Getting The Most Out Of Switching To LED Lights For Growing

The best setup for growing plants has always been HID bulbs and power supplies.  They always turn out producing the best results though they take up a lot of power and disperse a great deal of heat.  Now that LED bulbs have started to become much better, people have started converting over to fixtures that are specifically designed for growing plants.  In order to get the best results from these setups, the user must change other aspects of the grow operation, and many have experienced bad results by not doing so.

Most growers know exactly the amount of nutrients and water to give their plants to obtain the greatest results.  People often do not change anything else when switching over to LED lights, and they have poor final results.  Usually hydroponics systems are best for an LED light switch, since they offer control and visibility of what is going on with the plant.  In a traditional soil setup, it is usually difficult to figure out what is going wrong since it shows mistakes much later on.  Many people looking to save money through LED lights will usually feed their soil setups too much water and nutrients, and have poor results or kill the plant along the way.

The difference in heat is the reason why this happens.  In HID setups a huge amount of heat is generated which the traditional nutrient and water amounts have accounted for, but LED grow lights produce virtually no heat at all.  Almost everything needs to be adjusted in order to better fit the completely new environment that lacks the massive amount of heat the traditional type of lighting produced.  Less is much more in almost all LED setups.  HID grow lights produce so much heat that a lot of the water and nutrients that are put into the plant are evaporated in the air, so people converting over will often pour too much water or add too many nutrients.  Since there is less risk of over-watering a hydroponics system, these provide the best ways to start experimenting with amounts of nutrients.  Once a person sees nutrient burn on the leaves of their plants, it is easy to cut back a little to steady everything.

Experimentation is key to both types of setups for the best.  Even variables like the environment’s humidity and height of the lamp to the plant play a crucial role, so playing with these helps a whole lot.  It is important to keep a journal of the changes that are made for the plant and the reactions of the plant to those changes day to day to determine the best balance, but LED systems often produce higher quality plants than HID setups do when used correctly.