Black Dog LED PhytoMAX-3 12SP Grow Light VS Apollo Horticulture 600W LED Grow Light
If you have plants that need a little more fun in the sun, but you’re lacking the sunny climate or the south-facing window of your dreams, you might be thinking about supplementing with grow lights.
More specifically, you’re probably wondering what kind of grow lights are the best for your indoor plants. And let’s be honest — that brings up a whole other host of questions.
While picking the right kind of grow lights for your plants might seem a little overwhelming at first, don’t panic. We’ve got the lowdown on all the basics you need to know to keep your plants happy, healthy, and photosynthesizing with the best of ‘em.
Understanding Indoor Grow Lights
Now that we understand the benefits of using LED grow lights for indoor farming, let’s get a deeper understanding of the two main factors of light that will maximize your yields: colour and power.
Colour
As we mentioned before, plants are picky about the type of light they absorb. Indoor grow lights give them the optimal red and blue wavelengths to grow big, healthy, and strong. But why red and blue specifically?
Outdoors, red light is most plentiful during summertime. When plants sense more red light using a special light receptor, they release a hormone that keeps chlorophyll from breaking down. This enables the plant to take the most advantage of the plentiful sunlight during spring and summer. For this reason, red light yields large, healthy plants, since chlorophyll is converting plenty of light into cellulose. Additionally, red light is needed to grow flowers and seeds/fruits. Keep in mind–like every other good thing, too much red light can cause serious problems, namely lanky and spindly plants.
Indoor Grow Lights
While red light is more prevalent in spring and summer, higher levels of blue light occur during fall and winter. The plant’s blue light receptor triggers a hormone response that slows down stem and leaf growth when it senses higher levels of blue light. For this reason, the initial reaction is to use no blue grow lights, but having some blue is important. The same blue-light hormone controls ‘apical dominance in plants, which is the reason a plant’s main stem is larger than any side stems. It’s common to see plants with more exposure to blue light yield a short and bushy plant with a more complex stem structure. Too much blue light, however, will result in stunted plants.
Most indoor growers recommend getting the best of both worlds using a 5:1 ratio of red to blue light. The high level of red light keeps plants in their prime growing mode while the small amount of blue encourages stem growth.
Power
Measuring the intensity of light is complicated–there are at least half a dozen units of measurement, all meaning different things.
Watts, for example, are a measure of power that everyone is likely most familiar with. Yet, when it comes to the physics of growing plants, it’s more or less a useless measurement. That is because watts describe how much power a light source consumes, not what it emits. So, while it’s helpful to know the wattage of a grow light, the measurement has little to do with the plants themselves.
If you hear talk of lumens, you’re getting closer to understanding the power of a grow light. A lumen measures light based on how humans perceive it. We have what’s called “photopic vision”, which is our vision and colour perception in well-lit conditions. Lumens are charted on a photopic response curve (shown above) and measure the light that humans and animals can see. As you can see, the range is mostly green light, with little of the red or blue parts of the spectrum. While calculations using lumens, like LUX (lumens/m2) or foot candle meters (lumens/ft2), are a helpful measurement for understanding humans, they also tell us little about the plants. For one, plants don’t absorb most of the green light that dominates the lumen curve. Also, you will likely be using red and blue grow lights in your farm, which will not register high for lumens. For these reasons, you should avoid using lumens to measure the power of your grow lights.
What you should be using to measure the power of your grow lights is photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD). Before we dive into the virtues of PPFD, we need to understand what it is measuring. PPFD is a measure of photosynthetic active radiation, PAR for short. PAR is not a measure of anything itself but is more of a description. PAR light is all the visible wavelengths of light that cause photosynthesis, found within the 400–700 nanometer range. PPFD is a ‘spot’ measurement that tells you how many photons from the PAR range hit a specific area of your canopy over time. It is expressed as micromoles per square meter per second (μmol/m2/s). For this reason, PPFD is the most accurate measure of light power. First, unlike other measures, it considers the entire spectrum of light that plants see. PPFD also takes into account the amount of light that will actually reach the plant instead of focusing only on the point of origin. A light source can be very bright and powerful, but if it is too away from the plant, or obstructed in some way, the plant won’t be getting all the light it needs for photosynthesis. PPFD controls for this kind of inaccuracy.
Black Dog LED PhytoMAX-3 12SP Grow Light For Your Indoor Plants
Features:
This Black Dog grow light provides plants in all stages from veg to flower with everything they need in the natural sunlight. This results in bigger buds and higher yield all while saving you on energy costs. The grow light is suitable for each growing phase. Upgraded aluminum cooling heat sinks and advanced high speed quiet fans are great for heat dissipation. Daisy Chain feature assists growers to connect multiple lights together with fewer outlets. The 600W LED grow light is perfect for a 3’x3’ vegetative coverage at 32”and 2.5’x2.5’ flowering coverage at 22”. Recommend hanging the light at 28"-40" and running the lights 18 hours per day during the vegetation stage. Remember to properly adjust the height of your light accordingly to your plant desired level for optimal growth.
Apollo Horticulture 600W LED Grow Light
Features:
Apollo Horticulture understands that proper lighting is essential for healthy plant growth. Compared to other grow lights, LEDs are attractive because they do not require ballasts and produce considerably less heat. This allows Apollo Horticulture LEDs to be placed closer to the plant canopy than other lights. Apollo Horticulture LED Grow Lights come with an impressive average life span of 50,000 hours and a limited 2 Year Warranty. These LED’s are ideal for all phases of your plant growth. This system is suitable for grow tents, greenhouses, H20 Systems and in most other hydroponic systems.
When to Use Grow Lights for Your Indoor Plants?
Since most homes don’t have enough natural lighting, it’s important to give the plants plenty of artificial light that mimics the sun. That’s what grow lights do.
If you’re starting with seedlings, you should use a grow light from the day you plant them. As the seeds sprout, the plant searches for sunlight to know which way to push out of the ground. Therefore, it needs to have natural light hitting it from the very beginning.
Some people do try to grow seedlings without a grow light and are successful. However, the tiny plants are very weak and thin when compared to those at a local garden centre.
Seedlings that grow like this never recover. The plants never grow well when transplanted into the garden. You could waste a lot of money and time trying to save them when you could just buy grow lights and use them at the time of planting.
The type of light you choose matters for various stages of growth. We discuss this a bit later, but the general idea is to have daylight bulbs at higher Kelvin ratings for the initial growing phase. Then, switch to warm white light with a lesser Kelvin rating for those plants that are flowering.
How to Choose the Best Grow Lights for Indoor Plants?
Indoor farming has grown in popularity, but traditional artificial lights aren’t good enough. You need grow lights, and it’s important to select the right ones.
What Types of Plants Will You Be Growing?
It’s important to plan which plants you want to grow before you decide on the lights. Determine how many of each plant you want to figure out how much lighting and what type you need. However, you don’t have to in a lot of detail.
The crop type influences the coverage, spectrum, intensity, and type of light you require. For example, if you want microgreens, the lighting required is very different from people who grow flowers.
Types of Grow Lights to Use
Typically, HIDs, LEDs, and fluorescent lights are used the most. Incandescent bulbs can burn the foliage because they produce too much heat.
Fluorescents tend to be the most affordable, but they don’t last as long as LEDs. With LED technology, they are becoming less expensive, as well. Plus, they don’t use as much electricity and last much longer.
How Many Watts Do You Need for Indoor Plants?
Typically, the experts recommend that you use 30 to 50 watts per square foot. Check the wattage listed on the grow light and divide it by 30. This gives you the highest square foot area that the bulb can cover.
Conclusion
Indoor grow lights are popular and convenient solutions for both professionals and amateurs. With the right background and knowledge of the most appropriate products for your indoor gardening, it shouldn’t be challenging to acquire the best grow lights recommended by professional cannabis growers. Hopefully, the above tips and product options will simplify your search.
