Which Hydroponic Lights are Best?
Hydroponic lights, also known as grow lights, are used, sometimes together with one of its other varieties, to achieve the best lighting results. If you are using natural sunlight in any way, the grow lights will be used to supplement natural light; if you are using strictly artificial lighting, your setup would naturally be a tad more elaborate.
It is essential to understand the principle of color temperature and its effect on plant life if you’re setting up hydroponic lighting. To start with, color temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin and would refer to the color spectrum of light – not heat or cold. Blue light – at about 6000K – is perceived as the coolest while red-orange light – at the 2000K range – is considered the warmest. In general, full-vegetation plants do well with the darker blue spectrum (closest to normal sunlight at 6000K), while fruit/flowering plants thrive with slightly warmer color temperatures (4800K). In addition, know that plants draw from the red-orange part of the spectrum in the reproductive stage. In an ideal setup, however, your hydroponic lights should be a combination of different colors to best suit your plants’ needs.
The most common kind of bulb used in hydroponic lighting is the Metal Halide (MH) bulb. This High-Intensity Discharge (HID) light leans most toward the blue part of the spectrum, resembles direct sunlight the most, and is preferred for almost all growing situations. As such, this bulb works best with leafy, full-vegetation plants.
Another HID bulb used is the High Pressure Sodium (HPS) bulb. This bulb tends to emit orange-red light approximately on the 2200K mark, and is good for flowering plants, but not ideal as an artificial lighting substitute. It must generally be utilized together with natural sunlight or other artificial bulbs.
Flourescent lighting is your 3rd option. The advantage with fluorescents is that even if they are less intense, they’re cheaper, can be placed close to the plants because of their low emission of heat, and in combination with one another, can cover the color temperature spectrum fairly well.
Still, you have even more options: (1) incandescent light which isn’t as intense and would get too warm when placed too closely to the plants and (2) LED lights, which can cover the spectrum well without emitting heat but are way too expensive.
As you can tell, there are a wide range of lighting setups that can be made from these hydroponic lights. The combination that is ideal for your garden can be determined with your retailer.
