| How
does the Lumen output of the LED-PlantBar
compare to other grow lights?
Lumens and lux are measurements of how bright a light source appears to
the human eye. Since the human eye is most sensitive to colors plants don't
need, and least sensitive to colors plants prefer, Lumens can't be used
to accurately compare the plant growing capability of grow lights. If a
grow light manufacturer rates his grow light output in Lumens he's only
telling you how bright his grow light will appear to you and light your
room, not how well it will grow your plant.
The most
accurate unit of measurement for comparing grow lights is
the microEinstein, which measures how many
photons of light strike an area per second.
But while this is a much better way to
estimate a lamp's plant growing ability
than lumens or lux, it is still very difficult
to directly compare two different types
of grow lights. All grow lights except
the LED-PlantBar emit large amounts
of light plants don't use very efficiently,
so including that light output in a light's
plant growing measurement is misleading.
How many of your
lights will I need for my plants?
That depends on the size of your plant. We generally recommend using
two individual LED-PlantBars per square foot of growing space
for a typical full-sun plant. Plants requiring less light, like most
orchids, grow well with only one LED-PlantBar per square foot of growing
space. The LED-PlantBar provides three LED clusters in an
easy to mount bar.
Will your LED grow
lights make my plants look gray?
Sunlight and light from indoor room lights are a mix of many colors,
including green light. Plants look green because they reflect this green
light. To ensure your plants will look very natural when grown under
LED-PlantBars, a small amount of green light has been added to
the output spectrum generated by the LED-PlantBar to bring out the
natural appearance of your plants. A plant grown under LED-PlantBars will look very similar to a plant viewed under sunlight or normal
room lighting. I would like to
compare LED-PlantBars to high-pressure sodium lamps. What is the micromols
per square meter per second (μmol·m-2·s-1) of photons, or the PAR
watts/square meter of each bar?
Direct comparisons are not possible since LED-PlantBars only emit those
light wavelengths needed for plant growth and health. Traditional
white-light-based growing lamps were originally designed to accommodate
human vision and light up warehouses and factories. PAR meters are of
relatively little use as a measurement of light that plants really need.
The typical μMols of LED-PlantBars is:
44.0, measured @ 18 inches distance from the middle of the bar.
See the pdf file, "Technology Comparison" I
was reading other plant light websites concerning blue/red spectrums. With
HID lights, metal halides are used in vegetative growth, and high pressure
sodium is used for fruiting and flowering plants; Will I need separate
bars for each? These other companies recommend using 50% blue in
vegetative foliage stages, then 75% red in blooming stages. Also, how many
bars would be required to fill a particular room?
Our LED plant light products operates differently than
traditional lighting products in regards to wavelengths. The reason you
need to switch light types with traditional white lights is that the
wavelengths are not properly mixed. Take sunlight for example, you only
have one sunlight, and while there is some wavelength change during the
year, most plants are not affected. Traditional white lights emit huge
amounts of blue light and only a little bit of red. Blue is good for
growing, but bad for flowering. If you are using our standard light bar,
then you will want to add a little deep red for flowering. This is most
easily accomplished by having a single GE Soft White 60W light in the room
during flowering. The light needs only to be in the room, and not up close
to the plants. As for coverage, that's something the user needs to
experiment with. For full sun plants, we recommend using 8 light bars, at
a distance of 24" from the plants. This setup would cover a 2½ foot
by 2½ foot area. However, many of our customers have found that their
plants do not need nearly this much light when using LEDtronics LED-PlantBar
products. Many find that 4 light bars in the frame will cover the same 2½
× 2½ foot area just fine. Others use 8 bars per frame and hang the frame
higher, thus covering more plot area.
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