LED Grow Lights for Indoor Plants

What are LED Grow Lights?

The term “grow light” is used to mean a type of electrically powered, artificial light that enables indoor plants to grow. Grow lights are used to stimulate photosynthesis and plant growth in an indoor environment lacking in natural light.

Natural daylight has a high colour temperature and appears bluish to the human eye. LED grow lights are optimised to provide a light spectrum that can be used to simulate natural daylight. The method by which this is often achieved is by using two types of LED grow light, which between them correspond to the light frequencies that chlorophyll uses to carry out photosynthesis. Many models of LED grow light achieve this in one light fitting.

Plants require different spectra at different phases of the growth cycle. A young, growing plant prefers light that is more blue and a flowering plant prefers light more toward the red end of the spectrum. Specialist light manufacturers such as Growlux can provide a single plant grow lamp that will cater for both needs. Some consider that LED grow lights provide superior indoor plant growth rates, but this is yet to be proven scientifically.

The main advantages of using LED grow lights appears to be the reduced heat output and avoiding the necessity of using bulky electrical ballast devices. In fact, an LED grow light does still use ballast devices, but unlike incandescent or fluorescent grow lights, the ballast is small and often built into the light fitting. This simplifies the set up as well as reducing the cost of the LED grow light relative to an incandescent plant growth light option.

Additionally, LED grow lights use far less power than conventional plant growth lights. A 400W high pressure sodium light is roughly comparable to a 80W LED growth light. Also, the average lifespan of an LED growth light is around 50-80,000+ hours, or a little over nine years if left on 24/7! LED grow lights are naturally directional and so require no additional reflectors.

LED Grow Lights – Final Conclusions

Although more expensive to purchase initially, LED grow lights offer significant benefits in speed and simplicity of installation, low power consumption and low maintenance over older lighting methods to stimulate plant growth. The lack of excess heat produced by LED grow lights also means that there is no need for expensive ventilation systems. A single 80W LED grow light can illuminate an area of between 9-16 sqft. and is ideal for small indoor installations.

LED grow lights are set to become increasingly common due to these advantages.