What Are Major Benefits Of LED Grow Lights In Horticulture?
When it comes to gardening, especially indoor gardening, grow lights play a vitally important role in success of your crop. This is why LED grow lights are so popular when it comes to growing plants, whether it’s food for yourself and your family, or plants that will provide a sustainable business year after year. Let’s look at the benefits of grow lights for indoor plants, and how they can improve your horticulture.
Understanding LED Grow Lights
Before examining the overall benefits of LED grow lights, it’s important to understand what LED technology is.
LED stands for Light Emitting Diode. Thus LED lamps are grow lamps that use LED technology. They are of a similar technology as the lights you might see on Christmas trees. Unlike those lights, LED grow lights are powerful and create the proper wavelengths plants need for optimum growth.
LED grow lamps can be designed in different wavelengths. Some skew more towards the yellow, red, and infrared; while others may provide blue, violet, or even ultraviolet wavelengths.
LED grow lights benefits include being cooler, less costly, and more energy efficient than the older HID (High Intensity Discharge) lamps and the HPS (High Pressure Sodium) bulbs. They are incredibly versatile when it comes to providing a range of different wavelengths for plant growth and come in modular designs.
Improved Efficiency in Horticulture
LED grow lights use less energy than the HID and HPS bulbs. They have a typical lifespan of six to 10 years, compared to two to four years for HPS bulbs. They are cooler than other types of bulbs, making them less of a fire hazard than other types of bulbs. Their lower wattage and less heat make them extremely cost-efficient, and you’ll save money over time investing in them.
Other benefits of LED lighting has to do with the ability to customize the plants’ environment. No longer do you have to worry whether your crop is getting enough sun — or enough of the right type of light — wherever your location is. In extreme northern or southern locals, the growing seasons are short. You can now grow plants at any time of the year, giving them superior lighting that will produce higher yields faster than if you grew them in nature. Furthermore, because LED lights are often modular, you can design and build your indoor garden to suit your needs. Higher yields and faster grow times make LED lights a very efficient way to grow your plants.
Spectral Benefits for Plant Growth
We’ve talked a bit about light wavelength earlier, so let’s look at the light spectral benefits of LED lights when it comes to plant growth.
First, LED lights are targeted to maximize growth and flowering, unlike other types of lights. Because the wavelengths are targeted to the plants, you waste less energy. Furthermore, many LED grow lights offer a variety of wavelength settings, so you may adjust the wavelengths, depending on the stage of your plant’s growth.
When you improve your ability to fine-tune and customize the LED spectra, you can improve the quality and yield of your crops by enhancing plant development and photosynthesis. You can also tailor the wavelengths for the maximum amount of growth and flavor using LED lights.
More Even Light Distribution
LED lights provide a more even light distribution, ensuring that all plants gain the maximum benefit from the light. Older grow lamps often created hot spots in gardens and greenhouses, making it difficult to create an even temperature environment. LED lights distribute their light evenly and do not create hot spots, making them ideal for growing plants.
You can have LED lights closer to your plants than other forms of lights because they radiate less heat. That way, you can adjust the height as the plants grow, providing them with the right amount of light all the time. This is helpful for people who have limited space and do not have high ceilings because they don’t have to have the lights far away from their plants.
Environmental Benefits of LED Lights
If you’re concerned about the environment, chances are you’ve probably heard how grow operations have contributed to large amounts of energy used. That, in turn, provides a large carbon footprint which impacts our planet by contributing to climate change and global warming.
What’s more, the cumulative draw on our infrastructure can be overwhelming. For example, in 2015 when Oregon legalized recreational cannabis, Pacific Power had seven major outages attributed to indoor grow farms. The strain on the grid was too much. When you consider that power companies often use fossil fuels to produce energy, you can understand the impact that large grow farms have on the environment.
LED lights use less energy than other grow lights, thus having a reduced carbon footprint. They produce less heat, thus require less cooling to ensure your plants’ environment is at the proper temperature. Most LED bulbs are recyclable, unlike HPS and other types of bulbs. Lastly, LED lights do not contain mercury like CFS and HPS bulbs do. This makes LED lights more environmentally friendly than other bulbs.
LED Lights are Easy to Use
When it comes to simplicity, it’s hard to go wrong with LED grow lights. In many cases, you can get an all-in-one package that will suit your needs. Need to run your grow lights remotely? Many LED grow lights are Wi-Fi and Bluetooth compatible, and have remote apps available to set the timers on and off. Need to be able to add to your current grow set up? No problem. The LED lights are modular and are capable of expanding or contracting, depending on your needs.
Unlike other types of grow lights which require bulbs, ballast, reflector, and other components, LED lights are all-in-one. In most cases, they are plug and play. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, so they can fit just about any requirement. They can be daisy-chained as well, making them easy to install and remove.
LED Lights are Less Prone to Damage
Most LED Lights are waterproof and dustproof, making them an ideal choice for indoor gardens. They’re less prone to breakage, shattering, and other potential damage. They are also solid state, don’t require assembly of components, and are pretty much plug and play. Because they exude less heat, they are less likely to become a fire hazard over other types of light bulbs.
Grow and Harvest Plants Faster
LED grow lights not only allow you to grow plants indoors during all times of the year, but they also help grow plants to maturity faster. By choosing the right kind of light when the plant is a seedling, while maturing, and while flowering, you can grow healthier and better plants faster than you would outdoors. You can have larger and faster harvests with less work.
When it comes to indoor gardens, every gardener needs to have LED grow lights for the simplicity, the ease of use, the cost-effectiveness, and the environmentally friendly aspects. LED lights benefits include healthier plants, more harvests, and more convenience. The current technology allows growers to take advantage of WI-FI, Bluetooth, and remote control to care for their plants. Using LED grow lights will help the gardener produce more harvests, healthier plants, and better yields than with older grow light technology.
Add these benefits along with the relative safety, modularity, and the ability to expand or contract easily with the size of the indoor growing facility, it’s little wonder why so many farmers and growers are looking to use LED grow lights in their greenhouses and indoor gardens. Whether you are growing food for your family, growing fruits and vegetables to sell, or growing cannabis, you’ll find that LED grow lights can produce stronger, healthier plants.
