What is led grow lighting?

The appearance of LED technology in indoor crops is being a revolution, as has happened with other sectors, such as LEDs in car lights. This lighting is designed to favor growth and flowering, being able to configure the intensity of the light and the hours of daily exposure, depending on the phase of the crop.

The market for led lighting is changing by leaps and bounds indoor crops, there are more and more advantages and improvements that these led lighting systems provide. Led grow lighting comes from:

Lighting: Energy provided to plants to promote growth and flowering.
LED: It is an acronym from English that means “light emitting diode”.
Grow: Indoor crop growth.

Let’s say that these current LED systems have little to do with the old ones, which were used to complement and support those of more grow lamps. LED technology is advancing rapidly and perfectly mimics sunlight with a graduated intensity.

The new generations of led lamps achieve the same results as the traditional ones, but with more and more advantages, both for the crop and for the grower.

indoor-grow-led-lamps

Advantages Led grow lighting

The latest generation of LEDs take advantage of every last watt of energy, which your plant will appreciate and of course your pocket. You will no longer have to worry about excessive electricity consumption, nor will you have to do some trick to spend little. We explain the best advantages and benefits of led lighting systems for indoor crops:

  • The latest generation LEDs are so efficient that they can exceed one gram per watt in a normal crop. We mean if you have a 660 watt led lamp like ours you will be able to exceed that amount in the final harvest. Let’s say you could get to 700 grams.
  • Plants take advantage of almost 100% of the light from LED lamps, so energy is not wasted as in sodium lamps and the savings are considerable.
  • With the lights and led panels, we can make the complete cycles of a plant with this same lighting. We will not need other types of lamps.
  • Led bulbs improve the growth process of our crops, accelerating and generating optimal light conditions.
  • Led spotlights provide an ideal electromagnetic spectrum for photosynthesis, in addition to just the right amount of light exposure for plants.
  • In the long term, the savings are very noticeable, due to the electricity bills or the saving of constantly changing light bulbs.
  • A very important characteristic of LED bulbs that HPS sodium lamps cannot achieve are the ranges of the LED light. After many studies, the result obtained is that plants respond favorably to blue light in the range of 400-500 and to red light from 640 to 680.
  • They emit very little heat, thanks to this, our cultivation will reduce the presence of burns, dryness and will be able to stay in perfect condition, for longer. Let’s say that the maintenance is less in the led lamps.
  • They have a longer service life than halogen (MH) and high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps. Because they work with LED diode arrays. Thanks to this they can last up to 50,000 active hours.
  • When the useful life of LED lamps is coming to an end, they gradually decrease their intensity. This allows us to change them before they turn off. In this way the growth and flowering cycle will not stop at any time.

 

Recommendations for the use of LED Grow lighting

We are going to explain some characteristics that we have to take into account when having an indoor grow with LED lighting.

We must understand that plants have a light absorption limit, after that limit, all light they receive will be wasted. That happened with sodium, but with LEDs, as we have said in the advantages, almost 100% of the light is used.

What we spend on the one hand, we will get it on the other. Therefore consumption will always be lower with these led lamps for indoor cultivation.

We also recommend not increasing the power to the maximum, it has been discovered not many years ago that increasing the power is not always proportional to the results obtained.

Led lamps have blue and red lights, which means that they have a different intensity and consumption. The blue led consumes much less than the red light. Both lights are essential for our cultivation.

The most important thing is to get closer to the conditions that occur outside and with our range of indoor led lamps, you will get it the first time and without much effort.

Use of led lamps

The use of led lamps for crops is increasingly normal, we show you where they are most used:

Marijuana crops

In recent years the popularity of led lighting for marijuana crops has been growing by leaps and bounds. It provides multiple benefits, as we have discussed previously.

It improves the quality of the plant and reduces electricity costs.

For growing and flowering marijuana indoors, grow tents or hydroponics are often used. Led bulbs allow you to grow these types of plants in optimal conditions with considerable savings in time and money.

Depending on the seeds, you can have a plant with large buds in 3 months or less. In recent years these types of crops have exploded.

growing-marijuana-with-led-lamps

Urban gardens

These led bulbs are used for hydroponic crops. They are usually very small crops and in places deprived of natural light. As these types of crops are small, we get them to grow quickly.

Gardening

There is more and more large-scale production of vegetated surfaces, thanks to LED lamps, we achieve sustainable production, generating considerable energy savings, as well as favoring optimal plant growth.

Crops with this type of LED lighting produce plants that produce fruits that are richer in aroma and flavor. HPS sodium lamps give more heat and therefore destroy part of the terpenes.

urban-garden-led-lighting

Algae production

Seaweed, depending on the type, we use more and more in the kitchen. And their production in closed spaces with led grow lights, are increasingly normal. Facilitates growth and constant harvesting.