Grow Lights for Hydroponics – Let the Grow Room Light Up

It has been time and again mentioned that hydroponics is a great way of growing plants, fruits and veggies, even in the off season. However, what most people forget to mention is the great deal of hard work involved to make the entire process a complete success. From controlling the temperature conditions in the grow room to taking care of the odour control and even managing the grow lights, there’s a lot that needs to be managed. 

This blog specifically focuses on ‘grow lights’. Currently the chosen option for grow lights is LED pertaining to its many benefits. LED grow lights might just be the “next big thing” in indoor garden lighting and here we’re discussing everything about choosing LED as your grow lights option – 

The Advantages -  
Let’s take hydroponics out of the equation for a second and just look at the advantages of LEDs when compared to incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. After we understand the general advantages we can then apply those to hydroponics and see if they still hold. 

Here’s a short list of the advantages: 
  • Less Energy
  • Last longer
  • Smaller
  • Solid State (more durable)
  • Heat Efficient 

Other than these mentioned-above, LED lighting also has a high luminous efficiency when compared to incandescent and fluorescent lights. Luminous efficiency is the ability of a light source to produce visible light, so the more efficient a light source is, the more visible light it produces per unit of power input.

LED grow lights, thus play an inevitable role in your grow room, using less energy and emitting more light. 

However, there’s another side to LED grow lights and this side needs to be considered as well. 

The Disadvantages – 

Despite being one of the greatest grow light options, LED is associated with some disadvantages pertaining to hydroponics. 

Here’s a short list of the disadvantages: 

  • Cost: Quality LEDs are very expensive when compared to other types of lighting for hydroponics. 
  • Plant Growth: While nothing can be accurately said, but claims have been made regarding LEDs affecting the growth of a few plants. You buy a system that has color filters on sets of individual LEDs for each area of the light spectrum that a plant needs. Then you could adjust the amount of each color that is on at any time to perfectly customize the color spectrum to your plant’s exact needs.

However, there are always a few handy tips that you can consider when you’re in no mood to mess with the bank – 
  • You can use the LED grow lights as a supplemental grow light for some extra light output for relatively low head and cost (excluding purchasing cost) 
  • Use them for plants that do not flower (lettuce, basil, most herbs)
  • Use them for plants that do flower, but only for the vegetative phase. Then switch to more powerful lighting. 

By considering these above-mentioned tips and points for hydroponic grow lights, you can certainly ease the light selection process – because you can be clear with the lights you want to use, the advantages, disadvantages associated with them as well as the certain things you can consider about using them. 


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