Try and remember that any additional lighting costs are relative, ie. by using a metal halide grow lamp for veg and early flower you've spared your sodium lamp so it will last longer and yield you more from your grow in the long run.
Propagation Lighting
For taking cuttings and growing seeds use a fluorescent lamp in the blue spectrum. Until the onset of flowering plants are only really interested in blue spectrum light and you want a light that runs as cool as possible. We have several lighting systems for this task:Sunmate 110w -- £64.50
All in one system using 2x55w blue spectrum tubes. This unit runs very cool and is a complete unit including cables.
EcoLight and Envirogrow CFL's -- £19.95 to £39.95
CFL stands for compact fluorescent lamp. CFL's come self-ballasted so you don't need a powerpack. All you need do is acquire a suitable E40 lamp holder or reflector then plug it straight into the mains. CFL's run very cool compared to high powered sodium and metal halide lamps. All CFL's are available in 125w, 150w and 250w and in blue or red spectrum. Use blue for propagation.
Veg-Phase
During vegetative growth plants want blue spectrum light.Metal Halide Lamps -- £13.99 to £49.99
For vegetative growth their is nothing better than a Metal-Halide. The best way to grow is to buy an extra metal halide bulb in the same wattage as your sodium flowering system and then swap the bulbs. Swap the bulbs 1 to 2 weeks into the flowering-phase. Leaving the metal halide bulb in a few weeks into flower will reduce the stretch that happens in that time.
You would see dramatic differences in your plants by growing with metal halide. Under sodium bulbs plants have a tendency to grow a bit leggy with just a few main branches, under metal halide they grow more squat and develop better potential flowering sites.
Alternatively CFL's are great for veging plants too and run an awful lot cooler. The trade-off is that it would take a bit longer to achieve the same results as a metal halide. Great if you have a dedicated veg-room and want to cut back on heat and power usage.
Flower-Phase
In flower plants need Red spectrum light and loads of it and no other grow lamp (that you could realistically afford) will beat a high powered sodium bulb in this task. We stock a number of Sodium Lamps from several manufacturers.Sunmaster and Powerplant Pro -- £13.99 to £46.99
These grow lamps are very similar in terms of lumen output and quality. Its usually a coin toss as to which one we include in lighting systems as we've not discerned any real difference in the excellent performance we got from both of them.
Osram Son-T-Plus -- £18.95 to £27.95
Top of the range grow lamps with slightly higher output than the others we stock. These lamps also last a little better than the standard bulbs.
Advanced Concepts
Expert growers would take this all a step further and use combinations of blue and red spectrum lighting systems in flower. One popular approach is to include 250w blue spectrum CFL's in addition to your main Sodium set up for flowering. The effect of this is a more natural environment for your plant.Last Updated: July 06, 2008
