led grow lights review

Interestingly, the early adoption of LED grow light was not due to the one factor vital to commercial farming – returns on investment. As we noted, the earliest lights were many times costlier compared to HID grow lights, and were rather inefficient as well. However, they offered a number of unique advantages, such as the absence of heating. Given the closed indoor greenhouse complexes and the thousands of lights being used, heating can prove to be a major danger for the commercial concern. Matters are made worse by the fact that commercial lights have to stay on for 14-16 hours at a stretch in order to emulate the natural daylight. With LEDs however, the amount of heat produced over time is negligible enough for them to be touched by hand. This does not mean that LEDs do not produce heat at all, but rather that the heat does not escape in all directions. Instead, special cooling mechanisms are used to funnel out the heat without affecting the plants.

This lack of heating, coupled with other benefits like possible emission of UV rays (if needed), dimming capabilities and later, cost reductions, is triggering a massive shift away from HIDs to cheap led grow lights among commercial growers.

Even as debate rages on about the desirability of allowing ordinary citizens to grow marijuana, a number of states in the US has legalized the production of marijuana for medical purposes (and a handful, for recreational purposes as well). However, society is yet to accept the growing, sale and consumption of the herb, and therefore, growing the leafy plant outdoors is often considered something borderline illegal. Furthermore, marijuana is not a native plant of the colder regions, and especially in areas witness to snow and sleet, outdoor cultivation is simply unfeasible.

The solution is to grow marijuana – medical or recreational – indoors, in specially designed rooms. Rather fortuitously the fall in pricing of LED grow light has coincided with the gradual relaxation of marijuana growing norms in a number of US states. This implies that unlike traditional horticultural industries, marijuana growers have no legacy of using HIDs, and this has helped them take up LEDs directly.