Its getting cold out! is your environment ready to withstand the UK chill?

But with the pros of cold weather also come the cons! that's where having extra environmental control comes into play and really gives you the upper hand! 

Having control of your environment gives you an extra "insurance policy" helping you avoid grow room horrors like mould and mildew and also helps you maintain an optimal environment for transpiration and optimal growth/results!

We see a lot of growers ignoring important factors like dew point and vpd and later wonder why they end up with underwhelming results or have losses due to mould etc 

Thats where these 4 grow room accessories and tools used to control them really give you the advantage!

First off we have heaters!

Heaters are a measure put in place to prevent unwanted temperature drops!

But how does that give us an advantage?
 

Having a heater in place with a thermostat or on a heating controller ( or better yet a G.A.S Day/Night heating controller or G.A.S Enviro Controller) allows you to fine tune and control the temperature of your environment!

So you can actively avoid dangerous issues like dew point by making sure your grow room doesn't reach what is called saturation point.

One of our favourite way of describing this is when you wake up early on a winters day and you can see that the grass outside is covered in moisture even though it hasn't rained outside, this is because the outside temperature and humidity has reached dew point.

Now having dew point in a grow room  is a recipe for disaster as it will result in unwanted moisture forming around your precious flowers increasing your risk of bud rot/mould  

Now we have our 2nd grow room tool which is equally as important (especially later in flower) the Dehumidifier!

This will also help you keep away from the dreaded dew point tackling excess humidity in your grow room maintaining a optimal humidity to keep dew away
this tool paired with a heater will keep temps up and humidity down when needed 
some humidifiers have a built in humidistat and some will need a controller (G.A.S Day/Night Controller or G.A.S Enviro Controller for example) which will allow you set day/night parameters  

As important it is to be able to reduce humidity when needed it is also important to be able to increase it when needed. that's where a humidifier comes into play!

When your plants are young and don't have much foliage they cant transpire much and will rely on higher humidity to give them a better start in life!

If your environment is too dry your plant will grow long/leggy and thin and your root system may struggle to keep the plant fully hydrated so whilst your plant is developing in the vegetative stage higher humidity is recommended

Higher humidity in veg/ early flower (stretch period) will give you shorter internodal spacing with closer and more populated/stacked flowering sites!

Where as a dry environment will encourage your plant to stretch out and flowering sites will be spread further apart which is less productive and will make your plants grow taller which isn't always desirable especially in an indoor environment with limited height

And last but not least is fans/extraction, an essential grow room requirement is air movement and air exchange!

Having good extraction in your grow will help keep your temperatures/humidity in check by exchanging/ replenishing the air/oxygen/co2 in your space extracting excess heat and humidity whilst creating negative pressure which also tackles grow room odours with the use of carbon filtration and brings in fresh air from outside

Air movement helps strengthen your plants whilst at the same time disturbing "dead spots" and humidity gathering in your canopy and helping your other tools by distributing air /humidity/and heat evenly around your grow space that is produced by your lights/heater etc this will also help the sensors for controllers you have in place read/record the environment more accurately! BONUS! 

A brilliant benefit of led lights is that your demand for extraction for the wattage you are using will go down considerably making for a quieter environment which is also important for many growers and a pro of winter time is your extraction doesn't have to work as hard to keep temperatures down and growers using an intake fan will likely not need the intake as their room will happily run passively 
many led growers benefit from an air intake which isn't taken directly from outside meaning it is easier to keep your room warm in winter periods

Another brilliant benefit of this for all you hobby growers out there is the power it gives you to boost your co2 for FREE!

Lets say your growing in your spare bedroom, if you pull from directly outside your co2 ppm will be ambient/ regular levels and in winter the air will be very cold
you could have a passive intake in your bedroom so every night when you sleep you are feeding your plants without even knowing it!

Who knew you could feed your plants at the same time as catching some zzzs!