December 24, 2021
Lighting is a crucial factor when it comes to growing plants. Keeping your plants alive can be a challenging task, but growing them indoors is more challenging. Some houses aren’t ideal for growing plants just because they are dark. This is where the LED grow lights come in.
There are a lot of benefits that come with these grow lights; energy-efficient, eco-friendly, and produce full-spectrum light. They are considered to be one of the best indoor lights on the market, especially if you find the right one for your plants.
LED grow lights are quite different from the standard LED bulbs, for example, the home light fixtures. They are very effective in mimicking the light from the sun to give your plants the light that they need to grow.
Once you make a decision to invest in an indoor grow light, you should buy one that perfectly matches your needs. Although, this is easier said than done. To help you find the right one for you, we have a list of the best LED lights and a list of things you need to keep in mind while buying indoor lights.
Light Spectrum
First, you must understand the light spectrum or colour wavelengths. It is the range of light colors we see or didn’t see. Visible light that our eyes can see is between 380–740 nanometers. And similarly, the leaves of plants also enjoy these visible wavelengths; the chlorophyll uses this light to manufacture food. The green light is an exception. Because chlorophyll only reflects green and they don’t absorb it, that explains why plants’ leaves are green. You can read more about these in this article.
So for the most part, plants respond to the blue and red colors very well. These are the two most important wavelengths that plants need during their growth. Basically, plants need blue light for their vegetative phase and red light for the flowering period.
Understanding that many grow light manufacturers have made it possible to produce the light colors plants need with their LEDs light. Many modern LED grow lights have a programmable setting to produce different color wavelengths. By this, you can control the type of lights at the different ratios for plants at different stages of growth in their life.
These types of LED lights with a very wide or full range of color wavelengths are called full-spectrum LED grow lights.
So two of the most important criteria that affect plant growth are light intensity (or the power of light output), and light colors (color wavelengths).
For light intensity, you can opt for the powerful light, but for light colors, you should choose one with a wide range of color wavelengths (or full-spectrum).
ECO Farm LM301B UV&IR 600W Quantum Board
Features:
This ECO Farm LED grow light uses today’s latest high-yield LED technology-Samsung LM301B diode, high energy efficiency of 2.7 umol/J, provides strong light output and uniform canopy penetration, so as to achieve the largest higher yield. It only consumes 600w, and the operating power is 50% less than HPS or other SMD LED or Blurple lights. Vegetables cover 5 x 5 feet, flowers cover 4 x 4 feet. The arrangement of diodes gathered on the edge makes the PPFD more uniform, and the dimming knob can freely adjust the light intensity. Multi-light connection, unified dimming, is particularly conducive to large-area indoor planting and commercial planting. No fan and no noise. High safety performance MEAN WELL driver, generally waterproof. Update The aluminum plate is thick and strong, does not emit a lot of heat, high-quality cable protective cover; user-friendly packaging. Quality components mean that the lights last longer, but they can also save you money.
GROPLANNER 600W LED Grow Light
Features:
Groplanner LED Grow Light uses double LEDs chips, which delivers high energy efficiency with 2.75 umol/j and provides high light output of 170 LM/W. The yields of per 150W(equivalent to traditional HPS 400W) can be 0.75-0.9lbs. Groplanner LED Grow Light adopts 3000K, 5000K, and 660nm,760nm chips. Not sunlight butinfinite close to light. It filters out the harmful light waves to plants and enhance the light waves needed during plant growth. You can freely assemble them according to different sizes of tents or according to different power requirements. Fin heat dissipation, a more efficient and uniform heat dissipation mode without fan, noise, or deformation, greatly increases the heat dissipation area and ensures the plant growth will not be affected by overheating in the planting area.
When you are about to purchase a product what do you notice? price? I know the answer.
You set some criteria to define the quality of the product and after that, you check the price. However, here we are mentioning some criteria thus you can select the perfect one for yourself.
Check the Weight of the Product
Weight is a very crucial factor in this case. If you ignore it then your grow tent may fall for a small breeze. However, weight varies on the size of the grow tent. It’s better if you do not cross the limit of 30 pounds in the case of a 4×4 grow tent.
Check the Power Capacity
The wattage capacity is a vital factor here. If it’s not appropriate then you may not get the required spectrums for your plant.
Consider that plant you’re growing: This is very crucial. Different plants have different requirements of the resources — heat, amount of light (lumen), the wavelength of light, etc. Thus, the first thing you need to consider when buying LED grow lights is what you want to grow under that.
Tomatoes require more warm and intense lighting than flowers and vice versa. That’s why you should choose according to your requirements.
To know more about it read our latest article on “growing tomatoes with artificial light.”
Freedom of Adjustability: I just told you that you should choose LED grow lights according to the plant you desire to grow. But is it going to be only one plant that you want to grow throughout your life?
No. Also, one particular plant might require a different set of mentioned resources throughout its life cycle.
That is why LED grow lights need to offer the freedom of adjustability. To which extent you can tweak the settings to meet the requirement of a wide range of plants — is something you should consider.
Consider the Heat: LED grow lights produce good heat when they’re turned on. If you’re growing delicate plants, you should be aware of that. Excessive heat can cause the plants to be burned or scorched. When you’re growing delicate plants, it’s ideal to look for LEDs that produce less heat.
Electricity Consumption vs. Power Output: Depending on the plants you’re growing, you may need to keep the LEDs turned on for about 10 to 11 hours per day, or even more in some cases. This will add up quite a number to your electricity bill, keep that in mind.
If you’ve got a reason to be worried about that, consider those LED grow lights that give good wattage output consuming less power. There are models that can do that.
It could sometimes depend on the plant you’re growing in that space. But as a simple rule, you need to provide 30 to 40 watts per square foot of grow space.
A great grow light is one of the most important parts of a quality indoor growing space. Whether you have a grow tent, or you are just growing in the corner of your garage, a grow light provides the right kind of light to help your plants grow. The best LED grow light provides the right spectrum of light and is designed to be versatile enough to suit all stages of the plant’s life cycle from germination to harvest. In the end, happy growing!
October 20, 2023