Indoor Gardening Q&A with LED Grow Lights

Sat, 13 Aug 2016 05:09:01 +0000

Professional and hobbyist growers alike are switching to LED grow lights for the many advantages they offer compared to traditional grow lights such as high intensity discharge (HID) and compact fluorescent. We did a Q&A session with LED to find out more about their line of LED grow lights.

For many years, indoor growers and hobbyists used metal halide, high pressure sodium, T5 & compact fluorescent lights to grow indoors. Why now would they want to switch to LEDs? How do LED vs. HID compare?

LED Grow Light – HID systems like metal halide and high pressure sodium have been the main lighting systems used by indoor gardeners for a couple decades. Although these systems work as indoor growing lights, they have a few shortfalls which have given the impetus to the LED grow lights industry. HID systems are inefficient by nature. They try to emulate the sun by using a very high power consumption bulb which will emit a very bright light for the plants to conduct photosynthesis. However, it is not necessary to have such a bright light, with high Lumen count to have successful photosynthesis. In fact, most of the energy coming off from HID systems gets wasted as extra heat which then needs to be mitigated with expensive venting and air control systems. LEDs are attractive to indoor growers since they consume much less electrical power, do not require ballasts, and produce considerably less heat. This allows LEDs to be placed closer to the plant canopy than other lights. As a result of the reduction in heat, the time between watering cycles is longer.

Can you tell us about wavelength and spectrum needed?
LED grow light - By using LED technology, we are able to concentrate the grow light in the wavelengths that the plants need for photosynthesis; mainly reds and blues, but some orange, yellow, violet & white as well. When you look at a Photosynthetic Action Radiation (PAR) chart, you see that the part of the visible spectrum necessary for plants to conduct photosynthesis is concentrated in the 400-450nm & 630-680nm ranges.

LED Grow lights have gone through many iterations of spectra formulation to achieve the optimal 8-band wavelength ratio that goes into our LED Grow Lights. LED has designed and optimal ratio that not only delivers the blues and reds necessary for vegetative growth and flowering, but also provides a weighted average representation of diodes for the smaller photosynthesis peaks that appear in the PAR chart.

This all sounds good, but is there any proof that LEDs actually work?
Great question! This is one of the most asked questions from our first-time customers and the answer is a definite YES! NASA has tested LED Technology to grow food in space because of the efficiency over other growing systems. Everyday there are more commercial growers who are successfully growing with LEDs and posting their results all over the internet. As more of these grow journals and blogs permeate through the internet, more and more growers will switch to hydroponic LED Grow Lights. As with all grow lights for indoor plants, if you do not have enough light for a given grow area, your plants will not enjoy robust growth. To be sure you are successful with LED growlights, make sure to follow the manufacturer's recommended settings for the amount of grow area a light will cover.

Tips To Grow Hydroponics Indoor Gardening House Plants

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 05:04:11 +0000

Indoor Gardening is for everyone including hydroponics growers. Only the difference between hydroponics growers and other growers is that, hydroponics growers take help of artificial lighting and high-tech climate controlling equipments for their gardening and other gardeners do it without the help of lighting and other costlier equipments.

There are hundreds of varieties of house plants that can be grown without much care or specialized costlier equipments. These house plants are very useful as they generate fresh oxygen, filter air, and remove carbon dioxide from air, visitors get attracted to it.

Buy led grow lights for indoor growing plants.

Given below is a list of few indoor plants which can be grown easily and do not require much care.

1. Jade plant (Crassula argentea) – This indoor plant has very thick leaves and looks like a small tree. This plant grows well in presence of light so it would be beneficial to keep them in rooms with windows facing outside. This type of plant has very good growth so you should always take big pot for planting it.

2. Devil's Ivy or Pothos (Scindapsus or Epipremnum) – This is a cascading vine plant and its beautiful shaped leaves have dark green color. It looks awesome when you put them in hanging baskets. This type of plant does not require much light and can be grown in dark room which does not have outside facing windows but it acquires good growth if you keep small grow light bulb in grow room.

3. Mother-in-law's tongue/Snake plant/Bird's-nest plant (Sansevieria) – The Mother-in-law's tongue and Snake plant has many varieties. Basically these plants are tall in compare to Bird's-nest plant. These plants can be grown very well in harsh extreme environmental conditions too. There is no need to repot this plant as it grows well in one pot. If the pot which has been used is very small or if the roots of the plant start coming out of the pot then only you should repot it.

4. Spider Plant (Chlorophytum comosum) - Whatever amount of light would be available to this plant, it would have good growth. Growing new spider plant is very easy, as main plant allows its miniature plants to grow on long hanging down stems. Spider plants roots can do well in small pots too, so no need to repot it. It looks beautiful if you grow them in hanging baskets.

5. Parlor palm (Chamaedorea elegans) – This plant is an exception to Palm tree; it does not require much sun light as all other palm tree requires. When grown indoor this plant can do well in low light and does not require much water. This plant can be grown to several feet height.

6. Rubber plant or Rubber tree (Ficus elastica) – Hobbyist growers love rubber plants because without taking much care rubber plants can be grown big in size with exceptional looks. This type of plants require good sun light so it's better to grow them in room with a window or you should provide a skylight to them for at least two hours a day.

7. Christmas cactus (Zygocactus or Schlumbergera) – This plant is available in two types. The Easter cactus flowers and Christmas cactus flowers. The Easter cactus flowers are grown around Easter, and Christmas cactus flowers are grown in late autumn or early winter. In actual this plant is not from cactus family. It is originally from plant family named "succulents". It requires moderate amount of water and few hours' sunlight or artificial light for its good growth.

8. Dragon tree (Dracaena Marginata) – Dragon trees are found in many varieties. Few varieties can be grown very easily than others. These plants need very good amount of light and water. These plants can be grown four feet tall.

Always select healthy and properly grown plants while buying them, for your hydroponic or indoor gardening is of utmost importance.

LED Grow Lights For Sale in New Zealand Blog.

Indoor Gardening Q&A with LED Grow Lights

Tips To Grow Hydroponics Indoor Gardening House Plants