Grow lights are electric lamps designed to promote plant growth by emitting an electromagnetic spectrum that is needed for photosynthesis. The emitted light spectrum is similar to the sun, thus allowing outdoor condition possible in indoor gardening. The natural color of daylight has a high color temperature that appears to be bluish. With the use of the color rendering index, it is possible to compare how much the lamp matches the natural color of the sunlight. There are several types of grow lights. These are as follows:
1. Incandescent grow light—has a red-yellowish tone and low color temperature. This type of grow light is solely used to highlight indoor plant groupings. It has a life span of 750 hours and considered to be less energy efficient because it produces more heat rather than light.
2. Fluorescent grow light—a standard fluorescent is usually used for growing vegetables or for starting seedlings. It produces twice as many lumens per watt of energy consumed as incandescent. It has an average usage of up to 20,000 hours.
3. Metal-Halide (MH) HID grow lamp—has a white light in the range of 2700 to 5500 Kelvin and a color rendering index of 65-75. With this type of grow light, plants appear to be almost identical to those grown outdoors. Metal halide lamps are five times as efficient as incandescent lamps and can last up to 25 times as long. It has a usable lifespan between 10,000 to 20,000 hours, depending on the wattage.
4. High-pressure sodium lamp—has a yellow light in the range of 2200 Kelvin and color rendering index of 22. Actually, the light is toward the red end of the spectrum. Most plants need red spectrum light when they are flowering. HPS lights are sometimes used in conjunction with the blue spectrum Metal Halide lights. Or you can buy conversion bulbs, and use a blue bulb for vegetative growth and the regular HPS bulb for budding and flowering.
5. Combination HPS/MH lamp-- combines a metal halide bulb and a high pressure sodium bulb in the same reflector, either with a single integrated ballast assembly or two separate ballast assemblies. The combination of blue metal halide light and red high pressure sodium light creates an ideal spectral blend and extremely high outputs.
6. Switchable, convertible and two-way lamp—is used to burn either a metal halide bulb or an equivalent wattage high pressure sodium bulb in the same fixture. This fixture is used for propagating and vegetative growing plants under the metal halide, then switching to a high pressure sodium bulb for the fruiting or flowering stage of plant growth.
7. LED grow lamp—is attractive to indoor growers since it does not consume as much power, does not require ballasts, and produces a fraction of the heat of HID lamps. The lamp consists of arrays of many wide-spectrum red and a few narrow-spectrum blue LED’s of specific wavelengths. LED grow lights have shown promise through plant research by NASA and many universities, and have even surpassed HID lights in some tests, when all the other variables are the same.
To discover more about hydroponics, please check out the best hydroponics newsletter on the web, at http://www.advancednutrients.com/newsletter.
1. Incandescent grow light—has a red-yellowish tone and low color temperature. This type of grow light is solely used to highlight indoor plant groupings. It has a life span of 750 hours and considered to be less energy efficient because it produces more heat rather than light.
2. Fluorescent grow light—a standard fluorescent is usually used for growing vegetables or for starting seedlings. It produces twice as many lumens per watt of energy consumed as incandescent. It has an average usage of up to 20,000 hours.
3. Metal-Halide (MH) HID grow lamp—has a white light in the range of 2700 to 5500 Kelvin and a color rendering index of 65-75. With this type of grow light, plants appear to be almost identical to those grown outdoors. Metal halide lamps are five times as efficient as incandescent lamps and can last up to 25 times as long. It has a usable lifespan between 10,000 to 20,000 hours, depending on the wattage.
4. High-pressure sodium lamp—has a yellow light in the range of 2200 Kelvin and color rendering index of 22. Actually, the light is toward the red end of the spectrum. Most plants need red spectrum light when they are flowering. HPS lights are sometimes used in conjunction with the blue spectrum Metal Halide lights. Or you can buy conversion bulbs, and use a blue bulb for vegetative growth and the regular HPS bulb for budding and flowering.
5. Combination HPS/MH lamp-- combines a metal halide bulb and a high pressure sodium bulb in the same reflector, either with a single integrated ballast assembly or two separate ballast assemblies. The combination of blue metal halide light and red high pressure sodium light creates an ideal spectral blend and extremely high outputs.
6. Switchable, convertible and two-way lamp—is used to burn either a metal halide bulb or an equivalent wattage high pressure sodium bulb in the same fixture. This fixture is used for propagating and vegetative growing plants under the metal halide, then switching to a high pressure sodium bulb for the fruiting or flowering stage of plant growth.
7. LED grow lamp—is attractive to indoor growers since it does not consume as much power, does not require ballasts, and produces a fraction of the heat of HID lamps. The lamp consists of arrays of many wide-spectrum red and a few narrow-spectrum blue LED’s of specific wavelengths. LED grow lights have shown promise through plant research by NASA and many universities, and have even surpassed HID lights in some tests, when all the other variables are the same.
To discover more about hydroponics, please check out the best hydroponics newsletter on the web, at http://www.advancednutrients.com/newsletter.
1 comment:
You said that incandescents put out more heat than light. You're absolutely right I just want to add that they're horrible for growing. You basically said that but not quite as clearly.
Incandescent lights don't grow plants, they just cook them.
I have one question though, do you know anything about ceramic metal halide lights? I've heard about them but I don't know much.
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