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HID Lights Are Recommended
Provided by Advanced Nutrients
Because of their color spectrums and wattage outputs, Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium lamps are the most popular artificial grow lights. High Pressure Sodium lamps are strong in the orange and red spectrum bands. The HP Sodium lamp emits an orange-like glow that is sometimes compared to that of the harvest sun. These colors promote flower production and stem elongation. When using an HP Sodium lamp, flower production may increase by 20% or more. Unfortunately, HP Sodium lack in the blue portion of the spectrum. Conventional HP Sodium lights should not be used alone, since their lack of blue light will make plants tall and spindly. When used in greenhouses, however, HP Sodium lamps are all that are required, since sunlight provides all the blue light necessary.
Metal Halide lamps have a fairly balanced color spectrum, with a higher percentage of blue and violet light rays than HP Sodium lamps. Therefore MH lamps are excellent during the vegetative growth stage. MH lamps help keep plants shorter and stockier, with more compact vegetation. Stockier plants are stronger, better able to resist disease, and generally more productive, than spindly plants.
When clear Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium lamps are used together, a winning combination is achieved. Blue light in the Metal Halide promotes strong vegetative growth, and the red light in the High Pressure Sodium lamp promotes strong fruiting and flowering. Some growers like to use a carousel system (a kind of light mover), alternating MH and HPS lamps, to provide a balanced light spectrum during the plant's complete growing cycle. Both Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium lights belong to the HID group of lights, since they are High Intensity Discharge lights.
Some local growers prefer to just use HPS lights, or a certain kind of HPS light (Son Agro) that has been enhanced with additional blue end of the spectrum illumination. They mostly do this for budgetary reasons, as well as wanting to simplify the process, not having to change bulbs and ballast. They claim that by keeping the lights as close to the tops of the plants as possible, perhaps using an air-cooled lighting system to achieve this, they keep the plants from getting spindly under the HPS lights. They might even use blue spectrum fluorescents as side lighting, in order to help the vegetative growth. Advanced Nutrients sells a line of air-cooled shades, which technical advisor Mike Mitchell claims are as good as anything on the market.
"I have a personal preference, I do prefer air-cooled shades. But you can buy any well made horizontal fixture-horizontal is the best way to go, rather than vertical. You're going to get more direct, intense light, rather than taking a side light and reflecting it all down with a parabolic style reflector, you're hanging the light sideways, half of the light is direct and the other half is reflected. I prefer the air-cooled and we do have a line of shades that are equipped with tubes, instead of some of the competing product which have square angles and corners on them, which cause an air convection and slow down your air flow."
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