How Do You Know When to Upgrade LED Grow Lights?

August 11, 2020

We all know that plants need light to photosynthesize. And indoor gardens make do with led grow lights to replace natural lighting. In this age, newer generations of indoor grow lights are able to provide artificial lighting needed for every stage of the plant’s growth. However, there may be times when your plants may still not be getting the sufficient exposure they need. Prevent this from happening, here’s a list of signs your plants are not getting the right light so you can make the necessary actions like upgrading full spectrum LED Grow Lights.

Plant Producing Small Leaves
A plant producing small leaves is most likely lacking the energy to produce larger or full-sized leaves. Since light enables a plant to produce energy, low light is a sure cause of small leaves and foliage.

Leaf Color
In general, most plant leaves have a dark green appearance, depending on the plant type. This green color is due to the chlorophyll within the plant's cells; the chlorophyll soaks up the incoming light to photosynthesize. However, insufficient light exposure stops the chlorophyll from working at peak performance. Leaves will slowly lose their dark coloring and become lighter over time. If lighting does not improve, the leaves will eventually become yellow and fall off the plant.

Sparse or Leggy Growth
One sure sign that your plants are struggling with a lack of light is leggy growth. This looks like new leaves growing far apart, more length of stem between leaves and sparse, straggly, ‘thin’ plants.

When indoor plants aren’t getting enough light, they’ll lengthen their stems and branches in order to ‘reach’ for sunlight. This results in the leaves growing further apart or your plant just not looking lush and healthy.

The distance between two adjacent leaves on a plant is known as the internodal distance. A lack of light can increase internodal distance, which is generally not as nice of a look.

Plant Growth
Since photosynthesis provides the energy the plant needs for growth, lack of light will stunt the plant's growth. If you had the plant near a window or potted in a sunny patio area, but moved it recently to a less bright location, you will notice this change. If you see that your plant has stopped growing, or is growing much more slowly than usual, it may be because it is not receiving enough light.

Soil Not Drying Out for Weeks
You may think that it’s air temperature that helps the soil dry out. In actual fact, pot plant soil dries because the plant is drawing up the water from its roots! Water is another key component of performing photosynthesis. So when there’s a lack of light available to perform photosynthesis, the plant does not draw up as much water.

This results in the soil staying damp for longer, which is not good for most plants. In most plants, if the roots stay damp for too long they will start to rot or leaves will start to yellow.

While the soil not drying out can also be from a very water-retentive soil, if your plant isn’t getting enough light, that could also be why.

When you put your plant in a position with more light, you’ll notice the soil dries out quicker. You may think that’s because a well-lit area must be warmer. But actually, the plant will be using more of the water you give it! Allowing the soil to dry out faster means watering may need to be done more regularly.