LED grow lights are becoming popular and they are a good option if you are buying a new grow light system or updating your old component. As with any new innovation, there are lots of myths about LED plant light. Some are started because of an absence of understanding by the basic public, yet lots are begun by suppliers that are trying to offer their product.
You Can Use a Simple Watts Per Area Rule
How many watts do you need per square foot of expanding area? Customers want to know, and manufacturers are rather going to provide you a regulation such as seed starters requiring 15 watts per sq foot. You can find comparable guidelines for various other kinds of plants. As described above, watts do not correspond to light. Yet more important, watts tell you nothing about the quality of light (i.e. the wavelengths of light). What you truly want to know is the PPFD (photosynthetic photon flux density) for an offered place under the grow light.
PAR is a Measure of Light Intensity
You will have a problem finding a PPFD worth for most lights. Because they are not offered specifically for plant growth, led lights will not give this value. Because they want to market you on watts and provide you that value rather– do not purchase from these firms, lots of lights will not offer you this worth. The various other factors you will have trouble discovering a PPFD value is that lots of people correspond PPFD to PAR. They supply PPFD worths but call them PAR worths. They just don’t understand what PAR implies– it is a step of light high quality, not intensity.
PAR Measures The Light Plants Need
The term PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation), when correctly used, defines the light spectrum that plants make use of, between 400 and 700 nm. Because plants use more red and blue light, these shades are weighted higher than yellow and green.
Blue is For Veg, Red is For Flower
This was a myth but it lingers with LEDs. When it was time for plants to flower, people used trendy white (more blue light) light bulbs used to include a few red bulbs. It was thought that red light was required to initiate the flowering process. A few of the early LED lights were blue and red and it normally complied with that blue ones would be best for veg and the red for flowers. There are lights that allow you to change in between a veg mode and a flower environment. The reality is that plants grow and flower best with both blue and red light all of the time. For production, you might want to fine-tune this at various stages in a growth cycle, however, for residence use we can ignore it.
