Determining The Ideal LED Grow Light Setup: What & How?
How to Determine Your Ideal Grow Light Setup
Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what you’re doing, or if you just learned the hard way. It’s okay to admit you don’t know how to determine your ideal indoor grow light setup yet. Most new growers don’t. We’re here to help.
Step 1: Make A Grow Light Setup Plan
Indoor gardening calls for creating a carefully devised grow light setup plan. Available space, plant size, and lighting type are three primary considerations.
The fourth factor that will determine your grow light setups is the kind of crops you plan to grow. Aside from that, you’ll also want to think about your desired yield, total lighting runtime, and lighting intensity.
Room plant placement, such as at the edge of a greenhouse versus a middle row, also matters. This includes setting your crops near a window or in a space that has no natural sunlight access.
Room design also may influence your choice of lamps for your indoor grow light setup. Some of them have similar dimming capabilities as hanging den lights, for example. Others fit into spots where you would place ceiling tiles or standard fluorescent room lighting strips.
Available Space (Tent or Room Size)
Standard tent or room sizes measure 4 feet by 4 feet, 5 feet by 8 feet, or 10 feet by 10 feet. Other growing areas may measure an area of 10 feet by 12 feet, 8 feet by 8 feet, and so on.
Plant Size (Height and Spread)
Keep in mind that some cannabis plants can grow up to 20 feet tall. The spread of your plants may span at least 2 feet around its root base. The minimum plant height for marijuana is about 3 feet.
If you’ve grown tomatoes before, you know they can grow pretty tall too. Vine plants, such as squash or pumpkins, climb pretty high and spread out, usually on a trellis. Keep that in mind when deciding your ideal plant grow light setup size.
Lighting Type (Pros and Cons of Each)
We’ll get into more technical aspects of grow lights setup based on the type of lamp later. For now, remember you have four popular lighting types you can use.
LED
This type of lighting has become popular for use with grow light setups. Some growers may even say that light-emitting-diode (LED) lights work best for indoor plant production.
LED grow lights come in a variety of intensities, shapes, sizes and more. You can find single-color LED lamps and ones that provide you all seven light waves mimicking daylight.
You can even find LED bulbs that screw into standard lamp sockets. Some also have built-in clips, or you can mount them to a ceiling, shelf or base.
Programmable lamps used for an LED grow lights setup also make life easy for you. They enable you to adjust daytime and nighttime brightness levels automatically. You can also decide how long you want your daytime or nighttime lights to run.
For instance, most indoor plants need between 12-18 hours of light per day. If that’s the ideal amount of time your lights should run, that’s how long you can set your light timers for.
Pros of an LED Grow Light Setup
An LED grow light setup runs with cooler lamps than other types, such as incandescent household lights. They also last longer than even some fluorescent lights, and LEDs don’t expend as much energy as other types of lights.
Cons of an LED Grow Light Setup
The initial expense for LED grow light setup bulbs run higher than for some other lighting systems. Some LEDs can also strain your eyes.
If you have the funds for LED grow lights, however, they’re a wiser economic buy for the long haul. As far as the brightness, you can work with dimmable lamps or find ones that will switch to a green light mode to make it easier to work around the plants.
Fluorescent
Before LEDs, fluorescent lights created the best grow light setup. Some fluorescent bulbs emit as much as 2000 lumens of brightness, and some reach up to 10,000 lumens (lux). If you choose this type of lighting for your grow light setup, it gives you some light wave range options.
For instance, some come in blue, which can improve overall plant quality. Blue light also may increase plant leaf density. The red light would promote prolonged budding and flowering.
Pros of Fluorescent Grow Light Setups
Purchasing fluorescent bulbs can get you started with creating a cheap grow light setup. They don’t cost as much as LED ones, and they may carry you through the early growth stages.
Some growers regard fluorescent grow lights as more effective than the incandescent lights normally used to brighten most homes and businesses. Fluorescent lamps might also provide you with a dimmer night light for your crops, depending on the strength you choose.
Cons of Fluorescent Grow Light Setups
Some fluorescent bulbs don’t burn as bright as LED lights. In other words, they may not have the light intensity you need come time to design your grow light setup for indoor plants.
Incandescent
The standard incandescent household lights could provide you an inexpensive way to set up your grow light stations. However, we don’t recommend using them as a long-term growing solution.
Besides, not all incandescent lights produce a bright enough shine (lux) to make a difference in plant growth. If you place too many incandescent lights in your grow room, they also could increase the chance of an accidental fire.
High-pressure sodium/metal halide (HPS, MH)
The HPS and MH lights belong to the HID (high-intensity discharge) bulb category. They burn brighter than the most common household lights. Their construction appears similar to incandescent lights, but their metals and gas composition are different.
Pros of HPS and MH (HID) Lights
HID lamps probably work best for installation in a commercial growing space. They shine over a broader area, which works well for mass crop production. They also provide a safer light source than incandescent bulbs, which means they won’t be as likely to set your property on fire.
Cons of HPS and MH Lights
Some HPS and MH lights run using older technology. It may not have convenient features, such as automatic programming or dimming capabilities. They’re not practical for residential growing either.
The Crops You Grow
The growth stage may matter more than the crops you grow. However, every plant has unique shade and lighting requirements. For instance, carrots may require less light than certain species of decorative flowers.
Desired Growing Results
The primary goal is to maximize your crop yield while keeping your energy costs low. Additional considerations include activation of the photosynthesis process that plants use to create energy.
You also may want to enrich the green color of your plants’ leaves. Otherwise, you perhaps want to see them grow taller.
Lamp intensity and lighting runtime may influence the final results of your growth attempts. However, the specific light wave colors you use will also have an effect on your plant yield.
Room Interior Design (and Furniture Display)
Some grow light setups provide you the opportunity to incorporate some creativity into your room design. This especially comes up when raising residential plants in your home common living areas, where people visit.
Step 2: Assess Technical Aspects of Your Grow Light Setup Plan
Light Levels (Low, Medium and High)
High light levels don’t work well for every stage of plant growth. You may need to buy lights you can adjust the intensities of. You can categorize the brightnesses of lights into low, medium and high. Look below to understand when to use each setting.
When to Use Low Light
Houseplants, such as the snake, Chinese Evergreen, or Peace Lilies don’t require much direct sunlight. These may not need the most intense LED lamps available. They can develop just fine at no more than 240 foot-candles of illumination, which equals about 10-15 watts.
Low-light plants still thrive when placed underneath the branches of some larger crops that do require direct sunlight. They can make it just fine in a dark corner or near a northern window–don’t need much daylight from an east or south window.
When Not to Use Low Light
Low light will not work for starting seeds indoors. Don’t use low light if you have other plants in the vicinity that require more water than these. This challenge arises when growing large-scale commercial crops more so than producing small, residential grow rooms.
When To Use Medium Light
Medium light usually comes from an eastward or westward window. It usually consumes a minimum of 15-20 watts of light and may radiate at a minimum of 250-1000 foot-candles. You could start seeds in medium light, but you may need some LED or other grow light reinforcement.
When to Use High Light
High light measures at 20 watts or more and 1,000 foot-candles of illumination or more. This light usually occurs naturally at a south or southwest window, or it occurs in an east window at sunrise. Tomatoes and peppers are examples of plants that need this light.
If you’re growing cannabis plants, they often require a high light intensity during the later (vegetative or flowering) growth stages. Keep that in mind. Higher light levels can increase both THC concentration and hemp yield. You need lower light for the seedling stages though.
Growth Phase (Germination, Vegetation and Flowering)
Germination is the period during which a seed prepares to sprout. It may or may not be visible above ground. Younger plants, whether nasturtium, sunflower or cannabis, often require darkness during the germination period.
Daily Light Intregral (DLI)
Light intensity and duration of illumination will determine the plant growth rate in your indoor plant grow light setup. It may take you time to “get it right” but worth the effort of determining the DLI range that will maximize your crop yield during growth and production.
This figure that you would calculate for returning the harvest results you want also would tell you how much electricity you would consume. The best LED grow light setup will keep your light shining bright for long enough to produce the yield you want within your energy expense budget.
The DLI concept may require a little bit of time and thought for some new growers. This calculation guide may help you understand more.
Growing Conditions
Temperature, humidity, fertilization and supplementation include some factors that influence growing conditions. These factors combined with how long you run your lights at the intensity you choose for growing your plants can influence your final outcome.
You don’t necessarily need to supplement or fertilize your plants for successful growth, however. That depends on where your plants are in relation to available sunlight.
One of the advantages of an indoor plant grow light setup is that you can control your growing conditions. It doesn’t totally replay natural sun benefits, but it can come close to it.
Additional growing conditions include the type of soil you use and how often you water. Concerning this, remember that no two plants are alike, whether it be cannabis, tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach or another.
Step 3: Fine-Tune Your Growing Environment
The best LED grow light setup happens in growing environments ideal for plants. Ideally, the indoor air should measure no more than 75 degrees and no cooler than 60 degrees F. Some cannabis plants may thrive in heat as high as 80 degrees F.
How moist or dry the air is on a particular day can also influence plant growth. This ties into the conditions in which mold, mildew, fungi, or other pathogenic agents thrive. Too wet of an environment could result in an increase in plant diseases.
You may need a little bit more time to create the ideal growing environment. If so, don’t feel bad. It will take time to get this right.
