How Humidity Affects Indoor Growing

A wide range of plant processes are affected by your grow room’s humidity levels. At every growth stage, your plants thrive when they can complete these processes efficiently. This blog helps you optimise your grow room environment, protect your plants’ health, and get fantastic yields.

What Plant Processes Are Affected by Humidity?

Your grow room’s humidity is vital for a variety of plant processes, highlighting the importance of maintaining optimal levels. These plant processes are:

Transpiration: Your grow room’s humidity influences how much water your plants evaporate through their leaves. Low humidity causes plants to transpire (sweat) too quickly, leading to dehydration and nutrient burn. Meanwhile, high humidity hinders transpiration, affecting nutrient uptake and cooling.

Nutrient Uptake: Your grow room’s humidity affects the rate at which plants absorb nutrients. High humidity slows this process, leading to nutrient deficiencies. Low humidity increases uptake, leading to nutrient “lock-out”.

Pest and Disease: Your grow room’s humidity influences the spread of pests and diseases, impacting plant health, yields and overall plant quality. High humidity leads to mould and mildew growth. Low humidity stresses plants, making them more vulnerable to pests.

What’s an Ideal Humidity Level for Indoor Plants?

Plants need different humidity levels depending on their growth stage. It is important to consider the specific needs of your plant species, as some thrive in higher or lower humidity. At our in-house grows at Global Air Supplies, we follow these humidity guidelines:

• Vegetative Stage: During the vegetative growth stage, most plants benefit from a relative humidity (RH) range of 50-70%.
• Flowering Stage: During flowering and fruiting, it is beneficial to reduce humidity to between 40-50%.

How Do I Control Grow Room Humidity?

There are several ways to control humidity using common grow room equipment.

Ventilation: Proper ventilation helps regulate humidity by removing excess moisture and promoting airflow. Using intake/outtake fans, ducting, and filters helps build a fully optimised ventilation system tailored to your space.

Dehumidifiers: Dehumidifiers lower humidity levels, especially during flowering or when dealing with high humidity. Our dehumidifiers, such as the ora Dehumidifier 60L, deliver powerful environmental control with the push of a button!

The ora Dehumidifier 60L pulls moisture away from your plants, storing it in an internal tank for easy draining. It is compatible with G.A.S IHC Dual and IHC SonicAir Pro Dual for straightforward humidity control 24/7. This dehumidifier features a user-friendly digital display that offers easy access to essential controls. Its customisable settings allow you to tailor the unit’s operation to suit the specific needs of your plants.

Humidifiers: Humidifiers increase humidity, particularly for plants that prefer higher moisture levels. When used alongside a dehumidifier, your humidifier helps balance the grow room’s relative humidity levels. Our humidifier units, such as the SonicAir Humidifier, allow you to fine-tune the humidity in your grow room.

Paired with the ora Dehumidifier, SonicAir Humidifiers balance grow room humidity with maximum outputs of 800ml per hour. Its 10L tank connects to four overhead spouts, providing consistent, multi-directional misting across your grow room with minimal fuss.

Monitoring: Using a hygrometer to monitor humidity levels allows for timely adjustments and prevents extreme conditions. Our SmartGro Thermometer/Hygrometer allows you to monitor conditions in the grow room and nutrient tank from one unit.

SmartGro Thermometer/Hygrometers measure both grow room temperature and relative humidity and displays the highest and lowest readings throughout the day. It also comes with a secondary temperature/humidity probe, allowing you to take additional readings anywhere in the grow room.

Controlling your grow room’s relative humidity is made easier with an environmental controller system. The G.A.S IHC Dual automates humidity control by adjusting your humidifier/dehumidifier outputs according to monitored humidity and temperature fluctuations. This maintains optimal levels for each growth stage, creating a better environment for your plants and increasing yields.

With great growing comes great responsibility! Controlling your grow room’s humidity is the first step towards vigorous, healthy growth and huge yields. To find out more about our grow room solutions, check out our product suggestions on the Global Air Supplies website or watch our latest Product Focus videos on YouTube.