Cannabis Grow Light Breakdown: Heat, Cost & Yields
The biggest difference between indoor and outdoor growing is the light source. With outdoor growing, you get to harness the power of the sun to cultivate your plants. However, growing indoors typically involves grow lights that are specially made for different stages of the plant’s life. At the end of the day, light is essentially food for your plants, and without large amounts of bright light a plant can be healthy but it won’t produce as much bud as it could.
For the many growers who are unable to cultivate cannabis outside in the free abundant sunshine, grow lights are necessary to successfully grow cannabis indoors. Grow lights take the place of the sun, and power the growth of your plants and their buds. Light is like “food” for your plants, so without a lot of bright light, even a healthy cannabis plant won’t produce much bud at all.
Different types of light's Comparison(Heat, Cost & Yields):
HID Grow Lights
HID grow lights are known for being much more efficient than fluorescent lights. HID light set ups usually consist of a strange-looking bulb and a reflector or hood, which is used to reflect back to the plants. HIDs are wonderful for growing plants, but usually require a ventilation system in tandem because the light gets too hot.
If your main goal is to yield as much as possible, then HID lights are the way to go. For example, a 600 watt light can yield around 4 oz a month, while costing about $120 a month in electricity fees.
HPS Grow Lights
Typically used for the flowering stage, a high pressure sodium grow light emits a yellow light that is perfect for stimulating bud production. HPS lights have gained massive popularity because they get better yields per watt of electricity than any other light.
LED Grow Lights
LED lights have become one of the most popular alternatives to growing plants with HPS lights. This is because they tend to run at cool temperatures and even come with built-in heat sinks to lower the heat emissions even more. When compared to HID lights, LED lights are easier to set up and require less maintenance and adjusting.
For growers only aiming to harvest around 1 ounce per month, LED lights might actually be your best choice out of all light types.
Best LED grow lights for you
SPYDR 2x is an early-development top-lighting solution for commercial cultivation or a full-cycle top-lighting solution for home hobbyists cultivating without CO2 supplementation at ambient conditions around 400 ppm. SPYDR 2x is comparable to the previous generation’s SPYDRx and delivers an average of 550 µmol/m2/s of highly-uniform light over a 4’x4’ area at only 6”–12″ above canopy.
The Grower's Choice ROI-680 LED grow light is inspired by a collaboration between two of the most prominent and respected companies in the indoor grow lighting industry: TSL Horti Tech and Growers Choice.
These two brands have come together to combine their years of experience and innovation in grow lighting to create this high performance, cost effective, efficient lighting solution for commercial growing.
All green plants require light to perform photosythesis, during which special cells convert the energy contained in the light into sugars. In the process, plants give off oxygen.
Plants vary widely in how much light they need to thrive — from low-light houseplants, such as dracaenas, to fruiting edibles, such as tomatoes, that need much brighter light.


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