. This technology is defintely the wave of the future. Expect to see many L.E.D. lighting companies in the future.