Are LED grow lights worth the investment?

Author: Carrie Cao Date:2022-01-06

One of the main sales characteristics of LED grow lights is that their operating temperature is much lower than that of the competition, so they are more energy-efficient. But LED grow lights are also more expensive than traditional grow lights, so the question you may have to ask yourself before buying is "are they really worth the extra money?"

Before deciding whether to install LED grow lights, it helps to understand what they are and how they affect plant growth.

The leds working principle is to treat a single LED fixture as a structure containing many small semiconductors (diodes). As long as the fixture is inserted and opened, these semiconductors restrict the flow of electrons. This limitation causes the diodes to emit a lot of light, which plants can absorb and use it to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugar.

Other types of plant lights also convert electronic energy into usable grow light, but they are generally not as efficient as LEDs and generate excessive heat. It is true that heat energy is not completely wasted, because plants need quite warm temperatures to grow well, but poor-quality grow lights usually radiate far more heat than plants can use.

Another interesting aspect of many LED plant growth lights is that designers have been able to "tune" them so that they emit the best spectrum for plants. Blue and red are the two colors most plants prefer for optimal growth, so many of today's LED grow lights have strong peaks in these two colors.

LED grow lights are great because they are energy-efficient, durable, and "tuned" the spectrum to best meet the needs of plants.

Now, if you still have a few incandescent bulbs in your garage, don't want to use them as plant growth lights. They can illuminate the room well and provide good warm light, but because they only emit a small part of the available photosynthetic light, they provide very little energy for plant growth.

What about skipping the light? Of course, this is an option, but remember, it's just plant foods, not fertilizers. Since our winter days are short-thanks to our northern latitude-many of our indoor plants are now almost hungry. Some plants can survive the dark winter days, but they usually look sparse and are sad for months.

So back to the question. Compared with traditional plant growth lights, is it worth paying a premium for LED plant growth lights? Weighing all the factors, I would say yes, LED grow lights are worth the money.