Growing a garden indoors can be a fun and rewarding experience. The use of grow lights indoors is important for providing plants and seedlings light when natural sunlight is unavailable. One of the challenges of indoor gardening can be finding the right type of lighting to use. In the past, florescent lights have been a popular choice but with recent advances in LED lighting, LED indoor grow lights are becoming a favorite among indoor gardeners for many reasons.
One of the largest advantages to using LED lighting when growing indoors is heat control. Traditionally, incandescent or fluorescent lights can burn very hot and damage plants if not closely monitored. LED lighting outputs a lot less heat than traditional grow lamps, allowing the lamp to be placed closer to the plant without the worry of heat damage. One thing to remember if choosing indoor LED grow lights, plants should be kept in a room that is between 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit due to the low heat they produce. Traditional lamps that burn hot can cause a lot of water evaporation so plants need to be watered more frequently. Because LED lighting produces significantly less heat, plants will require less water.
Another factor when choosing grow lights is cost efficiency. A typical LED bulb can last up to 30,000 hours of use compared to the 2000-4000 hours on a traditional bulb. LED lighting uses about 80% less electricity than traditional lighting, making the LED bulb a wiser investment. LED lighting provides a targeted light spectrum because LED bulbs are available in a variety of colors. This is an advantage over wide spectrum lighting because it allows the gardener to target the light based on the specific plant they are growing.
When choosing indoor lighting for your plants, the advantages of LED grow lights seem to outweigh traditional methods of lighting, making LED lamps a top choice for indoor gardeners.
