November 02, 2022
You don’t need a lot of space to grow your own plants, but light is essential. Choosing the best LED grow light is a key factor in providing the right healthy growing environment for your plants. In addition to air, water and nutrients, light quality also has a major impact on plant survival.
Grow lights are not like standard household lights. They fall into two categories: blue/red spectrum or full spectrum. The blue/red (also known as blur) spectrum maximizes photosynthesis to promote overall plant health and is often recommended in greenhouses that already receive a lot of natural light. Full spectrum increases the “white” sunlight component of indoor growth. The full spectrum also has green light, which until recently was not considered particularly important for plant growth. However, research now suggests that it may help during photosynthesis.
LED grow lights — well, generally speaking, LED lights — consume less energy than traditional fluorescent or high-density discharge models, last two to three times longer than non-LED competitors, and can be largely recycled . Suitable for both business and home users, they come in several different models and offer a variety of features. The sheer variety can make choosing the most appropriate model challenging. We’ve reviewed the best LED grow lights for a variety of different purposes.
If you’re a beginner, you might wonder why your indoor plants need LED lights. To help you choose the best LED lights, you need to first understand what grow lights are and why indoor plants need them. Indoor LED grow lights are artificial lights that can help stimulate plant growth.
Plants often don’t have enough direct light and can struggle to bloom, hence why LED lights are used.
LED grow lights are handy for any indoor plant that needs direct light. Grow light not only stimulates plant growth, but also allows you to start seedlings indoors, but you do need to be aware of certain equipment, such as a built-in timer, which allows the plant to control the type of light it chooses.
LED grow lights can be quite right, so you’ll want to make sure you have a timer to provide shade when needed.
One of the main benefits of an LED grow light is that it can easily fit into a limited space and still help your plants thrive. LED grow lights also reduce the need for chemical and pesticide treatments to plants, as the grow lights are less susceptible to pests.
ECO Farm ECO Z Lite 1000W LED Grow Light
Features:
These ECO Farm LED grow lights ensure concentrated and even lighting and reduce light waste. This plant light brings a 30% increase in output, consumes a total of 1000W, 2800 LEDs, and replaces the traditional 2000W plant light. Achieve higher yields while saving energy costs! Grow lights are easy to assemble yourself in minutes. You can install as many LED strips as you want. Plug and play, effectively save your installation cost and time. The aluminum backplate enables excellent heat dissipation. Pure aluminum light bars better dissipate heat and stay cool, essential for heat dissipation while ensuring long lamp life. No fan, no noise. The cost-effective grow light is designed for home/commercial growers, long-term use of the fan will make noise, but the LED light panel uses aluminum to cool it instead of using a fan, giving you a fanless and quiet growing experience.
PhotonTek XT 1000W CO2 Pro LED
Features:
The PhotonTek LED Grow Light delivers the perfect balance of quality and quantity for brilliantly high quality light combined with ultra-high PPFD levels to help your plants grow healthy and potent. Designed for a 5’x5’ space with use of CO2 supplement for maximum performance, the XT 1000W gives indoor growers and gardeners the ability to give a huge boost to your harvest yields without needing to increase space. The PhotonTek XT 1000W Pro delivers the highest quality light for your plant’s entire growth cycle, making these LEDs the smartest option for healthy, potent harvests a faster return on investment. The XT 1000W CO2 Pro LED is built using high quality and durable PHOTONTEK drivers and top bin LEDs from Osram and Lumileds Philips generating an optimized full-spectrum light source ideal for veg and flowering stages.
GrowPros HM960 LED Grow Light For Indoor Plants
Features:
The GrowPros grow light produces 1.8 gram per watts (dried) of crop yield. Generating about 50% more in energy savings over traditional HID and HPS light sources, the HM960 gives you meaningful savings over time. Will not produce the same results without CO2 supplementation. The HM960 Series system runs cool thanks to a passive cooling thermal management system, meaning your lighting systems last longer while retaining high light output levels. A longer lifespan means you can grow crops for many years without needing to replace the lighting system, reducing costs. Indoor plants grow best under full-spectrum lights, which replicate the natural spectrum of the sun. The HM960 Series, with an increased lifespan over traditional, grow light sources, cultivates healthier, happier plants.
When it comes to LED grow lights, there are many aspects to consider before deciding on the best option. You have to consider the type of light, the crops you grow and how much light you need, the spectrum, the size of the plantation, and other factors.
Here’s a list of factors you should consider:
Spectrum
Everyone knows that getting the necessary light output is critical for plant growth. But you don’t know that the spectrum they receive is just as important. Plants you grow outdoors grow in natural sunlight, producing every color in the spectrum. Therefore, the best LED grow lights have full spectrum grow lights to stimulate natural sunlight and promote plant growth.
Each wavelength in the spectrum has a different effect on plant growth. Red and blue include the most obvious shades, as blue adds stout to the plant when it is in the vegetative stage.
Once the plants are in the flowering stage, the red light enables them to stretch and bloom. Besides these two, plants also use different colors. For example, plants do not readily absorb green light for photosynthesis, but can penetrate the plant canopy to deliver light to areas with less light saturation.
That’s why full-spectrum LED grow lights must be used. With all the color combinations, it can help with all stages of growth.
Power/Efficiency
When comparing the light output of various plant light fixtures, it’s not just wattage that matters. Wattage indicates how much energy the light consumes, not how much light it gives the plant.
Grow light efficacy, defined as the ability to convert energy into light that crops can use, is the more important consideration. Since efficiency fluctuates depending on the type of light, even fixtures with the same wattage can produce wildly different light output.
When shopping for grow lights, look for those that are efficient so you get the most light for every watt of electricity you pay the power company.
Heat Output
One of the problems when using grow lights is that the heat from the bulbs can harm your plants.
On the other hand, LED lights emit very little heat compared to the amount of light they produce. However, since they generate heat, many versions come with built-in cooling systems to maintain optimal temperature regulation.
Some LED lights include heat sinks made of aluminum, while others have fans. When choosing grow lights, keep in mind that units with fans can be quite noisy.
Desired Light Output (PPF)
The amount of light each plant needs to grow varies. For example, some indoor plant is a very light-consuming plant, requiring more light than vegetables such as tomatoes.
It’s crucial to keep this in mind when choosing the best grow lights for your setup. The PPFD of plants at flowering should be 900–1000 mol/m2/s or higher, but higher is better.
An indoor garden can be a rewarding and fun hobby. Success is easy when you have the right tools at hand. LED lights specially designed for indoor plants make the process a pleasure. There are many systems to choose from and various price points, so there is something for everyone.