Aside from reducing electricity bills and other utility costs, ambitious growers seek benefits beyond than just replacing HPS with LED. These cultivators use LED to optimize product quality, increase yield and drive all sorts of efficiencies in their supply chain.
This article is aimed for growers already owning an LED grow light or those interested in making a purchase in the nearest future. If you are either one of these then you will surely benefit from the following 6 tips for getting the best results out of your LED grow lights:
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Pay extra attention to your water consumption – When growers just make the shift from HID-fixtures to LED they tend to make one common mistake. Overwatering. If you have used HID lighting in the past, then you perfectly know how hot the growing tent can get. That heat combined with high levels of Infrared light (IR) results in the soil and plants to dry out faster. LED grow lights don’t generate the same amount of heat. Take this fact into consideration when watering your plants.
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Do you have to turn up the heat? – Cultivators using HIDs often expect a lot of heat coming from traditional grow lights. Once switching to LED grow lights, the growers often experience a drop-in temperature because LEDs simply don’t generate the high amount of heat as HIDs. This means that growers most probably need to increase the temperature in their indoor garden so the crops can thrive better. But don’t allow this to discourage you from making the switch. LED grow lights has a lot of benefits, including energy efficiency that will keep your net savings of energy positive. You will benefit from taking this fact into consideration during installing and setting up your grow room.
- Height Matters – While we’re an attachment and-play culture, investing the additional energy in mounting your LEDs at the exact stature can advance yield and quality. While most situations will have various components that must be represented when mounting your LEDs, including the nearness or nonappearance of normal light, you need to ensure that your LEDs can keep up a wide, uniform light circulation packed profound into the shade. If you mount your LEDs too high, you may build your scope zone, however you will likewise be diminishing the light’s power. On the off chance that you mount your LEDs too low, the exceptional vicinity of the light could pressure your plants. Your best choice is to begin with the LED maker’s mounting suggestion, comprehend your DLI (Daily Light Integral) and ascertain from that point.
- Install more than one units – Thanks to LED grow lights’ ability to produce a focused light directed to increase yield, you can spotlight one grow area with dedicated LED light, and rehash the confinement of each plant in your growing project. Your plants are better off when you install more than one unit in your grow space. This expands light appropriation over the grow area, sparing you a great deal of cash at last, while acquiring ideal light conditions at the same time. That is why we recommend that you approach a qualified lighting professional for a light arrangement before beginning the setup.
- Customize Light Cycles – Light cycles set dictates your crop’s biological life. Indoor growers can manipulate light cycles. Simply an increase or decrease the hours of light and darkness can stimulate a plant’s photoperiod. Typical light cycle during the vegetative stage is 18 hours of light per day with 6 hours of darkness. A 12/12 light cycle is ideal for triggering flowering for most plants. This cycle increase amount of uninterrupted darkness which signals to the plant that fall is approaching. However, in some cases, for example when growing vegetative crops such as herbs and salad 17-18 hours of light per day is a good baseline.
- Develop unique Light Recipes – As mentioned before you can manipulate the photoperiod with LEDs. On top of that you can also manipulate the time exposure to different light spectrums. With some LED grow lights, you can use blue, white, red and far-red spectrums as you want. A customized light recipe developed in accordance to the given plants DLI(Daily Light Integral) can increase yield and harvest significantly.