Growing your own weed, where legal, can be a great hobby. However, it requires patience, determination, and the right tools to keep your plant growing successfully. It’s not as easy as throwing some seeds in the soil and calling it a day. SO the questions begs: Can You Grow Weed With A Black Light?
- A cannabis plant requires a particular light spectrum to grow sufficiently and increase THC
- UV or Black lights burn up rather quickly.
- Cannabis plants prefer bright light when lighting is needed.
- Simulating the moon like a UV light
- Using Ultraviolet Lights
- What kind of light can you use?
- Bringing it all together for higher THC & Trichomes
Proper lighting is one of the most important aspects of growing weed than many beginners overlook. Without the right lighting, just like any plant, cannabis simply won’t grow properly. Generally, there are 3 different sources through which you can provide your plant with sufficient lighting: fluorescent, HID, or LED.
Still, one of the most common questions beginner growers ask is: “Can you grow weed with a black light? Well, fortunately for you, that’s exactly what we’re going to tackle in this piece.
Quick Answer: Just in case you don’t have time to read, the short answer is ‘no’. Growing weed with blacklight isn’t possible.
Instead of finding out the hard way and wasting a crop, we’ll explain why. Simply put, a black light doesn’t provide what a weed plant needs to grow thick, healthy, and for a longer period of time. There are a ton of reasons why black lights don’t cut it for uvb, and we’ll go over a few here…
A cannabis plant requires a particular light spectrum to grow sufficiently and increase THC
When a cannabis plant is in the vegetative state, it needs to take good amounts of blue spectrum light in order to grow fat, short, and start producing leaves.
Light wavelengths of the red spectrum are then needed when it’s time for the plant to grow tall, produce buds, and blossom. Unfortunately for growers, black light just doesn’t produce enough these red or blue light spectrums or uvb to make for an effective light source for cannabis. While there are trace amounts, it’s not enough for sufficient growth.
UV or Black lights burn up rather quickly.
Cannabis plants are picky when it comes to temperature preference. They require a regulated and very specific temperature in order to grow properly. If the room is too hot, leaves will end up wilting and humidity and mold will become a problem.
This is another strike against black lights since they tend to heat up too quickly using evb, making them a poor choice for use with cannabis plants. Other lights are better at maintaining a consistent temperature that’s ideal for your weed.
Cannabis plants prefer bright light when lighting is needed.
As its name suggests, a black light just isn’t bright like some other preferred light sources for cannabis plants. This is primarily due to its lumen output.
Lumens measure the amount of visible light that’s given off by a bulb. In simpler terms, the more lumens a bulb has, the brighter it is. When it comes to cannabis plants, the brighter the light, the quicker and better the weed will grow.
Of course, it’s slightly more complicated than that, but it’s enough for our purposes to say that black lights don’t cut it in this category for their low lumen count.
Simulating the moon like a UV light
If you’re familiar with weed-growing, you might know that the vegetative state of a cannabis plant requires darkness for a minimum of 12 hours each night.
It’s intuitive to attempt and simulate the moonlight with a black light to recreate the conditions of growing outdoors. In reality, this is a major misconception since plant requires total darkness, and a black light just disrupts that.
The real moonlight won’t impact your plant since it’s not strong enough to make a difference.
Using Ultraviolet Lights
Growing weed with blacklight isn’t just defective due to the lack of required light spectrums. Ironically, black lights still produce enough light to disrupt the time when a vegetative weed plant requires complete darkness.
You wouldn’t just be wasting money on electricity running your black light at night, but you’d also be hurting your plant.
What kind of light can you use?
Now that we’ve explained why you can’t use a black light for growing weed, we’ll mention some ideal candidates. By far, LED lights designed specifically for weed growth are the ideal option if you’re browsing for an effective yet simple setup.
You’ll have to spend a little more money than if you’d buy HID/HPS grow lights, but you’ll be saving money over time since LED grow lights are more durable and efficient.
A sufficient LED grow light can produce the ideal light spectrum for every stage of your cannabis plant’s growth.
Bringing it all together for higher THC & Trichomes
“Can you grow weed with a black light?” We’ve clearly explained how black light for growing weed and plant growth for your first grow isn’t the best option. These lights don’t have the specific characteristics need to make a solid grow lamp, like proper light spectrums, temperature maintenance, and more for your grow room.
Fortunately, there are some viable and affordable alternatives that can help you kickstart your growing process even if you’re working on a budget.