The amount of light exposed to marijuana plants during growth directly impacts the level of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the primary psychoactive component of cannabis) the crop will produce. Utilizing LED grow lights enables farmers to manage the light levels for optimal results prescriptively.
During the vegetative stage, seedlings or clones lead to the vegetative growth. In this stage, the marijuana needs 18 to 24 hours of light a day. Many growers prefer 24 hours of the lighting cycle during this stage for quicker and accelerated growth. Blue light from LED grow lights keeps your crop compact in the vegetative stage and adds to an optimal morphogenesis and light interception by the plant.
During the flowering stage the plant is budding, leading to harvest. In this stage, the marijuana needs 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness each day. Marijuana growers know that introducing 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness earlier than expected can cause stress on the plants. It can induce abnormal growth, which can cause the plant to be both male and female. Red LED grow lights (around 700nm) are considered most efficient at driving photosynthesis, especially in the flowering stage for biomass growth.
During the last three weeks of 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness, the marijuana will produce more flowers, and the sticky resin on the leaves appears. If your flower bud is sticky, then your flower has many trichomes. The more trichomes produce more resin: the more resin, the more terpenes, THC, and other cannabinoids, making for a very lucrative harvest.