Can I Use Fluorescent Light To Grow Cannabis Plants

Exposure to light encourages budding of cannabis plants. This process intensifies the plant’s THC level while increasing its potency. This makes the strain a favorite of ardent stoners. Nonetheless, exposure to the sun’s natural light poses a lot of limitations including weather and security considerations. Most of us asks, can i use fluorescent light to grow plants? That is why some of the cannabis growers prefer to cultivate on indoor spaces controlling the amount of light that goes in through the plants and to assure also safety knowing that there are a lot of people who will judge you on. However, grow lights are expensive and not readily accessible to some places. It is quite difficult for some who want to cultivate indoors to avail of such specialized lights. To address this, most people use some alternatives such as incandescent and fluorescent bulbs to cater to the need of light upon cannabis plants. But the question, is fluorescent lights doable for growing cannabis plants? Let’s find out upon reading this article whether such a thing could be done.

What Is Fluorescent Lights?

Making up fluorescent tubes are vapors of mercury with low pressure and contains noble gas. This noble gas is usually made up of argon that has tubes carefully covered with powdered phosphorus. This condition makes use of fluorescence in generating an apparent light. It contains a set of electrodes at both ends connected for which electric current flows upon.

As you turned on the light, the electric current passes through the wirings under the tube to the electrodes. This will excite down the electrons on the ends of the tube wherein in response, mercury liquid changes state to gas. This excitation of electrons will result to bumping with mercury atoms. By then, the electrons will be promoted to higher levels and upon returning to normal levels, it will generate photons of light. However, this phenomenon is not readily recognizable by the human naked eye and exists as ultraviolet rays. That is why phosphor powder is coated around to convert this form of wavelength to visible light.

These types of lamps are most often used in household and commercial units as a medium to light their spaces. It has been proven to be more efficient than the traditional incandescent bulbs for which overheats easily not containing a ballast for current regulation.

What Are My Basis So Can I Use Fluorescent Light to Grow Plants

As you have noticed, the light emitted by fluorescent bulbs is mostly warm and hot. This kind of light is also incorporated with a blend of red and blue wavelengths, which could be desirable upon growing especially with the budding phase of cannabis plants.

If possible, this could be an efficient lighting material since its cheap and consumes low power as compared to popular grow lights like High-Intensity Discharge Lamps (HID).

Using Fluorescent Bulbs on Lighting out Cannabis Plants

As you’ve known, growing cannabis is a bit complicated especially if you are planning to do it indoors. That is why you really need to invest money, time, effort, and energy in order to grow your marijuana healthy. It is not an easy job and needs to be planned out including the fluorescent cannabis that need to be involved.

Cannabis is a little bit sensitive plant. Likewise, you really need to use lights that are high powered and heats much as it can, signifying the grandeur of natural light emitted by the sun. Yes, the quality of light and its wavelength is doable but plants needed heat to grow. Unless you’ll put your cannabis plants very near to your fluorescent lamps which could be possible for growth.

Also, the area covered by the light of fluorescent lamps are not conducive enough. It is approximated that it could cover out distances only between ranges of one to two feet. Beyond such heights, the fluorescent lights are nonsense.

However, if you want to grow out one to four cannabis plants, fluorescent lamps could be applicable as its source of light. You just need to choose out cannabis strains of short stature since you’ll go to put the fluorescent tubes near to the plant.

But then, you could use fluorescent lamps as a supplemental light to shadowy and dark areas of the room. Let High Discharge Intensity (HID) or LED (Light Emitting Diode) Lamps be your primary light source and fluorescent lamps to brighten out the remaining areas to save energy and money.

Two Types of Fluorescent Grow Lights

These fluorescent tubes vary is sizes and form. Otherwise, these are effective for low key garden occurrences and comes with cheap and less energy utilization. The following are two types of fluorescent grow lights. 

CFL Grow Lights

These are energy-efficient bulbs that are normally twisted shaped being sold in commercial and hardware stores. These bulbs light out narrow spaces for cannabis plants. That is why lighting should be very near it.

T5 Grow Lights

These tubes look like typical tubes of fluorescent but with an extended portion. Unlike CFL Grow Lights, you could extend it out a few inches towards the cannabis plants for efficiency. However, it’s not as efficient as HID Lamps and LED Lamps.

Screen of Green Technique (SCROG)

When you are using fluorescent grow lights, it is needed for growing cannabis with fluorescent light bulbs. However, it is known that the quality of light isn’t still enough upon heavy exposed to it. That is why this technique is employed to maximize out the light that shines to every small part of the cannabis plant. Because of this technique, fluorescent bulbs could be utilized in order to get cannabis buds and flowers more. However, it should be remembered that this method is highly applicable only to the small cultivation of cannabis and is unideal for a wide area of growing cannabis.

This method works by employing a specialize fine screen over the canopy of the plant as needed. This is most helpful to Sativa strains of cannabis wherein plants grow tall for which does not fit for indoor cultivation. Likewise, any marijuana strains are still applicable to this method.

Development on Fluorescent Lamps

There are a lot of innovations that have been done to regular fluorescent lights grow plants. Nevertheless, a stronger, brighter, and warmer light are now being offered in the market to satisfy any customer’s desires. New classifications of fluorescent lamps have emerged rather than the typical one that we use today. Some of these lamps include; a. color-balanced tubes, b. cool white fluorescent tubes, and c. high wattage fluorescent lights.