Best LED Grow Lights [Buying Guide:

Updated Comparison List]

For decades, indoor growers have relied on artificial light sources such as HID,
High-Pressure Sodium, and Fluorescent to mimic the sun ’ s rays in an indoor
environment. Whether used for soil-grown plants, hydroponics systems or
aquaponics systems, these light sources all have varying degrees of effectiveness.

Now there ’ s a new player in the game, LEDs (Light-emitting Diodes). It ’ s a

technology that’ s been around for decades, mostly as instrument panel indicator
lights, but only recently are LEDs being applied to higher intensity light uses such as
indoor growing.

The primary benefit of LED grow lights over the more established light sources is
significantly reduced heat and reduced power consumption. Because they produce
less heat than the more commonly used HIDs, then they are more energy efficient
and require significantly less expense to ventilate and cool. Commercial growers and
home hobbyists have begun to recognize these benefits and are now equipping
greenhouses and indoor spaces with the best LED grow lights to cultivate their crops.

Although LED lights have so many benefits, with the rapid development of LED lights,
more and more brands have appeared on the market. These brands are of course
good and bad, and each person's planting environment is different, so the
appropriate grow light will also be differences, and choosing a good and suitable
brand will make your planting process smoother.

How to choose a best and suitable LED grow light?

Q1: What size LED grow light should you have?

The size of your grow room will give you details of the size and quantity of LED units
you must purchase.

It is a good rule-of-thumb for LED users to stick to 32W of actual wattage per square
foot of coverage area for flowering high-light weeds.

For instance, if you calculate your growing room to be 16sq. feet, then what you
want to buy is at least around 500W LED grow light, but you must assume that the
plants are congregated in a particular spot and you are flowering a specific plant that
needs a lot of light.
Vegetative development for high-light plants need about half of this wattage.

On the other hand, low light plants, for instance, herbs and lettuce need about 11-20
watts per square feet of grow room.

Though, this might differ with your plant and preferred light levels. For instance,
weeds are in need of abundant light and so you must adhere to what your plant
needs.

Remember first that 1 sq. ft. of grow room needs approximately 32 watts of actual
wattage.

Q2: What color LED lights are best for growing weed?

Well, actually there’s really no ideal spectrum for growing your weeds, but! You can
pick the best one for your goals!

First and foremost, it is better if you know why marijuana plants react to various light
spectrums. When you are growing outdoors under the sun, the spectrum of light
received by your plats gives it a lot of data about what’s going on in the world.

For instance, during spring and summer, more of the blue spectrum of sunlight
makes it to earth since the sun takes a more direct path through the atmosphere.

On the other hand, in summer, a plant reacts to this bright illumination with lots of
blue as a cue to transcend into the vegetative stage generating lots of big leaves and
short stems.

Your marijuana plants thrive to spread out as much as they can and raise its leaf
weight.

Now, blue light is usually used in the vegetative phase of the plant since it tends to
make cannabis plants develop short and squat with very big healthy leaves.

The yellow/red light is typically used in the flowering stage to make the plants grow
taller and help promote budding. Your plants may switch to the flowering phase
faster under this kind of light.

By monitoring your track of the ratio of colors in your light spectrum, your marijuana
plant could know a little bit about what’s happening around them.

It will definitely help your plants to develop in the best possible way. You must always
put in your mind that as an indoor grower, you must act yourself as the sun while
telling your plant what they must execute.

If you are keeping your weeds short with an abundant amount of leafy growth, utilize
LED grow lights that give off light in more of the blue spectrum during the start of
your weeds thriving.

When it is the moment to switch your weeds into the flowering phase, you might
want to alter the lights into something that has more of the red spectrum that
marijuana plants like during their flowering phase.

Best brands for you

ThinkGrow Model-W Horticulture LED Grow Light

The Model-W is a high performance LED grow light for the horticulture cultivation. It
is designed for high PPFD cultivation practices. Full spectrum design covers each
critical phase of growth from vegetative to flowering. An independent Far Red
730nm channel is designed to target Phytochrome Far Red in photomorphogenic
lighting applications. Base on research, introducing far-red light after the lights have
been turned off can lengthen the dark period to encourage the flowering process.

Iluminar Aurus iL8 670w LED Grow Light

The ILUMINAR Aurus iL8 LED is the low wattage solution for the indoor market that is
looking for an energy savings solution without sacrificing the Spectrum. The Aurus
can average 1540+ µmol/s at a minimal clearance, giving the grower the ability to
have a multiple level veg environments and maximize limited space situations. The
spaced LED array gives the emitters a wide even distribution of (2.3 µmol/j) full
spectrum light over a wide even area, a function where HID lighting would need
greater height clearance to achieve similar results, all while losing precious
Micromoles in the process. The Aurus is here to feast on the competition in
performance and efficiency.

PHOTOBIO T Duo 600 Watt LED Grow Light

The scientifically designed PHOTOBIO•T Duo LED Top Light can be applied indoors or
in greenhouse environments as a direct 1000W HID alternative or retrofit. Patented
PHOTO • PRO Photon Regulating Optics ensure the most efficient delivery of plant
biologically active radiation (PBAR) to the plant canopy. PHOTO • LOC Light Output
Control allows precise control over the photons that are delivered to the plant
canopy when used in conjunction with a 0–10V controller. In greenhouse facilities,
PHOTOBIO delivers consistent optimal PPFD levels throughout the day while saving
energy. Just pair PHOTO • LOC with an environmental control system that utilizes a
quantum sensor to measure light entering the greenhouse and automatically
regulate light output in real time.