Chapter Ten

LET THERE BE LIGHT….
Metal Halide or High Pressure Sodium?
Lights, fans, cooling systems and hydroponic set ups.

The absolute best source for good lighting is the police impound evidence room.  They sure love to drag those lamps off in front of the TV cameras on the local news.

Before purchasing lighting for the indoor grow room, you need to spend a bit of time investigating what type of light will be best for your set up.  Outdoors, naturally you have no control over the light situation, however you are aware that the sun provides enough light for rapid growth.  There are many portions of the light spectrum emitted by the sun that plants do not use, so light spectrums have been developed for indoor growing that use light waves for the maximum chlorophyll production and photosynthetic response.  This category of lights are called HIDs or High Intensity Discharge Lamps.  Because this subject is so complex, only a few types of HIDs are recommended and how and where to use them.  If you want to do your own homework, refer to the section where Web Site addresses are listed to assist you in more in depth lighting research.

There are very basic light measurements you must know before investing in any type of lighting.  You need to know how much light is emitted by HIDs as well as how much light is received by the plants.  Light that is received is measured in watts-per-square-foot, or in foot candles [f.c.].  ONE FOOT CANDLE EQUALS THE AMOUNT OF LIGHT THAT FALLS ON 1 SQUARE FOOT OF PLANT SURFACE 1 FOOT AWAY.  1 LUMEN IS EQUAL TO THE AMOUNT OF LIGHT EMITTED BY ONE CANDLE THAT FALLS ON 1 SQUARE FOOT OF PLANT SURFACE 1 FOOT AWAY.  This is an important formula that will make a huge difference in your cost efficiency of electric bills.

...........................to be continued