Growlights can be a huge help or a total waste of time and money if you get them wrong. Thankfully they are easy to understand and use. In this guide I will walk you through all the things I wish I knew about growlights and how to demystify them so you can grow bigger with them!
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34 Comments
Thank you ! Very helpful as always
Yes very helpful, Luke. Thank you 😊
Thank you Luke for demystifying grow lights 😊 I love your explanation. You kept it simple andI truly learned a lot!
Have received my seed order from the Thanksgiving sale. Thanks. MI gardener is very efficent !
Can you pls share the name brand of the 20,000 lumen grow lights you are using in your grow room in this video, or a link on Amazon? Thanks!
Comment on full spectrum lights please
Do you typically leave your grow lights running 24×7 or do the plants need a dark period to rest?
First thing to learn – protective eyewear is a must …
Thank you so much for the explanation! It was very helpful.
I don't use, but I really want to thank the MaryJuana home growers for creating a diverse market for grow lights and germination kits. It has exploded to the home gardner in fantastic ways. I ordered six of the AC Infinity brand small dome germination led light kits as christimas gifts, along with other important accessories for my absurd frozen growing region 3. I'm also including seeds purchased from MIgardener as well. Most people around here want tomato plants, pepper plants and other related heat loving germinating plants. Most of us use non-heated garages and sheds in our tundra location so domes and even heat pads are necessary.
Ac infinity grow lights and tents are great
LEDs don't flicker by nature. They can be switched on and off which makes them great options for being controlled by PWM for power saving and dimming methods or simply operating from AC.
Every time I try to grow brassicas under grow lights the stems get too long. Next year, I'll try winter sowing outside.
I love how you explain everything! You make it all easy peasy
You must know that I am looking for some grow lights
Can you do a video on the electrical costs to run your growlights based on the KWH usage. I have done for myself. Then do a comparison of electrical cost vs the food produced vs to produce seedlings.
How long should your plants stay under grow light?.
Some good info here, but better to use a actual number of lux/lumens. Par is even better. There are lux meters you can use to measure, or you can also use your phone and then covert to par using a conversion factor. 5k light – multiplier X 0.02 4k light – multiplier 0.024 – 3.5k light multiplier 0.022 – 3k light – multiplier 0.023. I used this to grow seedlings and it worked fabulously to get stalky cucumber.
KISS my Keep It Simple System is 5500 k color or full spectrum lights plants will like 25 watts of power per square foot to know how big a area any given light can cover to start or grow . a strong light can be further away but weak lights need to be close. my way you dont need any special testers and gets you a great starting point cause each plant will prefer different lights to grow best , there is no 1 perfect setup to grow any plant
Loved the solar panel analogy. I have a 6000 Lumens in lights so I know that I can go up to 10 inches away. But I have a tomato plant that wants to eat the light. How close can I let it get? 😎
A ballast isn't the fan. It is a combination of starter and transformer.
Make sure LED lights have a good heat sink. If they are mounted on aluminum backing then that's good. Heat will shorten the lifespan of your LED lights. A strip that has waterproof coating will not last as long because the heat cannot dissipate as well.
Another resource
BR 30 led grow light bulb
30 W PAR38 selectable spectrum led grow light bulb
Also great for limited space
umol not lumen is what you need. As a weed grower its disappointing you talked about lumens which mean brightness alone, how many candle lights it is. And lumens has nothing to do with the usable spectrum. umol or ppfd is what you should talk about, which is the amount of usable photons for a plant to grow. There are grow lights with low lumens that put out specific spectrum they need they are generally red looking leds Mostly older led lights. Now there are white grow led lights.
Grow Light Efficiency – Micromoles per Watt (µmol/W)
A higher wattage doesn't always mean a higher light output.
Why? Because some lights emit more µmol per Watt than others – they have a higher efficiency.
This is what really drives running costs down. Since you can hit a higher light intensity on a lower wattage, you can get a greater amount of light and emit less heat. This is the main reason people switch to an LED grow light in summer.
A typical HPS grow light will be around 1.6 to 1.9µmol per W.
Yet the Omega Infinity LED light hits 3.0µmol per W. That is almost twice the amount of light as some grow lights – way more bang for your buck. This is especially true of LED lights, which are known to last around 10 years+.
Intensity – PPFD (Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density)
To measure your light intensity overall, you need to look at your PPFD. It tells you the amount of light your fixture emits overall.
This is really useful if you're trying to compare one grow light to another.
You can measure this with a quantum meter or integrating sphere (aka Ulbricht Sphere).
It'll tell you how many photons are emitted per second. This is known as the photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) and is measured in micromoles (µmol/s).
Quantum Meter
The only (slight) issue with micromoles and photons…
…is that only photons from the PAR range are counted.
Photons from wavelengths lower than 400nm (e.g. UVA & UVB), and higher than 700nm (e.g. infrared & far red) aren't counted.
Wavelengths outside of the PAR range have been shown to play a key role in plant health:
Hormone signaling
Formation of beneficial substances (e.g. essential oils & phytochemicals for defense against pests).
Just make sure you check out the spectrum charts of a light you want to buy. Some growers buy supplemental CDM lights too, which are known for broadening your grow light spectrum. Though they have a wattage of 315W, our CDM lamps gives your plant types of light that other lamps can't produce. It'll transform your crop.
I am growing self-confidence.
I have 2 hydroponic strawberry plants that I'm growing under T5 lamps. One plant is doing really well the other one going okay but not growing as well. I was going to raise my light that is about 6" but am now rethinking that plan. Thanks for this video.
Thank you for the great info in both of your videos about grow lights. I have seen lights advertised as "grow lights". Just wondering what is the difference between those and buying regular bulbs that you are talking about?
Wow! This was so helpful!
This will be my first experience growing seeds inside, and I knew nothing about the lighting requirements.
Thank you so much for making this so easy to understand!😊
I'm still confused, mercury halide or high pressure sodium? 😅
There are a few more issues I have had to face. My light is a 4500 lumen shop light and I have had it for years. How long should it be expected to last?
Also when I first started I didn't know how long to have the light on so my plants got very spindly with 5 hours of light. I raised the time to 9 hours and the plants did well.
You also should use a timer to turn the lights on and off so you don't forget the plants lighting and they get a chance to sleep.
I found the light chains extremely difficult to adjust so I used empty boxes to move the plants and seed plantings close to the light for maximum efficiency. When the plants reach the lights I merely remove the boxes and they continue to grow happily. I also cover the boxes with plastic bags to keep them dry just in case there's leakage.
I would love to grow year round plants for greens, for salad and radishes. I have the shelving to assemble, lumber for beds, and grow lights. I just lack the strength and energy to assemble everything. I would love to get this done and share it with you, but I'm an old guy and can barely make it up and down stairs to the basement where I want to do this project. We'll see what and if this happens.
Thanks Luke for another great video. I am still very interested in the pumpkin garden final harvest, production received, and what you did with the many pumpkins I'm sure you got. May the Lord keep blessing you and yours. Love you buddy.
Don't worry, your plants will tell you if the light is too close or too far away. I followed the instructions on mine and had to move it closer with certain plants.
Sorry, I missed which LED light you chose. Would you please guide me?
Thanks so much.
Don't forget fluorescent lights dim/degrade over time.
Love the Picasso reference but bro you are a lot more like Picasso than you think… his stuff was surrealist and not to scale!