Hello all. In winter time we have very short days where I live in Sweden, and some houseplants suffer a lot from that. I have been testing different lights for my plants, but many of them produce more warmth then light, it seems. I've seen some ads about LED plant lights, but I have my doubts :-| Has anybody tried this type of lights? Does it works well or just enough? I don't like my electric bill :-? Thanks.
I have seen some information on them and I have not been convinced. Right now I use a simple 4 foot long florescent fixture and can make my Wanderingng Jew as purple as can be. I would recommend looking into some T8 and T5 florescent fixtures. They are very small, very efficient and you can get a lot of good plant growing bulbs for them. Try to find bulbs in the 5500-7500 Kelvin range and you will be set. Plant grow bulbs are fine too but you will often have a very hard time finding the Kelvin ratings. Even if you do find the information it is often so different for each company that it can be misleading. If you can not find them, look for aquarium lighting. They have DIY power compact florescent lighting which will give you a TON of light for a lot of plants with a lot less bulbs than regular flourescents. Be careful though, PCF do get hot, a lot hotter than regular flourecents.
I hate to come off as a gun slinger on my first post, but I build high powered LED fixtures as a hobby and we've already started converting to LED in the Reef keeping hobby. Trust me, corals are far more light demanding than houseplants, and if I can replace a 400watt metal halide with LEDs then I can ignore T5's and T8's. One big problem - I build my own LED lights. Right now Japan is the only country using LED widee-scale commercially for plant growth, and they aren't saying much because of their competition with china. Also, most of the LED growth lights you see on the market are under-powered / over priced junk markteted towards dope growers with too much red light. The lights I build for my own reef tanks and house plants emit 10-100x the growth spectrum and cost half as much to build. If anybody wants to measure PAR (photosynthetic active radiation) with my 20watt blue LED bars -vs- T8s or T5s be my guest. Plus, I don't have to change my LEDs like fluorescent tubes and just hope the phosphor mix is the same. Also note that NASA is planning on using LEDs for spaceflight. Go ahead - Google it. Also, plants require either blue light, or far red light, or a combination of both. They don't want green, nor yellow or UV. The kelvin rating used for fluorescent tubes is ambiguous and doesn't tell you what it's growth potential is, and yet almost all fluorescent lights waste energy emitting green and yellow and often 400-450nm which is of little value to a plant. Same with HID So, the answer is, LEDs are awesome in my experience for growing plants and more efficient than any other technology. Here in Michigan where daylight also suffers 8months out of the year I'm not waiting for Chinese manufacturers to solve the problem for us. They already make enough junk - I build them myself.
Deanna, you 'done good'. I know you must feel like a proud parent. It is a beauty though. Wish I could get mine to look that well.
I can recommend a houseplant that loves short days - a christmas cactus. They actually won't flower around this time of year unless they have long dark nights. I once had great success with these plants in an office because we went home at five o'clock and so they didn't get light again until dawn.
LED lighting was used to grow this lettuce indoors from seedling to harvest in only three weeks. It is energy efficient and the LEDs will last ten years under normal use. I am eventually converting my lighting to all LEDs.
3 weeks? I want your soil recipe and a bunch of your seeds! It takes 2 months here even in good potting soil and direct sunlight for me to grow lettuce of any kind to a harvestable size. Please tell us what brand of bulb you are using and other specifics. Looks like a pretty big bulb, only ones I have found like that in a good growing spectrum were $125 each or more. I may have to eventually switch over to LED lighting but not until I can do it on the same scale as flourescents for a respectable price. In 6 years I have spent a little over $60 for both my fixtures and my bulbs. I can grow a lot of vegetation under them. Last time I did my price checking I could build a complete setup to light 10 full sheets of plywood full of plants for less than $300. When LEDS get to a price closer to that, maybe $500 I will have to consider changing my future plans. But last time I checked it was gonna be well over $2,000 to light that setup. Of course if I put it off much longer LEDS will be obsolete.
I do not use soil, the lettuce is growing in a homebuilt aeroponic hydroponic system. The light is a 90 watt LED, red/blue. I purchased it on EBay last year for around $130, and I just purchased another unit. My thinking is $130 over ten years, it will cost me $13 a year. I can certainly grow $13 worth of lettuce at upstate New York winter prices. The specs and a progression of photos are on my blog. We have not purchased lettuce from the supermarket in quite sometime, and we most likely will not need to in the future. I also use full spectrum T5 fluorescent lighting, however, I will phase them out as they need replacement. The LEDs will pay for themselves, as they last more than five times longer, and are even more energy efficient.
great thread and info all! great post blasterman. lots of info there. do you have a business making these LEDs?
$130 is simply out of my price range for 1 light. Someday, maybe the prices will be respectable but until then flourescents will fit my needs.
