One of the most important decisions an indoor plant grower will make is how their plants will receive adequate light to power them through the various stages of growth. In fact, grow lights are possibly the single most important element in achieving healthy plants.
LED grow lights are specially designed lights that emit the right color spectrum of light at a powerful enough intensity to promote indoor plant growth. If you don’t use grow lights, most of your plants probably won’t get sufficient light to grow indoors. Some LED grow lights produce full spectrum light, which is closest to real sunlight, whereas other lights produce a more limited spectrum of light. Blue spectrum light produces strong plant growth, particularly in non-flowering plants. Red spectrum light can help to encourage flowering
Frequently Asked Questions
What are LED Grow Lights?
LED grow lights use LED chips to produce light for growing plants. LED grow lights come in many shapes and sizes. LED chips control the quality of the light, both color spectrum brightness produced. Unlike other types of grow lights, LEDs do not burn a filament. LED grow lights can be used as the sole means of lighting in a growing operation, as a supplement to natural light, or paired with other types of grow lights. Unlike other types of lights, light emitted by LEDs can be focused, so that light is not lost between the bulb and the canopy of your plants. LEDs have long service lives, with bulbs lasting from 50,000 to 100,000 hours of continuous use.
What Are the Different Types of Grow Lights?
There are many kinds of grow light fixtures. This includes High-Intensity Discharge or HID grow lights, Metal Halide, ceramic metal halide (CMH), High-Pressure Sodium (HPS), and good old everyday fluorescent lights. All these types of lights to grow plants have their supporters and applications with LED grow lights enjoying increasing popularity.
What are the Benefits of LED Grow Lights?
- LEDs are energy efficient grow lights and last for up to 50,000 hours. If you’re using them on a 12-hour timer this is equal to 12 years. Some people argue LEDs are expensive and, to be fair, they have a higher upfront cost than alternatives.
- Over time they are cheaper grow lights to run long-term thanks to their reduced power consumption.
- LED plant grow lights produce less heat than HPS grow lights and can be placed closer to your plants without risking damage.
- LED grow lights can be adjusted to emit specific wavelengths of light thereby adjusting the color balance to suit the specific plant type.
- LEDs don’t contain harmful mercury so they don’t need to be disposed of in a particular way.