Grow lights are lighting fixtures and bulbs used to enhance the growth of a variety of plants indoors. The idea is for them to emulate natural sunlight, producing light wavelengths that are most important to plant growth. Because different types of plants have different lighting requirements, there are a variety of types of grow lights. Some of the most common are fluorescent grow lights and LED grow lights.
Emulating natural sunlight is not an easy task, so most grow lights actually just produce the most important colors of light for the photosynthesis process used by plants. The initial growth and leafy stages of plant growth require wavelengths in the blue spectrum. The flowering and fruit producing stages require red wavelengths.
You can buy LED or other grow light types to target specific spectrum areas for the particular need of your indoor garden. The most expensive types will cover all of the necessary areas, but will allow more flexibility for the crops and flowers raised.
An LED grow light is relatively cheap and long lasting which makes it ideal for several situations. The first is a home gardener that uses a room in their house. Obviously the hobbyist wants to keep costs down while getting the maximum benefit; LED grow lamps can be a great solution for that. They produce more light per unit of energy used, so they’re not only cheaper up front, but they keep costs down long term.
Because an LED can only produce on one wavelength type per bulb, most lamps contain a variety of bulb types. This allows the targeting of all of the plant’s growth stages. While the solution is logical and has been shown to be effective, the scientific community has been slow to verify these results.
While an LED grow light bar will only be slightly cheaper upfront (still costing over $100 for a quality one), most of the cost benefit of this type is found in the long term. LED grow lights use significantly less power than their fluorescent (HID) counterparts and have a much longer lifespan (years longer). Most LED bulbs are rated to last ten to fifteen years, while HIDs may only last a couple years.
As mentioned, fluorescent grow lights are the main competitor to LEDs. Often referred to as HID lamps (high-intensity discharge lamps), they are best for growing leafy vegetables or the early growth stages of other plant types. While running costs are higher than LED, they still dominate incandescent lighting.
Incandescent lights for plants have really become a thing of the past. With a short shelf life and high electrical running costs, they have become inefficient in multiple ways. Attach this to the poor ability of aiding plant growth, and they’re just not worth the investment.
HPS lamps are a growing alternative, especially with industrial growers. HPS stands for high-pressure sodium lamps. They can be useful for the reproductive growth phase of plants, but can cause the plants to grow awkwardly. They have their purpose in the indoor growing world, but it is quickly evaporating as other bulb types improve with rapid technology advances.
CFL standards for compact fluorescent light. These are a miniature version of the fluorescent lights that you see in large stores. Usually they are spiraled up and can fit into a regular light socket. Although they provide pretty good lighting output for everyday use, they’re not perfectly suited for plant growth. Ideally, a grow light would completely replace the energy derived by sunlight. There are several lighting technologies that make a good effort at this but CFL grow lights are still lacking in this department. Most growers experience mediocre results at best.
Although CFL grow lights provide more light output than their regular fluorescent counterparts, they don’t produce the right kind of light. Plants need a variety of light across the entire color spectrum, which CFLs have much difficulty achieving. Of course, you can still use them to complement another source of light or for short term use while another solution is found.
Since the plants in people’s indoor gardens don’t respond well to the light from CFL’s people think they aren’t providing enough light to the plants. A frequent move by new gardeners is to go out and buy even more bulbs or higher wattage CFL grow lights. This will provide a lot more light to your plants (maybe to their detriment), but doesn’t solve the problem. More light does not fill in the gaps that the plants are missing. A better idea is to use the compact fluorescent in combination with sunlight from a window. Even if the sunlight is dim and only lasts a couple hours, it might be enough to fill in the gaps that the grow light can’t provide.
If you’re serious about growing an indoor garden of some type, then you should really consider other types of growing lights. LED grow lights, standard fluorescent grow lights, and high pressure sodium grow lights are all better alternatives to compact fluorescents. These technologies have bulbs and light fixtures specifically designed to provide plants with all of the lighting they need. You will be sure to get results with any of these, but the guarantee of success is a lot more expensive.
