Typical Usage Of Plant Growth Lights

Plant lights are used in indoor gardening, plant propagation and food production, including indoor hydroponics and aquatic plants. Although most plant lights are used in industry, they can also be used in homes.

According to the inverse square law, the intensity of the light radiated by the point source (in this case, the bulb) that reaches the surface is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the surface to the source (if an object is twice as far away, it will only receive four One part of the light) This is a serious obstacle for indoor growers, and many techniques are used to use light as efficiently as possible. Therefore, reflectors are often used in lights to maximize light efficiency. The lamps or lamps are moved as close as possible so that they have the same illumination, and all light from the lamps falls on the plants instead of the surrounding area.

For example, incandescent lamps, fluorescent lamps, metal halide lamps (HID) and light emitting diodes (LED). Today, the most widely used lamps in professional use are HID and fluorescent lamps. Indoor flower and vegetable growers usually use high-pressure sodium (HPS/SON) and metal halide (MH) HID lamps, but fluorescent lamps and LEDs replace metal halides due to their efficiency and economy.

Metal halide lamps are often used in the vegetative phase of plant growth because they emit a greater amount of blue and ultraviolet radiation. With the introduction of ceramic metal halide lighting and full-spectrum metal halide lighting, they are increasingly used as exclusive light sources in the growth stage of vegetative reproduction. The blue spectrum may induce a greater nutrient response in plants.

High-pressure sodium lamps are also used as a single light source throughout the vegetative and reproductive stages. Likewise, they can be used as a correction for full-spectrum lighting in the reproductive stage. The red spectrum may trigger a greater flowering response in plants. If you use a high-pressure sodium lamp as the vegetative period, the plants will grow slightly faster.

In recent years, LED indoor growth lamps can produce light of specific wavelengths. NASA has tested the efficiency of increasing space food on the space station. The results show that plants are affected by light in the red, green and blue parts of the visible spectrum.