best grow lights

Don V Zone 5-6 Cleveland OH

5 years ago

What is the best option? How close is it to natural sunlight?

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daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)

5 years ago

last modified: 5 years ago

All common commercial white lights are pretty broad spectrum. There is blue, and there is red. That what makes it white. Sunlight is broad spectrum too. There is red light in it, and there is blue light. In a broad spectrum light, like the sun, an incandescent, or a "daylight" CFL or LED bulb, you get it all. All the colors that are absorbed by the different pigments used in photosynthesis. That's the "action spectrum".

Don't overthink this, though specialty lamp vendors (like the poster here) who want to sell you their special stuff desperately want you to. It's not easy or cheap to "precisely pick" the spectrum of commercial LED bulbs, so don't waste your time trying to do so. When you put a plant out in sunlight, you aren't buying a special spectrum. Yes, there are visible light wavelengths (mostly yellow-green) that plants don't use much, but you're going to spend a lot more on bulbs that are finely tuned to the active spectrum than the amount of money you'll waste by having broad spectrum bulbs.

Use economical broad spectrum bulbs, and go bright.

Actually, FWIW, "white daylight" LEDs are a somewhat better match than "white daylight" fluorescents to the action spectrum. So if you have a choice of big-box lighting products for growing plants, go LED. LED phosphors are better matched to the photosynthesis action spectrum than fluorescents. Fluorescents are maybe half as efficient for this as a similarly luminous LED. But purchase of fluorescents is much cheaper, for a given intensity.

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Comments (13)

tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
5 years ago
Depends upon what you want to do. If you just want to start some seeds to move out in the garden, then a mix of warm and cool fluorescent tubes will be fine. If, however, you want to grow tomatoes indoors until they fruit, that's another matter.

tj
daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
The best option is BRIGHT light. Most grow lights are about the intensity of a cloudy day, even close up. Don't be fooled. Light that is adequate for reading is nowhere near as bright as what plants need. The color is less important.
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Hey KP, looks like you could use some specifics. I might be able to help a bit. I've been looking into lighting myself and it's a rabbit hole you can lose yourself in. One community I would honestly suggest looking into for lighting is marijuana growing forums. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but that industry has put rocket fuel into the lighting manufacturer world (imo). Here's a great summary of the basics written by user: Rennet on succulents subreddit: The thing about artificial lighting for plants is that just about any sort of white light will work. It doesn't matter if it's an LED, a compact, T5 or T8 fluorescent, or even an old school high pressure sodium or metal halide lamp, the light just has to produce enough photosynthetically active photons to meet the needs of your plant. That said, for the sake of efficiency, I'd recommend you look for high CRI white LEDs with a colour temperature around 3500-5000K. The type and quantity of light that you use to grow your plants with all depends on what you're growing and what sort of area you're growing in. Roughly though, for a plant that requires full sunlight, you're going to be aiming for around 30-50 W (actual power draw, not "equivalent wattage") of white LEDs per square foot at a distance of about 12-18" above your plant, kept on for 12-16 hours per day. Here is a more detailed explanation of how plant light requirements work: When using artificial light for growing plants, there are only three basic things that matter. Light output. Specifically, the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) output of the light: This is measured in Photosynthetic Photon Flux (PPF), or the number of micromoles (umol) of photons between 400 and 700 nm emitted by the source every second (umol/s). See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetically_active_radiation Distance, or how far away the light source is from your plants. Since light intensity drops off exponentially with distance away from the source., moving either the light or the plants has a significant effect on how much light is available. Photoperiod, or the number of hours each day the light stays on. The longer the light stays on each day, the more photons it emits, and the more photons strike your plant. Generally you want the photoperiod to be in the 12-16 hour range, although it's possible for plants to tolerate 24 hour photoperiods. What you definitely don't want though, is to blast your plants with a full day's worth of light in a very short period of time. Points 1 and 2 above (light output and distance) can be combined into a metric called the Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD). This is a measure of how many micromoles of PAR photons hit an area of a square meter every second (umol/m^2 s). PPFD can be increased by either increasing light output at the source or decreasing distance between the source and your plants. When PPFD is combined with point 3 (photoperiod) we get the most important metric summarizing light availability: the daily light integral, or DLI This number represents the number of moles of PAR photons that hit an area of a square meter over the course of 24 hours (mol/m^2 day). Basically, this is how much light is available to a plant growing in a specific location each day. Different plants have different DLI requirements, and by tailoring your lighting setup to meet the DLI requirements of what you want to grow, you greatly increase your chances of successfully growing whatever it is you want. Here's an example of a lighting setup using a quantum board light fixture: Most reputable grow light manufacturers will include a specification sheet with metrics such as PAR and PPFD at a given distance away from the light. We'll use this spec sheet as an example: https://i.imgur.com/MRdi7pW.png This sheet shows that the light generates a PPFD of about 900 umol/m^2 s for the 2' x 2' area below it when measured at a distance of 40 cm. The sheet also shows that increasing the distance to 60 cm above the growing area surface reduces the PPFD to around 600. Using a calculator such as this (link) we can see that if we keep this light on for 12 hours a day, we generate a DLI of approximately 25. We can then refer to a DLI chart such as this one (link), and see if whatever plant you're growing is getting enough light. 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Just take the brightness readout in lux, and plug it into a calculator like this one (link). Keep in mind that this results in a very rough estimate since phone light meters are 1. not particularly accurate in the first place, and 2. read out in lux, which is weighted for perceived brightness in human vision. Afterwards you can convert PPFD to DLI based on how long the growing area is illuminated each day to see if your plants are getting enough light. End I also have chatted with another user who suggested looking into the led boards but on Aliexpress as opposed to Amazon. Same lights, same chips, same boards, just without the company stamp and it takes about a month for shipping. I would highly recommend getting leds, even if they're just 2-4ft led strip lights from somone like Barrina or Parmida. I know, you've got tall plants, so another thing you can do is get some floodlights and retrofit them with the led lights and chips yourself. I have a walkthrough from someone on that and I'll try to remember to link it tomorrow.
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Jamie
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
I have two sets of these

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06XGBKDKZ?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title

And a couple of these fluorescents
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00T0CPI6A?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title

I’ve had good luck with both of them. I prefer the LEDs over the traditional fluorescent bulbs- just because they are plastic and won’t shatter if I accidentally drop them or whatever. I use them for starting seeds as well as growing microgreens and houseplants
daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Just for fun, one can work out what kind of artificial lighting you'd need to get the brightness of sunlight. If you took 100W incandescent bulbs, which are a few inches across, or put 22W LEDs (100W equivalent) a few inches apart, in order to get the brightness of sunlight, you'd need your plant to be close enough to them that the bulbs, looking up at them, filled half the sky. So for a plant a foot or two under the array of bulbs, that would require about fifty bulbs. That's a lot of watts, and not much room for plants underneath them! So what everyone does is to grow plants indoors under MUCH less than natural sunlight, and ideally leave them on for a long time every day. As a result, they'll grow, but don't expect much fruiting.

Jamie, those URLs you posted are links to your Amazon account, so if I click on them, I can't see what you bought unless I can log you in. If you press "Share" you'll get a more generalized link to the product that others can use.
PRO
goblin lights
5 years ago
LED, hands down, no comparison. Please read why below.

Brightness/lumens or WATT's have nothing to do with what your plant requires. These are just the measurements used by folks either just starting out or do not need to study beyond this. Plants use light for photosynthesis, each color pigment/spectrum of light, is absorbed by the plant and causes different reactions.

Blue spectrum is focused on root and stem growth while red is focused on the leaves and flowers. There are many shades of each color, these shades are broken down and classified as nano-meters. Each plant requires a certain amount of nano-meters across the spectrum. LED's are the best lights to use for indoor plants because you can very precisely pick which nano-meters are used, instead of wasting all this energy on nano-meters/colors of light, your plant wont even use.

You can click here If you would like a full guide on what light you should buy for you plant.
PRO
goblin lights
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Sir, i understand you must be from the bronze age but science is all about finding the most precise answer, and LED is all about precision. This is so we are not irresponsibly using power, not only on wasted energy but also getting rid of the excess heat non LED and fluorescent give out. 90% of the energy Incandescent create is heat, compared to the 20% of LED.

Maybe at first LED was too expensive to consider but now it can be almost as cheap to start out and definitely more environmentally friendly. You can also consider the fact that LED creates around 50 - 60 lumens per watt and the only other light to come close to that is an HPS(high pressured soduim,) which again, gives off an incredible amount of heat. Using LED with the right spectrum, you will need to consume a fraction of the power.

I will also correct you on the fact no grow light or hydroponic company will expect a customer to pick each individual LED. We have already designed our lights with the spectrum tested for maximum efficiency. Most of them will have 2 growth stages - Vegging which is mostly blue with red and other colors mixed in, and flowering which will have mostly red with some blue and other colors mixed in.

Sorry Sir, but your analog living in a digital world.
daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Sir, you're talking to someone who actually knows quite a lot about spectral coverage and illumination, and if I may say, you aren't going to attract customers by being insulting. You seem to be living in a world that people won't like. You are here on this forum selling a product. You're new here, but we actually frown on that.

No one is talking seriously about incandescents. You'd be crazy to use them, nowadays.

The world I'm living in is where I have a finite amount of money to spend on my illumination equipment. I would love to have a big, bright, LED setup. But I can't afford it. I can afford fluorescents, and I can afford the minimal electricity that I spend on them. People who can't afford big, bright LED setups shouldn't be told that they aren't doing it right.

Actually, I use the heat from my fluorescents. I have my seedling setup in a converted garage, where the temperature is 40-60F this time of year. Suitably covered, the fluorescents do a wonderful job keeping my seedlings bright and warm. LEDs would not do that.
PRO
goblin lights
5 years ago
First off, i was not selling any product, nor could of anyone of mistaken what i said for that. Second, you came in first and completely roasted my post without any actual facts, just opinions, and now your going back on some of the things you have mentioned. I see you even changed some of it. I thought this was a fun, heated debate. Now i really know what this was.
Jamie
5 years ago
You may get some useful information from this episode of the Joe Gardener Podcast:

https://joegardener.com/podcast/gardening-indoors-light-science/
mxk3 z5b_MI
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
My goal has always been to grow seedlings to plant outside, not grow anything to maturity in the house or to have large flowering/fruiting plants to sell. Or to grow weed.

20+ years ago when I first started growing seedlings indoors, the advice that was given in a reputable book was to mix both warm and cool fluorescent light tubes. So this is what I did and had always had fantastic results. My first system was jimmy-rigged, and I wasn't about to buy new equipment for a new set-up when I moved, I just jimmy-rigged the same fixtures/tubes when I set up shop in the place I moved to. Now I have one of big the fancy-dancy light carts that came with its own tubes -- they're labelled "wide spectrum". I'm not well versed enough to argue the finer points of all this, but can attest that they work just fine, just like my old DIY set-ups did.

So yea, don't over-think it, and you don't need to spend a lot of money to get good results.

What is quite important, though, as mentioned by another poster, is the brightness of the light -- this means getting the light source as close to the plants as possible and adjusting upwards as the plants grow.
Don V Zone 5-6 Cleveland OH
Original Author
5 years ago
Thanks. I use 4' florescent bulbs 1/2 hot and 1/2 cold. It works great. I would LOVE to grow some stuff inside permanently like herbs but have never been able too. I installed some round skylights with metal tubes that are designed to bring in natural light. They did not seem to help much.
Don V Zone 5-6 Cleveland OH
Original Author
5 years ago
This window faces East and I have some large trees so I get very little natural light. I would love to grow herbs in here. It does not happen though

best grow lights

daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)

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tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱

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