LED Plant lights are good for growing?
It will only get more and more confusing.
First, we know that plants need red and blue light, because other wavelengths, such as green and yellow light, are not absorbed during photosynthesis.
Providing your plants with white light with a lot of green and yellow wavelengths means paying for a lot of wasted light.
We were told that this is why LED lamps with red and blue diodes are more efficient. You won’t waste money on electricity to create light that plants don’t even need. This makes sense. But now we are told the opposite. In fact, full-spectrum white light is better. This also makes sense.
So what is the truth? Is white light good for plant growth?
The short answer: yes. It is better than LEDs with only blue and yellow light.
By adding additional diodes, we can make it better. But before we start, let’s take a closer look at what a white LED light is. Because it is not white.
What is white LED?
Let me explain what I mean while clarifying a misunderstanding. The white LED is actually not white.
The first “white” LED actually encapsulated the red, green, and blue LEDs into a single diode. Mixing these three colors together will produce white light. Changing the ratio of each will produce a different color temperature.
The same combination of three LEDs, usually adding a fourth to enrich the spectrum, and is still used in some applications today. But this is not the manufacturing method of the “white” diodes that we see in grow lights.
Using three LEDs of different colors together is obviously not the most effective way to generate white light. Therefore, another method using only a single LED was developed.
The principles used for these LEDs are the same as those already used for fluorescent lamps. Fluorescent tubes actually produce ultraviolet light, not white light. The powder coating inside the tube converts this ultraviolet light into red, green and blue light. And, as mentioned earlier, the combination of these three colors looks white.
LEDs that emit ultraviolet light or violet light and then convert them into white light through a phosphor coating on a lens or other housing are called fully-converted white light LEDs. These work, but they are not efficient.
This prompted researchers to try to manufacture partially converted LEDs. They use blue light instead of ultraviolet light, and the phosphor coating converts part of the blue light into yellowish light (composed of red and green). The yellow color combines with the remaining blue to produce white light.
Since only part of the blue light is converting (as opposed to the entire ultraviolet light), this type of diode is more efficient.
And efficiency continues to improve, and white LEDs are now the most efficient lamps on the market. Especially those with colored lights added, but we will enter in a minute.
White LED spectrum
When these phosphor-coated diodes first appeared, the spectrum was quite narrow. But the use of different phosphors and different blue wavelengths leads to wider and wider spectrums.
If you look at the spectrum of the popular white light LED grow lights, you will find that today’s white light LEDs can provide you with true full-spectrum light and output at every wavelength.
What is the wavelength of the white LED diode?
As can be seen from the above spectrogram, today’s white LEDs emit light of all visible wavelengths. The number of each wavelength they provide you depends on the color temperature of the light.
For example, cool white light (such as light with a color temperature of 6500K) contains more blue wavelengths. Warm white light, such as white light with a color temperature of 3000K, contains more red wavelengths.
How to change the color temperature of white diodes?
This is just a matter of using a thicker phosphor layer and changing the wavelength of the blue LED under the phosphor coating. Modifying these two variables allows manufacturers to change the color temperature of their LEDs.
Let’s take a look at some of the more common color temperatures, see how they compare and when to use them.
2700k Vs 3000k For Flowering
A lower color temperature means warmer white light, and warmer light contains more red wavelengths than cold light. Therefore, these color temperatures are very suitable for flowering.
When it comes to LEDs, you will usually find 3000K or 3500K. 2700K is not common in LEDs, but it is the color temperature of many HPS or CMH bulbs.
A lower color temperature (2700K) is more suitable for flowering, but if you use light at every growth stage, it is better to use a slightly cooler color, such as 3000K or 3500K
5000k and 6500k for plants
Both 5000K and 6500K white light are very suitable for plant growth, but not very suitable for flowering. It still works, but a warmer color temperature will be better.
Therefore, I would only recommend cool LEDs like this if you are a vegetarian and not anything else. If you will also use light to bloom, you need a color temperature of 4000K or lower. If you are just vegetables, the light at 6500K is better than the light at 5000K, although both can work well.
5000k LED vegetables
5000K light contains more red than 6500K light. The red light actually helps a lot during the vegetable season, but since the colder light still contains a lot of red, it’s best for vegetables.
6500k LED lights
The 6500K LED light is definitely a vegetable expert. If you plan to only make vegetables or clones, then a cold light like this is ideal.
Are white LED lights more suitable for growing plants?
This brings us back to the original question. The answer is a resounding “yes”. White LED lights are very suitable for growing plants.
However, plants mainly need red and blue light while green and yellow light are not used. Isn’t that true?
Does this mean that white light is less efficient than “fuzzy” LEDs?
It is not.
As we learn more about the effects of different colors of light on photosynthesis, we begin to realize that green light is not as useless as we thought.
Green light actually penetrates deeper into the canopy of plants than other colors. This means that a light fixture with a healthy amount of green will stimulate further growth under the canopy compared to light that does not contain green wavelengths.
Finally, white light has a great influence on plant growth. Because it contains many green wavelengths, it will lead to stronger growth. If it is warm white light with a healthy amount of red wavelength light, it will also produce a large yield.
If you add additional red diodes to the mix, you will get a better blooming light. This is exactly what many of the most popular LED manufacturers are doing today.
If you look at the best LED plant growth lights on the market today, they all mainly use white diodes (in some cases COB). But they no longer only use white diodes.
Depending on the brand, they add a variety of additional colors: some only add dark red, some add dark red with infrared and ultraviolet rays, and some add some blue. Some of them have only a few extra diodes, while others have many. There are kind of models avaiable for your choose as below.
LED Grow Light Panels: there are 300 watt, 400 watt, 600 watt, 660 watt, 720 watt, 800 watt, 1000 watt, 1200 watt, 1500 watt available for your testing, it is patent design model and hots selling model for market, specially 600 Watt and 800 Watt led panel grow light
LED Grow Light kits: there are linear shape type and square PCB board for indoor and outdoor greenhouse.
LED lamp for plant: there are T8 tube and T5 tube grow light available
UFO led grow light: 100 Watt, 150 watt, 200 watt, 240 watt, 300 watt available, and this model is hot selling for customers
White light UFO plant growth light is a kind of light fixture that uses LED chips to produce light for plant growth in a modern and effective way.
UFO LED grow lights come in many shapes and sizes, but as the most basic unit of LED grow lights, LED chips have the greatest impact on the quality of light. Compared with traditional lighting solutions, one of the advantages of UFO plant growth lights is the ability to match the light with the needs of plants.
UFO grow lights are composed of multiple individual light-emitting diodes, usually located in a housing with a heat sink and built-in fan.
The full-spectrum UFO LED plant growth lamp usually does not require a separate ballast, and can be plugged directly into a standard power socket.
All these models provide lamps that mainly use white LEDs. As the industry is moving in this direction, it is no surprise that these are also the most popular brands on the market today. They provide incredible results, better than equivalent HPS lamps.