ECO Farm ECOZ 510W Samsung 301H Chips LED Grow Light VS TotalGrow MH Lumyre 480W LED Grow Light
Indoor growing is another option that is becoming popular because it gives the grower a lot more control since you can essentially create the right climate. However, not all plants do well inside or require a level of attention that makes growing them indoors impractical. Let’s discover the best LED grow lights by checking the level of associated difficulty.
The Importance of ‘Full Spectrum’ Lighting
Different lights are more effective at boosting certain stages of a plant’s growing cycle.
Nowadays, most grow lights have the potential to deliver a ‘full spectrum’ of lights, including IR and UV. This means that they can supply plants with light that has the same qualities as sunlight.
Nevertheless, if you want to make sure that your plant is channelling all of its energy into a certain process — for example growth, or flowering — you may wish to “artificially” influence this yourself. This is where different colours and light settings come in.
Different Light Settings
Not all LED grow lamps have the option to use only some of the lights; however, some of them will make it possible to only use certain colours at a time.
Red light is required for growth at the germination stage (as well as later in a plant’s life). It helps roots to grow and seeds to germinate. There are studies to suggest that blue light could actually impede germination.
Blue lights are responsible for assisting plant growth — helping them grow strong stems and leaves. Therefore, these lights are often used for the vegetative growth stage of a plant.
Red light is also used to encourage plants to flower and produce fruit. For this reason, it is useful later on in the plant’s lifecycle as well. At this stage, often a combination of red and blue lights will be used.
For these reasons, it can be useful when a grow light has settings for illuminating only bulbs of a specific colour. If this is the case, the grow light will usually have two settings, a ‘veg’ setting, and a ‘bloom’ setting. These can be used individually, or together.
ECO Farm ECOZ 510W Samsung 301H Chips LED Grow Light
Features:
This ECO Farm LED grow light for seed starter output has a full spectrum of 5000k + 3000k + red light (660nm) + infrared light (730nm). The light has a 4x4 foot coverage and it offers a higher intensity PPFD value of 2.75 umol/J for improved yield and quality. Aluminum is characterized by rapid heat dissipation, but the interior is flame retardant. The lamp has a lifespan of up to 50,000 hours, 10 times longer than conventional lighting. Uniform strength throughout the plant and greater than competing units, resulting in healthier, more balanced growth. LED grow lights are also safe to use and are 50% more efficient. This feature allows you to grow more without worrying about power usage. The optimized spectrum doubles the PPF, making plants grow faster and healthier.
TotalGrow MH Lumyre 480W LED Grow Light
Features:
TotalGrow LED grow lights feature multiple high-intensity light strips in a slim profile and built-in power supply to distribute the ideal light intensity evenly across your growing area to meet your growing goals. Superior, customizable full spectrum supports efficient, high-quality growth of any life stage and crop variety. This plug-and-play solution with direct daisy chaining is easy to implement, has low up-front and ongoing costs, and sustainably produces high-quality crops. The efficacy of this LED grow light is as high as 2.8 μmol/J to meet the light intensity your plants need. Robust, reliable, ideally shaped design for ease of use and excellent uniformity.
BUYING GUIDES: Choose LED Grow Lights
LED Grow Lights are one of the most efficient, modern, and cost-effective ways to cultivate plants. LED lights are preferred because they don’t emit heat like HPS or Metal Halide lights do. This reduces the need for cooling systems within your growing environment, which saves you electricity costs. Because of their low power consumption, also allow you to control costs better than traditional grow light setups.
LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) can be used as individual units or put together into arrays known as ‘modules’. Modules usually come with a heatsink attached, which is used to dissipate excess heat so it doesn’t interfere with the quality of the light being produced by your LEDs. One thing to remember is that your heatsink will need to be big enough if you are stacking multiple LED Modules.
One of the most common questions asked when buying an LED Grow Light is “Should I go full spectrum or single-banded?”. Here’s what you need to know:
Full Spectrum Vs Single Banded, which is better?
Full Spectrum lights give off a light that contains all of the colors in the visible spectrum (red, blue and green). Single banded, such as blue LEDs produce only one color (blue) and can cause some plants not to grow properly. Going with a full spectrum LED grow light helps maximize growth during each phase of your plant’s life cycle because it emits light in all PAR zones equally. Both types have advantages and disadvantages. For example, full-spectrum LED Grow Lights are great if you plan to grow plants from seedling all the way to flower while still being efficient. If you are only growing plants like tomatoes and herbs which don’t need a lot of blue light during flowering, you would save money by going with single-banded LED lights (around 70–80% less energy use).
New technology is emerging in the LED Grow Light market called ‘Quantum Board’. This technology uses much more efficient diodes than traditional LEDs like Luxeon and Bridgelux chips. HPS and MH lamps produce light in different wavelengths at varying levels resulting in uneven lighting distribution (PAR), or how much actual usable light gets into your garden throughout its sq ft / m². Quantum Boards’ LED diodes emit light at a single wavelength and they are intended to be used in a linear form in order to maximize the amount of usable light per sq ft / m². According to one study, plants under a quantum board LED Grow Light system took just 12 days from germination until harvest compared with over 19 days for plants being grown under HPS lamps!
Conclusion
Growing vegetables and herbs indoors with LED grow lights can be easy to do, depending on the plants you want to produce. Knowing the light requirements for both will help determine which kinds you want to grow, and also allow you to cultivate a wider variety using multiple grow lights at different levels.
Indoor growing gives you more control over soil, nutrients, water, and light. Plus, you don’t have to worry about keeping out deer, rabbits, and other local wild life who love your plants as much as you do!
