Getting Lighting Right Before Your Next Grow - From The Stash Podcast Ep. 279

Yeah, and I think, you know, just kinda backing up and talking about the evolution of grow lights real quick-

Let's get into it

... just in a matter of a few sentences is LEDs in particular have come such a long way.

I mean, we went from 10 years ago them being less efficient than HID grow lights to just becoming way more efficient, but during that timeframe they went from, uh, you know, being able to run at 100% to where today if you're trying to run these lights at 100%, you're burning the crap out of your plants nine times out of 10, depending on your environment, and so on, how far away they're from the plant, so on and so forth.

Um, so these days a lot of people, they're just using the light incorrectly.

They're having the power on too high.

There's too many photons coming down onto that light, and the plant just can't handle it.

So I think that's probably the biggest, like, the, the first reason to mention here is why that expensive grow light might be hurting your grow.

Well, you're running on full power when you don't need to run it on full power.

Yeah, the industry has kinda convinced people that if you're still using that old HID technology, that you, it's outdated and that it's, it, it, it's not giving you the same results, and instead people are purchasing some commercial-sized lights, LEDs, to fit inside their 4' x 4s, and in many cases that light is way too big.

It's a massive LED with a massive footprint, and it's totally unnecessary.

A lot of us are running lights with 200, 300 watts, massive, massive footprints, full spectrum, and then we're only running them on 60% at max.

So you're, you're essentially wasting 40% of that light just because we, we, you, we've been convinced that a big bar-style light LED is the way to go.

Yeah, and, and that's where a lot of it's the keeping up with the Joneses.

You see bigger growers having these kinds of lights and you feel that everybody needs to have it, but if your space doesn't require that intense of a light or that large of a light, you don't really need it.

I've seen people in a 4' x 4' space rocking the EVO8s from Vivo Sun, and I swear by the EVO6.

They don't really need to go that far, but I guess, you know, more intense is better, but a lot of times the people who are using these more intense lights aren't changing their environment to be able to work better with these lights.

Being able to add in supplemental CO2 so their plants can handle this intense of a light is key, and most aren't doing that, so they just have this big banger of a light with nothing to help them absorb the, the power, so to speak.

CO2 is often limiting factor, right? It's usually the thing that's, um, kinda driving the growth in a sense, and if you don't have enough, your other conditions are on point, right? You got a high temperature, you've got, uh, your h- humidity dialed in, your lighting's where it should be, well, then, um, CO2 would be the one that's the lowest thing.

Your f- plant is only driving at the rate that CO2 you have.

If you're increasing that, well, then it can handle the light.

It can handle the light at that point, right? So, like, yeah, I don't know where I was going with that one, but CO2 [laughs].

Well, see, the benefits of CO2 [laughs].

Well, no, and that, that's where if you're gonna be having these crazy lights, you gotta change these certain parameters, otherwise what's the point? Why have that? And if you don't have the ability to raise the light higher and we're stuck at a limited, you know, space, then having that intense of a light, not adding supplemental CO2, you're gonna burn your plants.

And at that point, what, why are we doing this? You know? It's like you're putting a magnifying glass on your plants and burning them up versus using the proper light to be able to have them grow up.