Suggested Light settings for all stages of Indoor Growing
July 13, 2016KIND LED's K5 Series grow lights have a fully adjustable spectrum. They are a true seed to harvest light designed for all your plants stages. For an example, i
n the vegetative stage of growth, plants require more of the blue spectrum and less red, which most grow lights have issues with. This is no problem for the KIND LED K5 Series, just simply turn down the red spectrum and you are good to grow!
With their perfect mix of 3 and 5 watt diodes, secondary optical lens and perfect 12 band spectrum, they have everything your plants need to stay healthy and happy.
This week we are going to go over our suggested settings for each stage of the plants life from seedling to late flower.
This section will help you in the process of evaluating which spectra will be best suited for each stage of plant growth.
Note: All spectra mentioned will be in a A/B/C channel configuration. So a 20/80/80 would be 20% Red (channel A), 80% Blue (Channel B), and 80% White (Channel C).
1. Seedlings- Due to the tender nature of seedlings, you will want to tune your light down quite a bit for this stage of life. Once a seed has broken the surface, we recommend a break-in period of about a week where the light will be in the range of 15/30/30. Once the seedling has been above ground for about a week, the first set of true leaves should be present. At this point the intensity of the spectrum can be marginally increased. We suggest a 30/60/60 at this point. Once your plant has two or more true sets of leaves, you can set your light to the Vegetative spectrum below.
2. Clones- Clones are a little bit hardier than fresh seedlings, but still need to be given gentle light as they are completely root-less when first cut, and need to conserve energy and moisture to transition into a rooting stage. We have had great success with rooting clones at 25/45/45.
3. Vegetative- In this stage, the deeper red spectra are utilized less by the plant than when it is in flower and uses high levels of blue light that are essential for creating lush, thick plants that have tight inter nodal spacing and very little stretching. This is the same spectrum that will be used for plants that you don’t want to flower, such as leafy greens, basil, and micro greens. For this stage, we recommend using a 30/60/60, 45/80/80, or 60/100/100 depending on the type of plant and its light use requirements.
4. Flowering- At this stage, the plant has a lot of work to do and is preforming many complex biological processes in producing flowers and/or fruits. Because of this, the plant now requires large amounts of light in all categories. For high use plants, we like to run full power with a 100/100/100. For lower light use plants, dialing back all spectra equally can achieve the proper amount of light while maintaining proper spectrum.
5. Late Flower- In this stage most rapid development has stopped and the plant is gearing up for the stage in which the large flowers and fruits will mature or ripen. During this stage, the blues can be dialed back to a 100/70/100 in order to mimic those late days of summer and conserve a little extra power in the process.
Note: All spectra mentioned will be in a A/B/C channel configuration. So a 20/80/80 would be 20% Red (channel A), 80% Blue (Channel B), and 80% White (Channel C).
1. Seedlings- Due to the tender nature of seedlings, you will want to tune your light down quite a bit for this stage of life. Once a seed has broken the surface, we recommend a break-in period of about a week where the light will be in the range of 15/30/30. Once the seedling has been above ground for about a week, the first set of true leaves should be present. At this point the intensity of the spectrum can be marginally increased. We suggest a 30/60/60 at this point. Once your plant has two or more true sets of leaves, you can set your light to the Vegetative spectrum below.
2. Clones- Clones are a little bit hardier than fresh seedlings, but still need to be given gentle light as they are completely root-less when first cut, and need to conserve energy and moisture to transition into a rooting stage. We have had great success with rooting clones at 25/45/45.
3. Vegetative- In this stage, the deeper red spectra are utilized less by the plant than when it is in flower and uses high levels of blue light that are essential for creating lush, thick plants that have tight inter nodal spacing and very little stretching. This is the same spectrum that will be used for plants that you don’t want to flower, such as leafy greens, basil, and micro greens. For this stage, we recommend using a 30/60/60, 45/80/80, or 60/100/100 depending on the type of plant and its light use requirements.
4. Flowering- At this stage, the plant has a lot of work to do and is preforming many complex biological processes in producing flowers and/or fruits. Because of this, the plant now requires large amounts of light in all categories. For high use plants, we like to run full power with a 100/100/100. For lower light use plants, dialing back all spectra equally can achieve the proper amount of light while maintaining proper spectrum.
5. Late Flower- In this stage most rapid development has stopped and the plant is gearing up for the stage in which the large flowers and fruits will mature or ripen. During this stage, the blues can be dialed back to a 100/70/100 in order to mimic those late days of summer and conserve a little extra power in the process.