Do you want to grow luscious, healthy plants? If so, then you must understand the importance of providing the right amount of light to your plants. The amount of light a plant needs depends on the type of plant, its environment, and its stage of growth. Providing the correct light to your plants is critical as it will determine how fast and successful your harvest will be. Different species of plants have different light requirements, so it is necessary to research the specific needs of each plant. Plus, proper lighting helps keep pests from invading your crops and ensures your plants get all the nutrients they need to grow healthy and strong.
How do grow lights work?
Grow lights are synthetic light sources that stimulate plants to receive natural light from the sun, allowing them to grow without relying entirely on natural sunlight.
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) produce light in LED grow lights. Micro-reflectors and other specialized components help enhance and focus the light in premium LED grow lights.
All grow lights emit photons (particles of light) that plants can use for photosynthesis, just as plants use photons from the sun. Plants use photons of these specific wavelengths to generate energy.
“Photosynthetically Active Radiation,” or PAR, refers to the wavelength range of photons available for photosynthesis. The amount of PAR produced by the light per second, called PPF, determines the output of the grow light (photosynthetic photon flux).
PPFD quantifies the PPF density of the area under the grow lights and is another statistic you may come across. This is one of the most important numbers to keep track of, as it indicates how much light is going to reach the plants you are producing.
ECO Farm UI2 690W Samsung 301B Chips LED Grow Light
Features:
This ECO Farm LED grow light is designed with 8 strips for a more even and complete canopy coverage. Equipped with high efficiency Samsung LM301B diode with extremely low thermal resistance. The plant light is flicker-free and dim, with a lifespan of 50,000 hours. The LED grow light consumes 690 watts at 2240 µmol/s and achieves a satisfactory PPE of 2.8 µmol/J covering high yield full cycle growth of 4’x4′. Each full spectrum LED grow light uses custom 2244 Samsung LM301B diodes. The abundance of wavelength types is consistent with the spectral range of plant photosynthesis. It can concentrate specific wavelengths of light to illuminate crops evenly, controlling plant height and plant nutrients.
B.Lite Premium 1700e Full Spectrum LED Grow Light Fixture
Features:
The B-Lite Premium 1700e Full Spectrum LED grow light is the trusted brand of both beginners and experts in indoor gardening. With up to 660 watts of power, the B-Lite 1700e can cover your canopy with much-needed light to stimulate growth. Using only premium quality Samsung diodes, the B-Lite 1700e has an efficacy of 2.7 umol per joule for better crop yield than traditional HID lamps. The B-Lite 1700e covers a full spectrum, so you don’t need to swap out grow lights during growth. The B-Lite 1700e is compact and works in low clearance grow tents, vertical racks, personal and commercial indoor grow spaces. The B-Lite 1700e works with the Master Zone controller for total control and needs no assembly out of the box.
How to Choose the Best Grow Lights for Your Indoor Garden
Grow lights provide a convenient, affordable source of artificial sunlight so your seedlings, indoor herb garden, and houseplants can thrive year-round.
Why Grow Lights?
In order for plants to grow in a healthy manner, they need to capture and convert energy from the sun. This is the process of photosynthesis, which provides plants with the fuel they need to thrive.
Vertical picture of a hydroponic lettuce plant in an indoor garden under a lamp against a soft focus background.
Without full sun, plants become leggy, stretched for the sun, and unable to thrive.
Grow lights provide a source of artificial light energy, delivering the different frequencies in the color spectrum that plants need in all stages of their development, from seedling germination to fruit set.
Spectrum
The sun emits all frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum, including those of visible light — violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.
These are the frequencies required for normal plant development.
Blue — Blue is the first color plants absorb and is essential in the early stages of plant growth.
Purple — Purple is also helpful during the growth phase of plants, although purple itself does not provide effective energy for photosynthesis.
Green — Green is mostly reflected, but a small amount is retained and contributes to energy conversion.
Yellow — Yellow is the least efficient for photosynthetic purposes.
Red — Red is needed in the mature flowering stage for blooms to form and works best when combined with blue. Red should not be used alone in early plant growth stages.
White — White is a combination of all colors in the visible spectrum and is effective in all stages of plant development.
Therefore, for seedlings and leafy greens, bulbs with a higher spectrum in the blue range are required.
But if you want plants to produce fruit, you’ll also need low-spectrum red pigments.
Or, you can keep things simple. Use full-spectrum white bulbs for all growing stages.
Kelvin scale
The Kelvin scale ranges from 1,000–10,000 and indicates the temperature of the color — the higher the Kelvin value, the closer the lamp’s color will be to natural sunlight. The degree Kelvin is indicated by the capital letter K.
Ratings below 3500K generally have warmer values, appearing amber, while higher ratings are closer to pure or cool white.
For leafy plant growth, temperatures around 6500K are ideal. But to produce flowers and fruit, plants need to be exposed to warm colors of around 3000K for a period of time.
Lumens and Watts
In the past, the brightness of a light bulb was expressed in wattage. For example, a 100-watt bulb is one and a half times as bright as a 40-watt bulb.
Closeup of a frilly lettuce plant growing indoors under a light against a soft focus background.
But thanks to energy-saving light bulbs, wattage is no longer a good indicator of brightness. Wattage simply expresses the power expended to produce the light’s brightness — these days it’s usually expressed in lumens.
For example, a 1,600-lumen energy-efficient LED is as bright as a 100-watt light bulb, but it only consumes a whopping 22 watts. A relatively bright CFL bulb will use about 26 watts.
Basically, the higher the lumen value, the brighter the light. For seedlings, about 2,000 lumens per square foot should be sufficient. Flowering crops may require as much as 10,000 lumens per square foot.
Conclusion
If you want to grow healthy plants, you must provide your plants with the right amount of light. The amount of light a plant needs depends on the type of plant, its environment, and its stage of growth. Now you know about the many different types of lighting that can be used for plants for indoor growing operations. The exact type of lighting you choose will depend on your growing environment and the stage of growth of your plants.