If this is your first time setting up an LED light grow room you will be surprised how easy it is. LED’s offer many benefits over traditional “HID” lights. In this article, we will discuss the benefits and considerations of growing with LED’s.
Lets start with the benefits of LED grow lights:
- Deliver high intensity light in confined spaces
- Use less power
- Produce less heat
- No noisy, power robbing ballasts
- Extremely low maintenance (as much as 100,000 hr life)
- Produce only the light your plants need…
Your LED light grow room will consume up to 80% less energy when compared to your typical “HID” light grow rooms. This is due to the elimination of your power robbing ballasts on the “HID’s”,no need for the cooling equipment, fresh & stale air equipment, ect. Anyone who is growing knows that power consumption can be a strain on your bank account. With up to a 80% savings in monthly lighting expense, your cost per plant will go down significantly, especially when you consider the average life span of LED lights are over 50,000 hours. That’s equivalent to 7 1/2 years of lighting 18 hours a day…
LED’s also produce much less heat, allowing your space to be much smaller and more confined. I have seen LED light grow rooms set up in cabinets, closets, sheds etc, the possibilities are endless. The reduced heat from your light source means more control over your grow rooms temperatures. Typically a cracked door will supply more than enough fresh air ventilation for your plants using LED lights depending on the size of your LED light grow room.
With proper setup and purchase your plant will use nearly all of the light emitted from your LED lamps. Without getting into the technical aspects of the light spectrum and lumen’s and all of that, lets just say that plants like specific colors of light for photosynthesis. So simply having a very bright light isn’t enough, a really bright green light won’t do anything for your marijuana plants. HID lights produce a lot of light in the infrared spectrum while high pressure sodium lights produce a lot of yellow light. LED lights provide a higher fraction of light in the peak areas of the spectrum of chlorophyll absorption. Which basically means that your LED grow lights will provide your marijuana plant with the exact type of light it wants and needs creating strong growth with minimal waste.
In the past many people have been disappointed with LED grow lights and unfortunately they were sold a light that was not really designed to be a sole grow light. For proper lighting you need to determine how you will use the LED, either as your sole light or as a supplemental light. Many people use the LED light simply as a supplemental light to their HID or high pressure sodium to give the plant extra growth. For a supplemental light the smaller UFO LED lights @ 90 watts can be great. This will give your plant the specific color light it wants while in the flowering stage and can help produce extra growth. However it is possible to use LED lights for your entire grow if you go with something like a 300W or 600W panel. These panels are low maintenance and discrete, leaving no thermal footprint. Keep in mind that a quality large 300W panel is going to cost you at least $1,000. If you are looking at something that is much less, it’s probably not going to give you the yields you want.
In another post we will give you a step by step walk thru to setting up your LED light grow room. When to use what color etc. Until then, take care and let us know about your experiences with LED grow lights.
Related: Reminders When Growing Your Weed Using Deep Water Culture Method
