Gardens

LED Grow Lights for Indoor Gardens

The use of LED lights has been an effective way of reducing the use of energy
today. Since then, it is used in various types of lighting designs that promotes
sustainability. With this technology, it can contribute on different aspects such as
indoor gardening in greener way. The use of LED Grow Lights has been proven
effective for growing plants in an indoor setting with much more advantage for the
growth of the plant.

Horticultural lighting utilizing light emitting diodes (LEDs) was introduced to the
general public in the first few years of the 21st century. Since then, improvements
in technology and pricing have made LED lights a viable alternative to the
traditional and very effective High Intensity Discharge (HID) systems while using
only about 35% of the electricity required by HID lights (GES Research Corp.,2010).
For the next several years, LEDs found niches in the grow light market with orchid
and violet growers, who could take advantage of the low heat and UV output of the
technology. While LED lighting, in sufficient quantity, could produce comparable
growth to HID lighting it would take 3-5 years in energy savings to recoup the initial
price difference. Recently, larger 1-watt and 3-watt diodes have replaced the
smaller, 5mm diodes originally used. A 3-watt diode is approximately 50 times more
powerful than a 5mm diode. This means that by replacing the 5mm diodes with 3-
watt reduces the number of components by 1/50th (GES Research Corp.,2010). The
result is LED plant lights are many times more reliable than they were a few years
ago, and that more light can be produced in a much smaller amount of space. With
this more efficient, more effective and way cheaper way of Grow Lighting, LED Grow
Lights used for indoor gardening is more recommendable.

There are variations of LED Lights to be used for different effective aspects
according to the LED Growlights.com; the use of Red and Blue is to get the most
light per cost and to add lights to existing LED System, while the use of Full
Spectrum is for displaying plants. The use of full spectrum LED Grow lights can be
positioned .30m to .60m from the plants depending upon the light efficiency; this is
for the good growth results. Red lights may be used alone as a supplement for High-
pressured Sodium (HPS) lighting – which is used for rapid fruiting, flowering and
budding. Blue lights may be used as a supplement for sunlight or Metal Halide (MH)
lights (LGL Technologies Inc.,2008).

The use of this indoor gardening system is more beneficial in many ways – It has a
longer lifetime than any kind of grow lights; It is also energy efficient that can save
75% on power over HID lighting (LGL Technologies Inc, 2008); It is also better for
plant growth, Plants can use nearly all of the light emitted from LED Grow Lights -
only about 10% of the power used and about 35% of the light generated by metal
halide lamps is useful for plant growth (LGL Technologies Inc, 2008); It has Low
heat output that doesn’t require any additional cooling equipments such as air
conditioner; It is more economical – for it is longer in life, it has low power
consumption, it is highly efficient and it even doesn’t require and other additional
equipments. Another benefit is that the light choice can be controlled – the balance
of red and blue light can be varied as needed to get the most favorable results. LED
Grow Lights, a technology that is versatile in many ways that can contribute on
providing the sustainable solution for the global crisis of climate change.

A porous growing media is more advantageous for an LED Grow lighted plants,
which stores hydrogen and with provision of nutrients and supplements for the
plants. There are tested plant species that are tested by the LGL Technologies, Inc.
to grow effectively under the LED Grow light system – Thai Basil, Orchids, African
violets and Miniature roses.