can you use a lcd panel as a grow light supplier

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LED Grow Lights are becoming very popular and they are a good choice if you are buying a new grow light system or upgrading your old florescent fixture. This post about LED grow light myths will save you time and money.

As with any new technology there are many myths about LED grow lights. Some are started because of a lack of knowledge by the general public, but many are started by manufacturers who are trying to sell their product. Some of them prefer to keep us in the dark so they can make outrageous claims, but the better companies don’t do this. We need to do our part and become educated consumers so that we can properly evaluate both the message being broadcast and the product itself.

With incandescent and florescent lights, watts were a good measure of the brightness of a light. A 100 watt bulb was always brighter than a 60 watt bulb. Not so with LED. Lower wattage can produce more light.

The watts rating on a LED grow light tells you how much electricity it will use, and therefore the ongoing cost to run the light, but it tells you very little about how bright the light is, or how suitable the light is for growing plants.

How many watts do you need per square foot of growing area? Consumers want to know, and manufacturers are quite willing to give you a rule such as, seedlings need 15 watts per sq foot. You can find similar rules for other types of plants, but none of them mean very much.

As explained above, watts do not equate to the amount of light. But even more important, watts tell you nothing about the quality of light (i.e. the wavelengths of light). What you really want to know is the PPFD (photosynthetic photon flux density) for a given spot under the grow light.

You will have trouble finding a PPFD value for most lights. LED shop lights will not provide this value because they are not being sold specifically for plant growth. Many LED grow lights will not give you this value because they want to sell you on watts and give you that value instead – don’t buy from these companies.

The other reason you will have trouble finding a PPFD value is that many people equate PPFD to PAR. They provide PPFD values but call them PAR values. They just don’t understand what PAR means – it is a measure of light quality, not intensity.

If the product does not advertise a PPFD value, but does show you a PAR value – you can usually assume they are the same thing. The units should be μmol/m2/s.

The term PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation), when properly used, describes the light spectra that plants use, between 400 and 700 nm. Since plants use more blue and red light these colors get weighted higher than yellow and green.

A common misconception of LED lights is that they are 100% efficient at turning electricity into light. Granted they are more efficient than older technology like incandescent and florescent lights, but they are not 100% efficient.

In theory LED lights could convert all of the electricity into light, but that only works in story books. In real life, an LED converts 20% or more of the electricity into heat.

A light fixture containing 100 individual LED bulbs creates a lot of heat. The lights are designed so that most of this heat comes out the back of the fixture, directing it away from the plant. Larger units also contain fans that blow the heat away. This is important since heat shortens the life of LED bulbs.

LED bulbs – the single units that give off the light, are available in various watt ratings. 1, 3, 5, 10 watt bulbs are common. This leads to another myth. It is common to see the claim that a 3 watt unit does not produce as much light as a 5 watt unit – so the 5 must be better. It is not that simple.

Most bulbs are not run at 100% efficiency. Higher wattage bulbs tend to be run at lower efficiency levels since they produce too much heat at higher efficiency. So a 5 watt bulb may be giving the same amount of light as a 3 watt bulb.

Higher watt bulbs are newer technology and generally cost more. They may also have a shorter life. Given the current technology, your best bang for the buck is a 3 watt bulb. It is a good compromise between efficiency, reliability and cost.

A newer technology called COB LED (chip-on-board LED), is more efficient, has a longer life, but is more expensive. At the moment, I think the technology is too new and still has issues. One potential benefit of this technology is that it allows the manufacture to make longer light tracks, similar to a traditional 4 ft florescent fixture. In that configuration it would cover a larger area for home use.  Manufacturers have not taken advantage of this feature, maybe because of higher shipping costs for a larger unit, but there are some DIY systems worth looking into, such as the one pictured here, created by Ichabod Crane on International Canagraphic Magazine.

Plants have evolved under the sun, so we assume sunlight is what plants want. It is not. Much of the yellow and green light in sunlight is not used by plants.

Traditionally we have always grown plants under white light, and outside they grow under sunlight which is a yellow-white. It is natural to think white light is better for growing plants – its not.

The best light is one that produces the wavelengths of light that plants need in the relative amounts plants want. They use more blue and red, and less yellow and green. It does not have to look white.

As light moves away from the source, the light spreads out, and the intensity at any given point is reduced. This follows theinverse square rule, whereby if the distance doubles, the intensity is reduced to 1/4. If you move a plant from 1 ft under the light to 2 ft, it will receive 1/4 as much light.

This rule works for point sources of light, but most LED fixtures contain many LED bulbs, so they are not a point source of light. Therefore the rule does not apply to LED lights.

The other complication is that in the real world the rule only works well right below the light source. As you move out to the sides, the rule is also not valid.

Since it is important to know how much light you get at any point under the fixture, the manufacturer should provide you with that information, as seen in the diagram below

What is the growing area under an LED light? This is an important question since it determines how many plants you can grow and it varies from lamp to lamp.

Manufacturers try to help you by providing a “coverage area value” and say something like, the coverage area is 8 sq feet. That sounds great, but this number means absolutely nothing. If you raise a light up higher it will cover more area, so unless they also provide the height of the light and the light intensity values across that whole area, the coverage area number is of no value.

Lets have a close look at this. The diagram below shows the coverage area for a Viparspectra Par 700 light. You are viewing the growing area from above the light and the numbers are the PPFD values at certain points under the light, with the light hanging at 2 feet above the growing surface.

The specifications for this light suggest a coverage area of “Core Coverage at 24″ Height is 4x3ft“. The reason why this area is longer than wide is because the shape of the light is a rectangle. It makes no sense that the above diagram shows circles and squares for a rectangular light, but lets assume the numbers are correct.

Directly under the light you have a PPFD value of 780, which is lots of light to grow and flower any plant. Assume you want to cover a 3 x 3 ft area, the light at the edges of this growing area have a PPFD of between 30 and 200. That is enough for growing seedlings, but not much more.

Lets look at this from a different perspective. Lets say that after doing a lot of diligent research you decide that you want to provide a minimum PPFD of 300. That reduces the growing area under this light to a 2 x2 ft area, and even then the corners will only be getting about 200 PPFD. So for your requirements (ie 300 PPFD), your coverage area is 2 x 2 ft, not the advertised 4 x 3 ft.

Without seeing this light distribution diagram and knowing the height used to measure the values, the coverage area in the specifications is of little help. At least Viparspectra provides this information; many manufacturers don’t. If they don’t, don’t buy from them.

This one is not really a myth, but it does confuse things. PAR 20 and PAR 30 are lamp size designations and PAR in this case stands for parabolic aluminized reflector. It describes the shape and size of the bulb and has nothing to do with the quality of the light. PAR 20 and PAR 30 are common sizes for bulbs used in the home.

A bit of factual information can easily lead to incorrect conclusions. Plants look green because they reflect green light and absorb red an blue. That makes sense and it follows that if they reflect green light, they don’t use it.

The absorption spectra for extracted chlorophyll shows peaks in the blue and red zones, but no absorption of green light. Again we conclude plants don’t use green light in photosynthesis.

We are wrong. Some green light (around 500 nm) is absorbed by plants, and when we look at photosynthesis in a whole leaf instead of extracted chlorophyll, it is clear that green light does contribute to photosynthesis.

We now know that plants grow best with a wide spectrum that contains all wavelengths including near IR and maybe even near UV. A good LED grow light will provide a wide spectrum which includes some green light.

LED lights tend to produce less heat than older technology, and their light intensity is relatively low. This has lead to the conclusion that you can put plants as close to the lights as you want and you won’t burn them.

The reality is that modern LED grow lights can produce a very high level of light and it can cause photo-bleaching and burn leaves. This depends very much on the plant, but a PPFD of 800 is enough to damage some plants.

This was a myth even with florescent technology but it persists with LED. People using cool white (more blue light) bulbs used to add a few incandescent bulbs (very red light) when it was time for plants to flower. It was believed that red light was needed to initiate the flowering process.

Some of the early LED lights were red and blue and it naturally followed that the blue ones would be best for veg and the red for flowers. There are even lights that allow you to switch between a veg mode ( more blue bulbs on) and a flower mode (more red bulbs on).

The reality is that plants grow and flower best with both blue and red light all of the time. For production you might want to fine tune this at different stages in a growth cycle, but for home use we can ignore it.

Lumens is a measure of light intensity so it logical to think that a grow light with more lumens is better. The problem is that lumens measure intensity based on the human eye, and we see green and yellow light much better than red and blue.

Consider this extreme case where the light is only yellow. People see a lot of light and therefore it gets a high lumen rating. But plants don’t use yellow light very well, so for a plant this light has a very low intensity.

Some of the early LED shop lights did not produce much light and were not suitable for growing plants, except for some very low light level requirements. That has all changed. The newer LED shop lights provide lots of light for seedlings and low level plants like lettuce and African violets.

You can buy complete systems including the reflectors or you can buy 4 ft long LED tubes that replace traditional florescent bulbs, allowing you to continue using the existing fixtures. Even better is that the price of these has come way down.

Florescent tubes and the new LED shop lights measure the color of light using a Kelvin (K) scale. A blue-white has a higher Kelvin value than a red-white. Since Kelvin is a unit of measure for temperature these lights are also called cool and warm.

Light in spring is more blue, and fall light is more red. Some people believe that it is a good idea to mimic this natural shift by using bluer light (6500 Kelvin) in spring and a redder light (3500 Kelvin) in fall.

In northern and southern hemispheres there is a real shift in color because sun light has to travel through more atmosphere in winter, but the change from spring to fall is only 300-500K. That is not significant enough to warrant changing lights with the seasons.

In the world of LED grow lights, Kelvin means very little. It is much better to compare actual spectra, but they can be hard to come by. Some manufacturer do show them on their website.

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Indoor growing of plants for personal consumption has steadily become more popular in recent years. The process allows for more control over the conditions that the plant grows in and allows us to create ideal conditions for growing your own plants of any sort. A technology that has seen much success in this new industry is LED grow lights. Although new, the LED grow light has already made its mark on the market due to its ability to produce great yields while not smothering the plant with heat and using a reasonable amount of electricity. There are, however, a few things to look out for when purchasing your first LED grow lights.

The first consideration when choosing your LED grow lights for indoor plants is the wattage of the light. This is determined by your available grow space. The general rule of thumb to follow is that every square foot of growing space needs 25 watts of power. From here you can calculate what you need for the space you have available, i.e. for 30 square feet, you’ll need a 750 watt panel and for 100 square foot, you’ll need a 2500 watt panel, or a few panels that make up 2500 watt.

A seed starts its life in the vegetative stage where the stems grow out to prepare for the flowering stage when flowers are formed. This stage normally lasts anything between 7 and 50 days. To maximize growth, the LED grow lights can be left on for 24 hour light cycles; however, standard light cycles dictate 18 hours on and 6 hours off. The growth in the vegetative stage can be boosted by using blue spectrum lights with a range of 440 – 470nm – this light mimics the long days of summer sun and encourages vegetative leaf growth.

When you’re ready to end the vegetative stage (if you want to end it before 50 days) the light cycle is switched to 12 hours on and 12 hours off. By adjusting the lighting to this schedule, the plant will automatically enter the flowering stage. When you change the lighting cycle, you can also switch the lights to red spectrum lights with a range of 640 – 660nm to get the most out of the flowering stage. The red light mimics the autumn sun and shorter days.

One of your considerations should definitely also be the angle of the lens. The smaller the angle, the smaller the coverage area, but the light density delivered to the plant will increase. Some LED lights come with customizable angles. If your LED grow lights are hung close to the plants, you should look for a light with a larger angle lens. The further your LED grow lights are from your plants, the smaller the angle of the lens.

LED grow lights have been successfully implemented in many growing operations, which include growing food such as tomatoes, lettuce, herbs and beans; house plants such as pothos and peace lily, flowers such as roses and violets; and in recent years, LED grow lights have also been used to grow medical marijuana with great success.

Using LED grow lights can definitely simplify the process of growing your own plants and food. If you keep the above-mentioned considerations in mind when choosing a LED grow light, you will find the perfect light in no time!

The number of light plants need varies depending on the type of plant. A low-light house plant can survive when you place them by the window. However, some indoor plants demand a brighter and more consistent amount of light for them to grow healthy and properly. These lcd grow lights are great for people who are nurturing vegetable seedlings in preparation for their spring garden. They are also good to coax a blooming houseplant to produce healthy flowers. These grow lights for plants will be one’s good companions as long as they choose the right light for the right plant. Choose from a wide range of varied wholesale lcd grow lights that would better fit your buyers" needs. Whether it is for low light plants, blooming plants, emerging seedlings, and even herbs.

There are a lot of lcd grow lights to choose from. There are led grow lights, indoor plants low light, full spectrum led grow lights, grow lights for succulents, and UV light for plants that will provide the right amount of light that plants need. These grow lights for plants are equipped with LED plant lights which makes them a more efficient grow light fixture in the long run. Aside from the longevity offered by LED lights, they use half the electricity of fluorescents and give off less heat. They are also safe as they do not shatter like normal lights, making them safe even around children.

These wide collections of lcd grow lights vary in the number of lumens they produce, making it a good fit to aid the growth of different plant varieties. Choose from a list of grow lights for indoor plants from plant light bulbs to 1000w led grow light to grow light stand and full spectrum grow lights and help provide tools for plant lovers to nurture their plants and seedlings.

Your claim “That’s because they don’t want to make any colors that won’t pass through the screen.” doesn’t gel with contemporary issues of various commercial realities which would be obvious to those in the electronics design and optical engineering industries, think conjunction of economies of scale with capital cost to finesse a fab process for the semiconductor material and Then to produce it reliably in bulk With the exclusions controlled in production timing SPC to suit your idea, from whence dost that idea arise ;-)

ie why go to the trouble to, I quote “..don’t want to make..” when the cost of excluding specific spectra not by any means a trivial matter at the silicon doping level When very cost effective LEDs efficient for their light output already for the colours you want with any ‘extra’ spectra not relevant and at negligible energy cost too…

Please indicate/link to the most credible source of your claim hopefully with some pointers to comparative economics going down that path especially when bulk LEDs from many sources have been very cheap for a long time versus the comparatively advanced and ever improving diffuser/filter plastics cost also declining ie think on the chemical engineering path of most economical plastics selecting out spectra you might not want which don’t necessarily impact the final product anyway etc IOW. Something substantive please not arbitrary tech speak sales claims to impress the unwary which seem to sprout from marketing which miss conjunction of silicon fab vs filter/diffusers comparative costings ?

Horticulture LED lights became the top choice for growers due to their efficiency, power, low heat, and longevity. NOKATECH offers a wide range of LED lights for home and industrial growers.

SMART 880 LED grow light stands out for its’ quality, performance, and features that other fixtures don’t have. The fixture itself is made from high-quality materials and has a maximum input power of 880W (with UV/IR bars connected, which work as an add-on and are sold separately.)

It is a high-performance, full-spectrum LED fixture suitable for any scale full-cycle horticulture cultivation. It has an integrated LCDthat allows you to monitor 4 kinds of Spectrums with UV/IR bars, PPF values, Wattage, Current, Timer (for sunset/sunrise), and dimming setting. It works as a master unit (controller) through which you can control SMART 880 SL up to 100 units connected to a daisy chain using RJ cables.

SMART 880 model with LCD screen works as a master unit/controller when connected to a daisy chain using RJ cables with SMART 880 SL fixtures. This way possible to connect up to 50 SMART 880 SL fixtures (slaves) and take complete control of sunrise/sunset, dimming, 4 kinds of spectrums, and UV/IR bars through the master unit.

In combination with UV/IR bars, the SMART 880 has 4 full-spectrum outputs for your plants: V1, F1, VS & FS. These full-spectrum outputs are specially designed for any scale horticulture cultivation, from your crops’ vegetative growth and blooming stage.

Ultraviolet light is very beneficial for plant growth. In plants, UV grow light (the pair of UV/IR bars), responses are very similar to blue light. It does drive photosynthesis. In safe doses, UV grow light may potentially reduce diseases.

By causing some healthy plant stress, UV/IR bars may encourage plants to produce their own natural “sunscreen” (protective compounds); for example, plants develop more trichomes, terpenes, and some color changes.

NOTE: UV/IR bars work as add-ons and are sold separately for SMART 880 and SMART 880 SL models. They add an extra 200 μmol/s are very straightforward to connect – ‘plug & play’.

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The rapid increase in the use of LED technology for horticultural lighting applications has also raised discussions regarding the potential human health risks compared to legacy lighting solutions. This is somewhat due to the differences in visual appearance (colour and intensities) of the light in such applications.

At a high enough intensity, any type of light, regardless of the source has the potential to harm the eyes or skin through prolonged thermal exposure or photochemical effects of ultraviolet, blue light &/or infrared emissions. Shorter wavelength, higher energy blue light (400nm and 500nm) can cause retina damage through a combination of photochemical action and high intensity. Higher concentration light sources will provide more direct energy and a higher risk. For example, staring at a clear blue sky (scattered blue light) is a low risk, while looking directly at the sun can begin irreversible damage almost immediately.

Prolonged direct viewing of bright light sources must always be avoided, especially at short distances. In practice, nobody voluntarily spends any significant time looking directly at an intense light source. Common sense and the natural human instinctive aversion reaction (we instinctively shut our eyes or look away) means that prolonged direct exposure of the eye to a potentially damaging light source will be avoided.

Like other lighting technologies, LED grow lights must be checked for photobiological safety according to EN 62471 – the standard for photobiological safety of lamps and lamp systems. This includes thermal and blue light analysis in the spectral range is 200nm to 3000nm. EN 62471 exposure limit classifications represent conditions under which it is believed most people may be repeatedly exposed without adverse health effects. It should be noted that the classification only indicates potential risk. Depending upon use, the risk may not actually become a real hazard.

When it comes to human visual perception, what is often forgotten is that “traditional” light sources were never designed or intended specifically for horticulture applications. Historically, artificial light has always been optimised for human visual benefit. LED grow lights on the other hand are specifically designed for the benefit of plants and thus sometimes appear strange to human eyes. Valoya LED grow lights are true wide spectrum lights, meaning they contain bits of all colours from the spectrum, including outside the PAR area, just like the sun. Because of this they appear from white to soft pink which makes them pleasant to work under and makes identifying the colour of plants underneath them easy. A cheap alternative to that, which most LED manufacturers opt for, is using red, blue and white LED chips which result in a strong, piercing pink color, unpleasant to human eyes. In terms of health effects, Valoya LED grow lights are not blue dominant and are classified in the no-risk or lowest risk group.

The eye is a complex organ that naturally tries its best to compensate for varying lighting conditions, and LED grow light spectra may not always appear “natural” to humans. If lighting conditions for the human eye change (e.g. going from a LED lit growth environment to natural daylight), colour perception may be temporarily affected while the eye adjusts. This is natural and should not be misinterpreted as possible “damage” from exposure to LED light.

In conclusion it can be said that commercially available LED light sources (for horticultural or other applications) can be considered human safe when designed, installed and used in accordance with the applicable standards, regulations and manufacturer’s instructions. Overall, in terms of photobiological safety, LED grow lights have similar characteristics to those of any other lighting technology.

Sure, by now we are all aware that LED grow light does wonderful things for plant growth. Plants grow quicker and healthier than under other, traditional lighting methods such as HPS. If the LEDs are good, plants can grow even better than under natural sunlight. But why are they always purple/pink?

All light sources contain a spectrum of colors within it – some light sources contain some of the colors, some contain all. Sunlight contains all spectrum colors and because of that feeds plants with all information they need. Additionally, because of the presence of all spectrum colors, it appears color-free to human eyes.

When constructing an LED lamp, we can decide which color LED chips to place inside. This depends on what kind of response we want to achieve from plants. For instance, if we want plants to grow tall, we will increase the amount of far-red, yellow, orange and green chips inside the luminaire. If we want plants to be compact, we will put more blue or UV colored chips.

Why plants respond in those ways to those particular colors is a broad topic. It is something that we will cover in a separate post. Either way, these responses are encoded in plants’ DNA. So, when designing LED lamps, we can count on plants responding the way nature has designed them to.

We could say that the two most important light colors to place in an LED lamp are: red and blue. Red is the main component that plants need for photosynthesis and stem elongation inhibition. Additionally, it signals to the plants that there are no other plants above it and that it can thus have uninhibited development. Blue stimulates stomatal opening, stem elongation inhibition, leaf expansion, curvature towards light and photoperiodic flowering.

The combination of these two sets of effects will, in simple terms, get the plant from seed to the vegetative stage and eventually to flowering. This however will be much slower than under continuous spectra a.k.a spectra that contain more than  just red and blue.

Adding some other spectrum colors such as green, could enhance the leaf expansion rate and stem elongation, which in turn results in higher biomass (yield) accumulation. By adding UV wavelenghts one can affect the accumulation of compounds such as phenolics which could boost the flavor of the end product or its health benefits to humans.

However, from the business perspective, red and blue LED chips are the cheapest to procure. And this is why most LED grow light manufacturers opt for simple red-blue combinations. Red chips have been manufactured for a long time and used as LED indicators in TV remotes, computers and other gadgets. Blue LEDs came into the market in the early 1990’s and both of these, just as they are, are suitable for plant cultivation.

Yes, that means that when you illuminate your plants with an LED light, it is as if you are pointing your TV remote towards it. It is the same light. Both red and blue LED chips are off-the-shelf products, meaning quickly accessible in countless factories in China. And with the combination of red and blue LED chips we get: purple or pink light that has become the visual synonym of the LED grow light industry. So, there is the answer to our question, but…

There is a standard of how comfortable or pleasant light is to human eyes. We call it CRI – The Color Rendering Index. The authority that determines this quantitative measure is The International Commission on Illumination (CIE) and it deals with issues of light, illumination, color and color spaces.

In simple terms, what CRI determines is: how natural do colors of objects look under different kinds of lighting. Natural in this case means, as they would appear under light that appears color free (such as sunlight or some types of incadescent light) and thus possible for the human spectator to identify all shades of color of the given object.

For instance, street lighting, typically High Pressure Sodium (HPS) has a CRI value of 20-40. Incadescent lights that we typically use to illuminate our homes have a CRI of 100. Typically, we consider CRI values below 50 to be difficult to work under and unable to portray objects in their true colors. Values above 50 are the opposite. This is why everything in street lighting (if it’s HPS) looks yellowish while under incandescent bulbs, even though they too are yellow-ish and warm, objects are visible in their naturalstate.

LED lamps that are simply made up of red-blue LED chips, reappropriated from gadget indicators, have a CRI value of 0! What that means is that it is effectively impossible to identify any color of objects underneath it.

While not damaging to human eyes, it is extremely unpleasant to work under this kind of light (to read a detailed breakdown of how LED light affects human health, please click here). Additionally, it makes it impossible to identify details on plants such as discolorations due to diseases, various insects etc. Humans are not used to this kind of light as CRI=0 light is nowehere to be seen in nature.

Valoya is one of few LED manufacturers that make their own, custom LED chips. We optimize the LED chips for plant growth and not for other uses. Furthermore, Valoya does not build LED lamps with simple red-blue chip combinations. There are bits of green, UV, far-red etc, depending on the spectrum.

This makes Valoya’s light a closer imitation of sunlight and a better source of information to plants than red-blue LED lights. The CRI value of Valoya lights is between 60 and 95. This means it appears to human eyes either as a pleasant, soft pink, or even plain white! LED grow lights do not have to be purple.

By complementing the LED chips combination with bits of other spectrum colors, we not only feed more information to the plants but also make a richer spectrum. We make one that contains more colors and is thus a closer match to sunlight.

The primary goal is making light that is beneficial for plants and not pleasant for human eyes. At the same time having a pleasant looking light is a great add-on that users of LED grow lights apreciate. We call this kind of light spectrum full, wide or continuous. Marketers of LED companies however use these terms incorrectly and we can not always rely on their statements.

A good rule of thumb is to trust your own eyes as well. If the light looks strange to human eyes, is overly sharp and looks unnatural, it has a low CRI value. It also probably means it is a result of a simple red-blue LED chip combination. The light that looks natural and pleasant to human eyes has a high CRI value and is probably made up of a combination of many differently colored LED chips. Below you can see Valoya’s NS12 and AP673L patented spectra.

To achieve these types of LED light spectra, Valoya has invested significant efforts in research. This is reflected in more than 600 large scale trials over the past 12 years. To learn more about Valoya’s patented spectra, please click here.

When deciding on the type of lighting for plants, first you need to ask yourself why are you growing the plants. If you are growing the plants because you enjoy seeing them then you would want to use lighting technologies designed for humans. If you do not care what the plants look like, then there are very efficient plant lights that are tuned to the light spectrum most appreciated by plants. That spectrum has the side effect that the plants can appear black, brown, or purple. Maybe you like purple plants.

LED lighting is an emerging technology. Every year there is some new product for humans that is also useful for growing and displaying plants. As such the ICPS cannot specifically recommend particular products but we can help to make the technology more approachable. The better you understand the technology, the less dizzying the choices.

Chlorophyll is the primary chemical in chloroplasts that coverts light energy into chemical energy in plant cells. Chlorophyll primarily uses deep red and deep blue light. Humans do not see these colors well. Other light sensitive chemicals in chloroplasts can help chlorophyll utilize other colors of light at lower efficiency.

Generally carnivorous plants need more light than what humans generally use indoors. Plants that need full sun need very intense light and are best grown outdoors as much as possible. But there are many species of carnivorous plants that do well with a reasonable amount of lighting. This is especially great if you use the spill-over light for lighting a room.

White or near-white lighting is preferred for plants on display in human living areas. There are some off-the-shelf options for white plant lighting but you may need to be a little creative if you are setting up a display area for your plants in a living area.

If you have a large collection of plants not in a living area, there are a number of types of plant-specific lighting available. The cost and carbon footprint for electricity for the grow area can be reduced 50% to 70% by using LED lighting tuned for plants instead of white LEDs tuned for humans. You should mix in a few white lights to help you see the plants better.

Note: On this page, 450nm wavelength light is referred to as "deep blue" and 660nm wavelength light as "deep red". Chlorophyll in plants primarily uses light around these wavelengths. Human eyes have very low sensitivity to light at these wavelengths so high levels of 450nm and 660nm wavelength light appear dim or deep to humans.

The dominant type of lighting manufactured today is the white LED. These LEDs work like fluorescent lights. Fluorescent lights use high voltage and mercury vapor to produce UV light which is converted to visible light by phosphors deposited on the inside of a glass tube. For white LEDs, instead of producing UV light with high voltage, they efficiently produce intense deep blue light via semiconductor light emitting diodes at low voltage. The deep blue light is passed through a coating of phosphors to convert most of the blue light to longer wavelength colors.

The LED chips are mounted in packages. The package on the left contains a deep blue LED chip mounted in the center while the chip on the right has a deep red LED chip. The deep red LED chip has a phosphor coating over the chip to convert the inherent deep blue light to deep red. These chips are covered with a clear resin. They are part of a blue/red panel light intended for plant lighting. The 225 LED panels with blue and red LEDs produce intense to very intense lighting for plants depending on the wattage and distance from the plants.

For white and purple LEDs, manufacturers can adjust the phosphors to produce any color spectrum desired for lighting. White lighting products will contain LED chips in packages with a yellow-orange phosphor coating to convert the blue light to white light. Purple plant lighting LEDs would use a different mix of phosphors that would look red when the power is off.

This strip light is sold for use as accent and under-cabinet lighting but is useful for plant lighting under conditions where other available products will not work. These lighting strips can be very expensive to use for plant lighting. It takes about 200 of these chips per square foot (30 cm2) to provide a moderate amount of light for plants.

LED spotlights also work well for plant lighting. A power supply and LED module on the left are from a white LED spotlight. The AC to DC power supply is necessary for efficient LED lights. The LED module on the right is from a purple LED plant light bulb. It is higher wattage and uses 20 LEDs. The phosphor coating has a red color from phosphors that produce the deep red light plants appreciate.

The LED light modules were removed from failed LED bulbs. The bulbs failed because of improper assembly in a factory causing the modules inside the bulbs to overheat. Notice the scorching on the right module circuit board. Individual LEDs do get hot and will fail if they get too hot.

Care must be taken to make sure LED bulbs and fixtures get enough air circulation to keep them from getting too hot. The useful lifetime of individual LED chips is determined by how hot they get. The hotter they get, the quicker they dim over time. If they get too hot, they will fail. Under ideal conditions, LEDs will normally lose 30% of their brightness after they have been in use 16 hours a day for 4 to 8 years depending on the exact fixtures used and how hot they get.

If you use spotlights over 10 watts, they should not be in any sort of enclosure like a desk lamp. Most purple LED plant spot lights are 18 to 35 watts. If you use strip lights, they must be adhesive-backed and stuck to aluminum heat sinks. If you use panel lights, there must be air circulation around them. This is especially important with 30 watt and higher panel lights. 35 watt panel lights can be 18°C (30°F) higher than ambient temperature. A small fan may be necessary if the light fixtures are in enclosed spaces. A fan is not necessary if air can naturally circulate around the light fixture.

The weak link in many LED fixtures is the power supply. The parts can degrade over time from the heat produced by the power supply itself and the LEDs. This is another reason not to enclose LED bulbs and fixtures.

Poorly designed power supplies can produce radio and TV interference. Ferrite core RFI/EMI suppressor cable clips may help with minor interference. Unfortunately, fluorescent tube to LED conversion kits may produce more interference than can be blocked by ferrite cores. There are much better choices than converting fluorescent fixtures to use tubes with LEDs mounted inside.

When shopping for LED fixtures and bulbs, you need to be careful about hyped or misleading claims. It is common to state the watt-equivalents of a fixture or bulb. Equivalent to what? Did they actually do experiments to determine the claims? The light spectrums are very different for other light technologies so there can be no easy conversion number. Instead, carefully look for the actual wattage of the device. This is what matters. It may be in the fine print. And for your particular situation, higher wattage may not be better because higher wattage means more heat produced. Also ignore many other claims such as light dispersion angle and area illuminated. Properly specified, light dispersion angle should include percent attenuation of light at that angle. Quite often they use the 50% attenuation level. Likewise, area illuminated should have distance from the light source and attenuation at the edges of the area. These issues will be discussed below.

Most LED plant lights available are designed for growing Cannabis in a basement or closet. The lights are hung from a ceiling on cables that can be adjusted as the plants grow. Mounting these lights can be problematic under shelves or over desks and tables. ALWAYS, when setting up lighting for plants, remember safety is the number one concern. Make sure the light fixtures are mounted securely. Make sure air is able to circulate around the bulb or fixture to help cool it. Make sure cords and wires are secured. Make sure plugs are plugged in all the way. Use timers instead of constantly plugging and unplugging power cords.

When it comes to plants, humans, and light, there is a conflict of interest between plants and humans over light. Human eyes are tuned to colors reflected by plant leaves. The plants reflect those colors of light because they have little use for it. If human eyes had exactly the same light sensitivity spectrum as the absorbance spectrum of plants, the plants would look black to us. That would not be very useful to humans. This means we have to make choices about how we grow plants under lights. It uses less energy to grow plants under the light spectrum that is most efficient for them. But we cannot see those colors of light very well. You think the plants are in the dark, but they are not in terms of light energy.

The peak light absorption of chlorophyll in plants is at the blue and red tails of the human light sensitivity spectrum. The precise spectrum the plants use is not known because it is difficult to measure light usage in live plants. Most graphs of light absorbance of chlorophyll and other light sensitive chemicals are after the chemical is extracted from leaves. Some experimentation may be necessary to find the right light spectrum for your plants.

Plant lights consisting of just deep blue and deep red LEDs that match the color of the chlorophyll peak absorbance points work well for most plants. The ratio of blue to red light appears not to be a major consideration for some plants while the ratio can be a life or death issue for other plants. One reason for this variation in light color sensitivity is, in the mid and high latitudes, sunlight is bluer during summer than it is in winter because of the way light interacts with the atmosphere. Temperate plants can use this seasonal variation in sunlight properties to determine when to grow and when to bloom and go dormant or expect to die. Equatorial plants would not see this variation but may use sunlight properties to determine if they are in full sun or in shade.

To confuse the issue even more, before the advent of LED lighting, fluorescent lighting was the best source for plant lighting. Under most conditions, fluorescent grow lights were not much better than white fluorescent tubes. The color spectrum of light from the white fluorescent tubes did not match chlorophyll spectrum very well but the plants grew spectacularly if they could handle the heat.

Plants can also use changes in day length to determine life stages. When growing plants that require seasonal light cues under artificial light, a timer that is capable of changing the on and off times daily according to the date and latitude is critical. This helps prevent the plants from getting stuck in a particular season. This is especially bad if the season they get stuck in is the dormant season.

In their native habitats, many carnivorous plants live with full exposure to the sun. This is about 100,000 lux of light at noon. To grow these plants indoors requires a lot of light, not 100,000 lux, but still a lot. Even plants that normally live in somewhat shaded conditions still require more light than a lighting designer would suggest for indoor lighting for humans. Bright shade is about 15,000 lux; typical office lighting is 1000 lux.

We are using lux here to indicate the amount of light the plants need. A lux meter will measure the light intensity with the same sensitivity spectrum as the human eye. Unfortunately there is no definitive way to accurately measure the amount of light from a fixture that is useful for plants. Most of the time we have to resort to trial and error.

Lighting levels need to be determined by trial and error because everyone has a unique situation. It helps to have a Lux meter when using white lighting. There are meters that are marketed for use in determining plant-relevant lighting levels. They will give you a number that could be of little value.

To get 25,000 lux requires 2000 lumens or 30 watts of white LED lighting per square foot (30 cm2) of growing area. The plants need the lights on for 12 to 16 hours per day. The lamps should be high enough above the top of the plants to illuminate the whole growing space but not too high wasting light. This height will depend on the lighting fixture or bulb. Reflective material on three sides will help immensely by decreasing edge effects.

For blue/red plant lighting, 15 watts per square foot (30 cm2) of growing area works well. How high the light fixtures are above the plants depends on the fixtures and reflective surfaces at the sides of the growing area. Experimentation will be necessary.

Expect LEDs to dim over time. After 35,000 hours of use it is not unusual for them to be only 70% as bright as they were initially. They can lose luminosity quicker if they overheat.

This lower light level can be achieved by using 40% lower wattage, illuminating a larger area with the same fixtures, using fewer or different fixtures, or not using side reflectors.

The plants preferring less light may be placed on the edges of the grow area where the