Choosing the best lights for your grow system can be daunting for a beginner. There are tons of options out there and depending on your system size and the type of plants you are growing; some types may be better or more efficient than others.
Outside, a vegetable garden requires between four and six hours of direct sun per day, plus at least 10 hours of “bright light” or indirect sunlight. With artificial lighting in your hydroponic garden, the main goal is to imitate this.
You should plan your system on having at least 14 to 16 hours of bright artificial light, followed by 10 to 12 hours of darkness every day. The darkness is just as important as the light—just like animals, plants need time to rest and metabolize.
If your plants are perennials, you will have to have a more strict and calculated lighting schedule to bring the plants through their vegetative (growth) and flowering (production) stages.
The easiest way to maintain a lighting schedule is with an automatic electric timer. They are worth the investment because one small mistake or simply forgetting to turn the lights on or off has the potential to affect your plants' growth and production rates dramatically.
Can You Use Regular Light Bulbs As Grow Lights?
Grow lights are expensive. Regular light bulbs are not. This could be a great way to save money…if regular bulbs work for growing plants. You can actually use regular light bulbs to grow plants indoors.
But should you use regular bulbs? In some cases, yes; in some, no.
And when it comes to LEDs, you want to be careful. Some regular LED lights can work just fine as grow lights, but many are not suitable—see the LED section below for more.
Before we get into that, you might be asking yourself, how you would know if your plants aren’t getting enough regular light and whether they need artificial light to help them out.
Believe it or not, your plants will tell you. Not literally, of course, but they will show you.
If your plants aren’t getting enough regular sunlight, they will grow tall with weak stems and the leaves will be lighter in color. New leaves will often be larger in size and the leaves on the inner part of the plant may start to turn yellow.
Related page: "Grow Your Own Food with Hydroponics
If your plants show these symptoms, you are going to want to get them some additional light.
The most successful light bulbs contain both blue and red wavelengths of light. The blue is especially useful for foliage growth and the red is for flowering and fruiting.
Incandescent lights are the standard light bulbs we all already have in our homes. They are the cheapest option, but they are inefficient. They use more power to get the same output and they give off a substantial amount of heat. For these reasons, we generally do not recommend using them for your plants.
Take a look at the following graphic.
What are the Crucial Light Colors?
Regular LED lights use yellow and white chips. While those colors provide the corresponding user to the growth of the plant, there are other colors that can do better.
Blue and red are 2 main light colors recommended for cultivating in a grow space.
The great amount of red and blue lights give off a shade of purple. When you see this, you’ll determine your LED light is providing the necessary wavelengths.
Red is the key component for photosynthesis and stems elongation inhibition.
It also signals that there are no other plants above it or competition in light absorption, giving your plants an uninhibited development.
Meanwhile, the blue wavelength works on the budding, flowering, and expansion of leaves. Thus, it drives the stomatal opening and stems elongation inhibition.
Additionally, it is responsible for leaf curvature towards the light, leaf expansion, and photoperiodic flowering.
Now, what if you have a LED light with blue and red chips? That’s the best part. Blue lights + red lights = encourage the plant to reach the vegetative stage.
Furthermore, red and blue LED chips are good for photosynthesis, which helps your plants thrive. LED lights are also the cheapest to obtain.
Different Plants, Different Needs
Although you can follow the general guidelines above and have success, some plants do much better with longer or shorter periods of natural or artificial lighting. If you have a mix of these in your garden, you will need to figure out a custom schedule.
Long-day plants: These require up to 18 hours of sunlight per day. They include lettuce, leafy greens, and herbs. The long-day cycle mimics the natural environment of summer-flowering plants.
Day-neutral plants: These are the most flexible. They produce fruit no matter how much light they are exposed to. Some examples include strawberries, eggplant, melons, and corn.
If you must mix sort and long-day plants, it is best to compromise their needs and pick a lighting schedule that is right in the middle, around fourteen hours of light per day.
Related page: "Grow Your Own Food with Hydroponics
Our Recommendations:
Do it Yourself:
These photo lamps adopt a full spectrum design that simulates natural sunlight.
The grow light can be used for plant propagation, indoor gardening, indoor hydroponics, and other horticultural applications.
Beginner Friendly:
BESTVA is perfect for a growing area of 3x3 feet or 3X4 feet.
Can be used for seedling germination, flowering, fruiting, and cultivation of leafy greens from growth stage to harvest
For Farmers and Hobbyists
Samsung Quantum LED Grow Lights come with larger connectible panels with large lighting coverage.
Panel switches can be adjusted to veg and bloom modes for germination, growth, fruiting, and flowering.
For Your Kitchen Only
LuxBird growbox is a complete grow mini-system kit, for you and your kids.
Comes with a 4.5L water tank, plant nutrients, 12 sponges, and 12 net pots- sows 12 plants at a time.
What is an LED by the way?
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light of a certain wavelength (color). A die, the part of the LED that emits light, is encased in plastic or ceramic housing. The housing may incorporate one or many dies.
When LED is forward-biased or switched on, electrons are able to recombine with holes within the device, releasing energy in the form of photons. This effect is called electroluminescence.
LEDs emit light in one direction only and therefore not as much light must be reflected and therefore have an efficiency advantage.
Reflectors
The reflector is an optical element that regulates the light spread from the fixture by reflection. There are different reflective surfaces such as a mirror reflection, a diffuse reflection, and a mixed reflection.
Reflector types include conic reflectors of four basic geometries – elliptical, zonal, hyperbolic, and parabolic.
What is the difference between and regular LED light and an LED grow light?
The answer is that plants require a much higher light intensity to grow plants effectively than humans need for vision.
The minimum light intensity required to grow plants is at least 30 times greater than required for human lighting in an office environment for example.
High light intensity is required to drive photosynthesis which generates plant growth. Photosynthesis occurs when photons of light reach the plant leaves and causes a reaction that generates plant growth.
The measure of light intensity for plant growth is called Photosynthetically Active Radiation or PAR and includes photons of wavelengths from 400nm to 700nm or from deep blue to deep red. It is about the same range of wavelengths as the visual range for humans.
LED grow lights are designed to withstand the high humidity in a grow room and will be able to withstand condensed water dripping on the grow light.
The LEDs are often protected with a silicone or acrylic coating and the connectors and cables are Ingress Protection (IP) rated so that they can operate in damp conditions.
Related page: "Grow Your Own Food with Hydroponics
LED maintenance
There are no moving parts on the latest generation of LED light fixtures but you can keep the heatsink and fixtures clean to maintain the efficiency of the heatsink and keep the operating temperatures down.
A lot of LED lights do not have lenses or covers over the LEDs and they may attract first or moisture. However, a lot of LEDs have either an acrylic or silicone coating. In this case, you can clean the LED surface. Turn off the light and clean gently with a damp cloth. Do not use cleaning products as they may damage the LED surface.
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