When growing plants indoors, replicating the effect of sunlight is often the biggest hurdle. Sodium, fluorescent, and HID lamps emit too much heat, and are very power hungry.
Modern LEDs are superior in these two aspects. Choosing a best led grow light is not difficult, but you need to know each brand top features, and choose one suits for you.
Growing plants under lights indoors are something you might have heard about but haven’t attempted. Many people believe growing plants under lights is a costly and complicated business but the truth is anyone with even a little gardening know-how can set up lights for growing plants indoors.
What type of LEDs do you need?
There are two options: full spectrum lights, and separate vegging and blooming lights.
Full spectrum lights are all-around products that can provide adequate lighting for a plant throughout its life cycles.
But in some situations, you might be opting for a more focused approach. For example, your system may be having separate growing areas for the growing period and flowering periods.
In such conditions, you can opt for a vegging LED light for the growth stage, and blooming LEDs for the flowering stage.
Many good quality full spectrum lights these days come with programmable settings. With these, you can opt for veg or blooming light settings depending on the age of your plant. What's more, if you want to grow more for exchange, may be commercial led grow light can be your good choice.
Pros
- Energy efficient
- Full spectrum light
- Little waste heat generated
Cons
- Power port is not as well soldered as it could be
Pros:
- Quiet
- Low heat output
- Large coverage area
Cons:
- Doesn’t always come with all the hardware
- Can’t adjust the light spectrum
Pros:
- Quiet
- Energy efficient
- Water proof
Cons:
- More heat output than similar quantum board lights
- Not dimmable
What Specifications To Look For In The Best Cheap LED Grow Lights:
1. Light intensity:
The best cheap LED grow lights will provide a light intensity that’s enough to grow your plant from seedling to harvest. That means 20 to 40 moles of light per day.
In order to hit the 40 mole level for maximum yield, you want a grow light that emits between 600 uMols (for 18 hour veg) and 925 uMols (for 12 hour flowering) PPFD of light.
As long as you have sufficient light intensity, you don’t need to worry about wattage which is not an accurate indicator of performance when it comes to grow lights.
2. Good Spectrum:
The best cheap LED grow lights will have a balanced spectrum. Some of the worse performing lights have too much blue or too much red, which leaves you hanging for the Veg or Flowering stage of growth.
Spectrum isn’t a settled science yet, so some grow lights will vary slightly. But generally speaking your LED grow light should use a white spectrum or a balance of blue and red (purple looking). You can find that out by viewing the spectrum chart of each light.
3. Coverage Area:
The best cheap LED grow lights will cover the area you need covered for a good price. Take coverage area claims on lower priced lights with a grain of salt.
Most lights in the “best cheap” category won’t cover beyond 2x2 feet sufficiently.
How Long Should I Leave Grow Lights On?
Plants grown indoors require more hours of light than those grown outdoors. 14 to 18 hours of light per day is recommended for most edible species when grown under artificial lighting. Don’t be tempted to leave the lights on 24-7, however – at least six hours of darkness each day is essential to plant health.
As the plants grow, raise the light fixture accordingly to maintain the optimal distance, which varies depending on the type of bulb used and its wattage (the higher the wattage, the farther away the bulb can be). Here are the basic parameters:
- Fluorescent Grow Light: 3 to 12 inches
- LED Grow Light :12 to 24 inches
- HID Grow Light: 24 to 60 inches
There are many best LED grow light, for photosynthesis to occur and chlorophyll to absorb the maximum amount of light for plant growth, plants use both blue and red light most efficiently. Other spectrums of light, like greens/yellows/oranges, are less useful for photosynthesis due to the amount of chlorophyll b, absorbed largely from blue light, and chlorophyll a, absorbed largely from red and blue light.
It’s worth noting photosynthesis is more complex than just chlorophyll absorption, but it’s important to recognize the fundamental principles.
For growth, blue light is essential to help plants produce healthy stems, increased density, and established roots – all which occur in the early vegetative growth stages. Growth then continues with increased red light absorption, resulting in longer stems, increased leaf and fruit/flowering etc. It’s here that red light plays the dominating role in plant maturity and, therefore, size.
And finally, yield – this comes down to a combination of light spectrums and is often very unique to growers, including growers of several varieties of the same crop (like Cannabis). There’s no one single light spectrum that produces more of a crop – optimal lighting is very much a holistic, ever-changing process.
Final thoughts
LEDs are already quite cheap and utilize less energy even though they provide enough intensity for the plants to grow naturally. If you are someone who watches out for their carbon footprint and looks for energy-efficient devices, cheap LED grow light is your best bet.
There are still many options and when choosing something for your grow tent, focus on the area of your indoor garden and the kind of plants you will be growing. A full spectrum LED grow light is obviously the best.
