How to Use LED Grow Lights for Indoor Plants
Whether you’re raising a rare species flower or simply growing herbs and greens for the dinner table, LED grow lights can help you cultivate a variety of plants indoors.
Growing indoors gives you several advantages over outdoor gardening. The most obvious is that you can better control the temperature. Most plants will have a narrow range of temperatures under which they will produce blooms or fruit.
Another factor you can control in an indoor growing environment is the humidity level. While some plants love moist, humid air, others are prone to disease under those same conditions. Alternatively, many succulents and cacti prefer a dry environment, which you can provide in an air-conditioned space.
Outdoor gardening, however, has one distinct advantage over indoor gardening, and that’s a surplus of the necessary sunlight that so many plants require to thrive.
Fortunately, LED grow lights can provide all the light your plants need — efficiently and inexpensively.
What Are LED Grow Lights?
LED (light emitting diode) grow lights offer an energy-efficient option for indoor gardening. They’re made using two different types of semiconductors within a chip, one with a negative charge (electrons), and the other with a positive charge (holes). The two are separated by an “energy gap.”
When electricity is applied to the chip, electrons are stimulated, and when one falls into one of the holes, recombination occurs, and this creates a photon of light. This is how LED lights work.
LED grow lights are specially designed to emit the right kind of light for growing plants indoors.
Using LED Indoor Plant Lights
But before you run out and buy some cheap LED bulbs, you need to understand how they work to nurture your plants.
You’ll need to know which type of LED grow lights you need for different plant types. And depending on the species and your gardening goals, you’ll need to know how many hours of light they’ll need.
Most importantly, you’ll need to understand how the color of your LED grow light affects your plants.
Sunlight contains the right spectrum — or colors — of light for healthy plants. When you see a rainbow created by a rainstorm, the sun’s light is broken up into various colors. This range of colors is called the light spectrum, and the colors you see are those visible to the human eye.
Light is measured in terms of electromagnetic radiation. The full spectrum of light also includes non-visible light, like ultraviolet light (<400 nanometers) and infrared (>400 nanometers). It even includes microwaves and radio waves.
These colors represent different wavelengths of the light — — and each color in the visible spectrum has a different wavelength, from 700 nanometers to 400 nanometers.
What Is the Best Color Spectrum for Plants?
One of the critical aspects of growing plants indoors is the color of the light used. The colors we see on either end of the spectrum — red and blue — affect plant growth the most. And each color affects your plants in diverse ways.
Plants react differently to distinct colors of the light spectrum, and to make matters more confusing, they need a different color of light depending on their stage of development.
In short, plants need a different color of light when they’re growing from seed than when they’re ready to bloom.
Cultivation of fresh basil and pepper with red and blue LEDs
Plants respond to the visible spectrum — between 400 and 700 nanometers — because this range stimulates photosynthesis.
Plants absorb more light in the red and blue spectrum, reflecting more green and yellow light, which accounts for their lush green coloring.
So, any grow light needs to supply adequate light in the red and blue wavelengths.
Red Light
Red light has a wavelength that is longer than other colors, and for plants the most critical of these are from 640 to 680 nanometers.
Red light stimulates the growth of stems and flowers and boosts fruit production. It also aides in chlorophyll production.
Indoor gardeners need to use light in the red band of the light spectrum if they want their plants to bloom. Red light is also necessary for growing vegetables indoors.
Blue Light
Light in the blue part of the spectrum is the most critical color for your plants. Blue light in the 430 to 450 nanometer range is the most important. Along with stimulating photosynthesis, blue light is the best color spectrum for vegetative growth and developing strong roots.
Many indoor gardeners use blue light exclusively for starting seedlings, when they are in their early stages of root and stem growth.
Yellow and Green Light
While not as critical to development as blue and red light, plants do use green and yellow light for photosynthesis.
UV Light
While overexposure to UV light in the shorter range of wavelengths can stress plants, UV closer to the visible spectrum can often increase the yield in many herbs, like sweet basil and Chinese licorice.
It’s especially important for increasing the amount of volatile oils in plants intended for use in making essential oils, such as spearmint and peppermint. These volatile oils also give culinary herb their distinctive flavor in cooking.
Infrared Light
Infrared light — sometimes called “far red light,” plays a special role in plant development. Plants use phytochromes to absorb red and infrared light, and these photoreceptors regulate the plant’s circadian cycles as well as the timing of seed germination, dormancy, and flowering.
Some plants respond to infrared light by flowering and fruit production, including popular vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers. Gardeners who cultivate flowering plants indoors, such as African violets and orchids, should look for LED grow lights that produce infrared light.
What Is the Best Light Intensity for Plants?
You may assume that the more intense your LED grow lights are, the better they are for your indoor plants. That’s only partially true.
Light intensity is measured as “PAR” — which stands for Photosynthetic Active Radiation. In short, this measurement expresses the amount of light your grow lights give off that your plants can actually use. This helps identify which grow lights produce light in the right wavelengths of the spectrum for the best results.
You can determine this by using a simple PAR meter. Best of all, you can check various areas in your indoor garden setup to ensure that the light is well distributed.
So, while you may think that intensity is a critical factor, what you want to look for is quality of light first. Intensity is easy to adjust by moving your LED grow lights closer or further away from your plants.
The Advantages of Using LED Grow Lights
Horticulturists have been growing plants indoors for many years using fluorescent, HID, and incandescent lighting. But recent advancements in LED technology have made them the go-to for many indoor gardeners.
They offer distinct advantages to more old-fashioned lighting systems.
First of all, they’re extremely durable, offering years of use for a small investment. LED grow lights offer 50,000 hours — about 12 years of use when operated for 12 hours a day. While fluorescent tubes offer 20,000 hours lifespan at best, their quality for use in gardening applications begins to degrade after only one year.
LED lights are cooler. They emit much less heat than conventional lighting. That means you can place them closer to your plant’s leaves without fear of scorching.
It also means that there is less risk of accidental fire, and less need for increased ventilation. Many people who garden indoors with artificial light find that it can significantly increase the heat load of their homes. This means a bigger strain on your A/C system and your wallet.
And finally, one of the most popular advantages of using LED grow lights is that they use so much less electricity than other types. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, LEDs use 75 percent less energy and last 25 times longer than incandescent lights.
Choosing the Right LED Grow Lights
Now that you’re ready to start your indoor garden, it’s time to choose the right LED grow lights. You now know that providing your plants with plenty of blue and red light is crucial. You also know that white, infrared, and UV light also has an impact on your indoor garden production.
Now that we’ve known led grow light is good for plants. So, in this post, we will recommend two best grow lights for plants.
Kind LED X² Commercial LED Grow Light
This is one of Kind LED grow light series.
The Kind LED X² Commercial LED grow light is the ideal solution for vertical racking and overhead grow gardens. This professional grow light was designed for mounting close to the canopy. It capitalizes on tiered growing areas, yet still provides a large coverage footprint and surprisingly even PFD output.
Kind LED X² Commercial 750W LED Grow Light
Kind LED Grow Light’s X2 Commercial LED grow light is known for its revolutionary innovation and technology. Developed specifically for vertical and overhead grow operations, the X2 has a myriad hanging options which allows for a broad proximity range anywhere in the canopy. The X2 helps increase harvest weight and quality, giving you maximum ROI. The X2 is an ideal solution for any commercial or large-scale grow operation.
Revolutionary Design — The concentric square design eliminates common shortcomings of popular LED fixtures, offering an extremely even PPFD across the canopy, ensuring maximum production and overall plant health.
Over Engineered — From over-engineered heat sinks and electronic components to a commercial-grade aluminium body, the bulletproof construction of the X2 will be the only part of your grow you never have to worry about again.
Tunable Spectrum — With a 3-Channel fully customizable spectrum, the X2 is capable of providing the perfect spectral output for every stage of growth, meaning faster, healthier growth with significantly less wasted energy.
Osram SSL Diodes — Industry-leading commercial-grade diodes with a 75,000+ hour lifespan capable of withstanding the harvest conditions. you can grow with complete confidence and peace of mind knowing you are giving your plants the best the industry has to offer.
Slim Profile — At only 4.3", the X2 takes up minimal space so you can utilize every inch of precious grow space and maximize your potential profits.
Maxibright Daylight 300W LED Grow Light
This is one of Maxibright grow light series.
The Maxibright Daylight enhanced Full Spectrum Led Grow Light with Built-In Flower Boosters grows indoor crop. The Maxibright Daylight light covers a large grow space from seedling through harvest, growing healthier plants with increased trichomes and potency to increase the crop yield.
Increased Yields and Quality
The unique concentric square design leaves outdated concepts behind and offers uniform PPFD over a large footprint for increased yield and quality.
OPTIMIZED HARVEST QUALITY A customizable spectrum range lets you match your plants growing needs at any stage of growth. This do-it-all fixture takes your plants all the way from seed to harvest.
MINIMIZED WASTE The custom configuration of the grow light offers an even PPFD across the entire footprint. Don’t sacrifice an inch of potential growth across your canopy or deal with pesky hot spots that put your harvest at risk.
This low-profile Led Grow light is water-resistant and completely silent with a passively-cooled design for heat dissipation. The light can be used in low clearance grow settings.
Conclusion
There’s nothing quite like enjoying a home-cooked meal featuring produce from your own garden. And with the right lighting, you can grow vegetables year-round, despite the season.
You may have thought about growing your own salad greens, herbs, and other fresh vegetables indoors. Luckily, technology has finally caught up with your dreams. LED grow lights are perfect for cultivating plants anywhere and at any time.
Best of all, they’re affordable, durable, and safe.