November 29, 2022
In today’s article, we invite you to think about one of the most important aspects of indoor growing: lighting. If you’re just starting out growing, you’ll find that you have a variety of options, not only in terms of lamp power, but also in the types of lights you can find. So today we will focus on the most popular one, which is LED plant growth lights.
The purpose of this article is not to say that LED grow lights are better or worse than other kinds of grow lights, but only that they are just different options (with a wide range of prices) and growers have to make decisions among them according to their needs. selection and growth conditions. However, given the improvements in LED equipment in recent years, such lights are likely to dominate the indoor grow market in the near future.
But that’s not all. Full-spectrum LED grow lights also offer other benefits, such as:
LED lights are 40% more efficient than traditional light sources such as HPS, HID or CFL. As a result, they can save you a ton of money on your energy bills, while also being kind to the environment.
Because LED lights do not contain any filament, gas, lead or mercury, they are fundamentally different from other lights, which makes them very reliable in the long run.
Also, LED lights have a very long lifespan, up to 50,000 hours on premium quality lights!
LED lights also don’t heat up too much, so they don’t affect the temperature of the grow room.
Finally, high-quality LED lights that can be customized and adjusted according to your requirements.
ECO Farm Z6–600 Samsung LM301B LED Grow Light
Features:
This ECO Farm LED grow light uses a high-quality and durable driver and top trash can LED generation and 6 passive cooling light bars to provide full spectrum and wide coverage light for vegetable and flowering growth stages. It covers 5'x5' Veg footprint and 4'x4' flower footprint. The high energy efficiency of 2.7umol/J produces a total PPF output of 1501 umol/J, which produces uniform light spread very close to the crop canopy, and provides excellent effects for indoor planting, greenhouses and planting tents. Compared with conventional similar wattage HPS solutions, LED lights can achieve 30–40% HVAC capacity and up to 30–60% increase in output. IP65 wet environment protection grade, waterproof and dustproof. The LED plant growth lamp adopts high-quality aluminum heat sink design to efficiently dissipate heat. It has no additional fans, and the quiet planting environment has zero noise.
Lightspeed Pro Cosmic Plus LED 600W LED Grow Light
Features:
The Lightspeed Pro Cosmic Plus LED 600W Grow Light provides 600W of powerful lighting, producing higher intensity lighting to ensure maximum indoor plant growth. This 600W full spectrum hydroponic grow light is specially designed to optimize plant reproduction during the growth and flowering stages of plants cultivation. Like all of our Lightspeed Cosmic lighting ranges, this grow light has many innovative features designed to help you reduce operating costs and make your hydroponics business more profitable. First, it provides more uniform full-spectrum LED natural light than HPS and MH lighting. Plus, it has a dimmer that allows you to precisely control the light during key growing stages to help prevent damage to sensitive plants and extend the life of your grow lights.
There are several lighting factors that determine how well indoor plants will grow.
1. Spectrum
The most important factor affecting plant growth is the light spectrum produced by grow lights. Depending on the lamp you choose, the spectrum can vary greatly.
While the sun naturally provides the full-spectrum light that plants need to thrive, you need to be more strategic with your grow lights. Even slight differences in the spectrum of your growing process can have a major impact on your final product.
Which brings us to our next point…
2. PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation)
Photosynthetically Active Radiation, or PAR, is the part of the light spectrum that plants need for photosynthesis. For indoor plants, PAR is somewhere between the blue/violent low end of the spectrum and the orange/red high end.
How are you using PAR for your growth?
Indoor plants require different spectra depending on their growth stage.
During the vegetative phase, indoor plants require a lot of low-end blue light, which translates to PAR values in the 400–500 nm (nanometer light) range.
When a indoor plant flowers, it needs high end orange/red light, or PAR values above 600 nm.
While this may sound complicated, you can pick up a PAR meter to make sure your plants are receiving the correct spectrum at the correct time.
3. Light intensity
Light intensity, measured in lumens, also plays an important role in the size and strength of the harvest. In general, the more light you can provide to your plants, the better.
If you buy lights specifically designed for growing — and if you have enough (and the right settings) — they should provide enough light intensity to promote healthy plant growth.
If your grow lights are not strong enough, or if they are placed too far from your plants, the growth cycle will suffer. The ideal distance ultimately depends on the strength of your grow lights. We have provided a form at the end of this article to help you plan your space.
4. Photoperiod
Finally, photoperiod, or the amount of light your plants receive, will have an impact on your harvest.
In short, extending or shortening a plant’s photoperiod (a concept familiar to growers of light deprivation) will dramatically affect how long a plant stays in the vegetative phase and when it begins to flower.
Generally, indoor plants will begin to bloom if the photoperiod is short (about 12 hours per day). On the other hand, when the photoperiod is longer (about 18 hours per day), flowering is delayed.
Achieving the correct light cycle for houseplants is as easy as turning the grow lights on and off as needed (a timer makes this easier).
If you’re keeping up with the times and want to simplify the process, choose LED grow lights or CMH lights, depending on how long you plan to grow.
Remember that LEDs have a much longer lifespan than CMH lights.
If you grow plants at home and plan to move the plant to a different space as it grows, you can also use MH (for vegetation) and HPS (for flowering), or just stick with full-spectrum lights throughout.
These are especially useful because they are so close to sunlight that you can change the spectrum by turning a knob.
We hope this was helpful to you, and good luck with your growth!
October 20, 2023