How LED Grow Lights Can Benefit Your Indoor Garden

31 Shares

There’s an LED grow light movement among indoor gardeners that’s been taking off ever since LEDs hit the market. In the past, growers were most attracted to HPS and CMH lighting for its high-intensity output, but things have taken a major turn, and that turn is towards LEDs.

If you’ve stuck to your old ways and are continuing to supply your indoor grow room with HPS, CMH, or fluorescent lighting, it’s time to switch things up. Make a change by investing in one of the best LED grow lights on the market.

LED grow lights run much cooler than the competition and are more energy-efficient, but they are also more costly than conventional grow lights. Are they really worth the extra money? Find out now!Click To Tweet

Need more convincing? Keep reading to learn why investing in LED grow lights could be the best thing you ever did for your indoor garden.

BENEFITS OF LED LIGHTING FOR INDOOR PLANTS

It doesn’t matter what you’re planning on growing in your indoor garden. Whether it’s a crop of heirloom tomatoes, hydroponic cucumbers, or medical marijuana for treating your glaucoma, the most significant benefit of using LED lights is really a benefit to you more than to your plants.

It’s all about the energy-efficient operation with LED lighting, which explains why so many homeowners and business owners are throwing out their old bulbs and replacing them with LED bulbs.

The energy savings are a huge money-saver, so if you’re a fan of the idea of lower energy bills, you’ll make the switch.

What Makes LED Bulbs so Efficient?

So you know that LED lighting is by far the most efficient option for your indoor garden, but you might still be wondering why that is.

LED lights give off light in a certain direction without needing the help of diffusers or reflectors like other types of lights do.

Improved energy performance is the biggest benefit of LED lights, but it’s not the only one. Here are a few more:

Low Heat Output

Another huge benefit to LEDs is that they give off little to almost no heat.

To give you a frame of reference, lightbulbs with a wire filament emit nearly 90% of their energy as heat, and compact fluorescent light bulbs come in around 80%.

The percentage isn’t nearly this high with LEDs, so there’s less worrying about damage to an indoor garden caused by high temperatures and overheating.

Long-Lasting Operation

The best-LED lights are expected to last up to 50,000 hours. Do the math, and you’ll find that 50K hours is the equivalent of 2,083 days, 68.5 months, or 5.7 years. That’s a long time.

To keep your LED lights lasting for the entire 50,000 hours, be sure to keep up with regular maintenance (and don’t be cheap about the fixture you buy).

Grow Lights Have a Fuller Light Spectrum

This next LED perk is specific to indoor gardens. While we all know that plants need light to survive, you may not know that they do best with a particular type of light.

They’re better able to perform plant functions like photosynthesis when they get high-quality full-spectrum light, and LEDs can provide that.

With other lighting systems, you might have to switch the settings and make changes to the output based on the crop’s development stage. You won’t have to do this with LED lighting, making your job much easier.

LED Plant Lights are Lighter and Less Bulky

Most growers have to deal with tight quarters. Whether that means low ceiling space or small square footage, LEDs can help.

Most LED fixtures have a smaller overall footprint and a less bulky design than high-intensity lighting.

Possible Kickbacks

This last benefit isn’t for sure, but depending on where you live, there’s a good chance you could get a rebate from the state for being such an energy-conscious citizen.

According to NCSL, switching to energy-efficient lighting can save you money in more ways than one:

Federal incentives
Utility company incentives
State incentives
Public benefit funds
Local government incentives
PACE program financing

A Few Downsides to LED Lights

LED lights are close to perfect, but they’re not quite there. There are just a few drawbacks that come along to LEDs, like the fact that they can’t compare in power to high-intensity lights.