Join the conversation
Was upgrading your grow light actually worth the money?
I've been running a cheap blurple LED for about two years now, and the plants grow, they finish, i get buds, no complaints. But i keep reading about how much difference a quality light makes and i'm starting to wonder if i'm leaving yield or quality on the table without realizing it.
Finally pulled the trigger on a mid-tier quantum board setup last month after hemming and hawing forever. First run isn't done yet so i can't report back with real numbers. My wife pointed out that I spent three months researching a light the same way normal people research cars, so there's that.
Curious if people who made a similar jump actually noticed a meaningful difference, or if it was more of a "yeah it's slightly better" situation. Talking canopy penetration, density, maybe terpene expression if anyone has thoughts on that. Was the upgrade something you'd do again without hesitation, or do you kind of wish you'd just stuck with what worked?
2 Comments
The yield and density stuff is real, i won't argue that. But honestly the thing that sold me on the upgrade wasn't any of that, it was what it did to the smell.
I was running a blurple for a long time and my phenos smelled fine, decent even. Switched to a full-spectrum board and ran the same cut back to back, same soil, same nutes, same everything. The terp expression was noticeably more complex. The gassy top notes i knew were there came through louder, and there was this whole fruity mid that was basically muted before, like it was buried. Could've been coincidence but i've seen it repeat enough times now that i'm convinced the light spectrum plays into it.
The one thing i'd push back on is the "i'm leaving yield on the table" framing. Maybe you are, but yield is honestly the easiest thing to chase. If you're growing for quality that's where the interesting stuff is, and that's where a better light actually surprised me. Worth every penny for that reason alone.
The terp thing is real but I'd be careful attributing it entirely to the light spectrum, because I've seen the same kind of "buried notes coming forward" improvement when people also tighten up their dry and cure at the same time as an upgrade. Hard to isolate one variable when you're excited about a new piece of gear. Worth running it a few more cycles with really controlled conditions before calling it confirmed.
More in Beginner Growing Questions
- Was upgrading your grow light actually worth it?
- Was upgrading your grow light actually worth the money?
- Was upgrading your light actually worth the money?
- Was upgrading your light actually worth the money?
- New growers, get a decent pH meter before anything else
- Was upgrading to a better light actually worth it?
- Get a cheap pH meter before you do anything else
- Was upgrading your light actually worth the money?