How Does the Spectrum Affect Your Growing Cannabis Plant?

 

Although natural light may appear white to us, it is actually made up of many different colors. The "true face" of sunlight can be seen when we pass light through a prism, or when we see a rainbow. When light is refracted into its various parts, we can see all the colors that make up that light.

Over the years, we have learned that plants make "decisions" about how to grow based on the spectrum of light they receive. Different spectrums can change the way cannabis germinates, grows, and even flowers. Although there aren't many options for changing the spectrum of sunlight when growing outdoors, since many users now use LED Grow Light, we have almost complete control over the spectrum when growing cannabis indoors!

 

This is a big question, and there is no "best spectrum for everything." Different spectrums will have different effects on cannabis growth, and the key depends on your growing goals. If you want your cannabis to grow short and leafy, use a lamp with a high proportion of blue light; if you want it to flower and grow quickly, use a lamp with more red light.

 

When growing outdoors in the sun, the spectrum of light received gives the cannabis plant a lot of information about what is happening in the world around it. More of the blue spectrum reaches the surface in the spring and summer.

 

In the summer, the plant responds to this bright, direct light (with a lot of blue light components) by prompting it to grow nutrient-free with lots of large leaves and short stems. The plant tries to spread out as much as it can and increase the mass of its leaves.

 

Blue Light - Grow lights with a higher proportion of blue light are often used in the vegetative stage because they tend to keep cannabis plants short and strong with large, healthy leaves.

 

As fall approaches, the sun begins to lower in the sky. As a result, more of the light reaching the plant falls within the red spectrum. More light in the red part of the spectrum indicates to the plant that summer is coming to an end and it's time to acclimate before winter. When a cannabis plant is exposed to a higher proportion of red light, it responds by growing longer stems with more space between leaves, and growing as tall as possible to be optimal to start budding and be wind pollinated!

 

Yellow/Red Light - Grow lights with a lot of red are often used during the flowering phase to encourage the plant to grow taller (stretch) and help promote budding. Plants may enter the flowering phase faster under red light than under blue light.

 

By tracking the ratio of colors in the spectrum, cannabis plants can "understand" what is happening around them, which helps the plant grow in the best way possible!

 

If you want to grow plants shorter and more leafy, it is recommended to use grow lights with more blue spectrum components. Switching plants to the flowering phase can be done by switching the lights to the red and orange parts of the spectrum that cannabis prefers during the flowering phase.

 

Cannabis plants require bright light, at least some red and blue, for it to grow properly. While certainly not essential for healthy plant growth, it is considered a good form of choosing light of the appropriate spectrum to encourage the growth you want during the vegetative and flowering phases of your cannabis plants.

 

However, keep in mind that different strains will be affected differently by the spectrum. Some plants will be barely affected, while others may react more strongly. It is important to remember that the changes caused by the spectrum are relatively minor (such as stems tending to grow longer), and many other factors will drive some of the same changes.

 

On the other hand, if you give your plant a lot of yellow light, it will tend to be short-lived because it gets so much light that it has enough blue and doesn't need to go high. Since almost all grow lights emit a spectrum that is appropriate for healthy cannabis growth, in many ways the amount of light affects your plant far more than the spectrum.

 

In other words, giving your plant more light will give you a greater return on yield than simply changing the spectrum. So if it is possible to get your plant more light (highest), this will increase your yield even if you add light in the "wrong" spectrum. Even bright white fluorescent lights dipped in the green spectrum can boost plant growth if energy consumption is not a concern.

 

Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes not only the visible spectrum, but also X-rays, gamma rays, and infrared light. Plants respond to the spectrum through a process completely separate from photosynthesis, called photomorphogenesis.

 

In this section, we will only discuss how plants can use the hidden information contained in the light spectrum to grow better! Although a plant cannot physically stand up and move to a new location, it is constantly growing and changing the way it grows to maximize the amount of light it gets. For example, as the sun moves across the sky, the plant rotates its leaves to face the sun, then puts all of its leaves down at night to save energy and protect itself. Like all plants, cannabis plants have ways to measure different light spectra, each of which gives the plant information about the best way to grow.

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Like humans, plants use signals from their senses to help find the energy they need to grow. For example, we have noses to smell something delicious and help us find food. But while we use our noses to capture the information hidden in smells, ultimately our noses can only signal us about possible food sources. We can't eat food with our noses-we need our mouths to get food in our stomachs.

 

Plants have certain light sensors (photoreceptors) throughout the plant that act like a plant's "nose" to detect information about the spectrum of light. Just like how humans use their sense of smell to help find good food, plants use spectral information to help plants grow in a way that gets the maximum amount of light. However, similar to how we can't eat food with our noses, plants can't use their photoreceptors to gain energy from light.