Popular Kinds Of Hydroponic Lights
In hydroponics, one of the largest contributors to plant growth (other than the nutrient solution) is the illumination. Plants need light to perform photosynthesis, and they need particular frequencies in the light spectrum for different stages of maturity (plant growth and leafing uses a different part of the spectrum than blooming and flowering). Hydroponic lights (commonly called “grow lights”) are used to stimulate these actions in plants. Here are the most common types of hydroponic lights, and their usage.
Metal Halide (MH)
One of the most common types of grow lights, this is a High Intensity Discharge (HID) bulb that leans toward the blue part of the spectrum, which encourages plant vegetation and leafy growth. If your garden has no normal lighting at all, this is a good option for your primary lighting source. Plants that are exposed to Metal Halide have the tendency to increase its thickness.
High Pressure Sodium (HPS)
Falling under the HID category this variety of grow light sways more on the orange and red spectrum, which is the perfect color spectrum for plants in the flowering or budding stage. This kind of bulb serves as a supplementary lighting for the different kinds of lighting whether natural or artificial. HPS lighting makes plants grow abnormally tall and thin.
Fluorescent lights
Standard fluorescent bulbs are ideal source of lighting for seedlings, lettuce, and spinach, but doesn’t work well with other plants because it doesn’t have enough intensity. However, the newer high-output fluorescents make great hydroponic lights, because they can be combined to cover the full light spectrum. Because these bulbs do not emit as much heat as the HID bulbs, you can position these bulbs in close proximity to the plants.
LED lights
One of the newer choices available, LED grow lights are touted as a great choice in hydroponics because they can cover a broad spectrum and because they emit intense light with very little heat. Nevertheless, one drawback of LED grow lights is the fact that it can be quite costly, which then pushes growers to use cheaper and more affordable alternatives. The LED lighting may be very efficient and gives out good outcomes, but its cost drives people away to look for other options.
Incandescent grow lights
In spite of the availability and the cost, incandescent bulbs are still the last on the list when it comes to the different choices of hydroponic lights because it is least productive. They give off a limited color range and burn so hot that they cannot be put near enough to the plants to be very effective. Color-corrected incandescents are sometimes used as highlight lighting or to supplement other lighting for individual plants, but incandescents should never be used as a primary lighting source.
Because hydroponic lights cover numerous parts of the spectrum needed at different phases of growth, many gardens will use more than one type of bulb in their lighting array to provide full coverage. Since each plant has a distinctive set of needs, the crop that you grow will have an effect on the arrangement and the type of grow lights that you will use.
