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Most plants require light to carry out
photosynthesis, a process that enables plants to
make their own food. For an outdoor garden, plants
get their light quota from natural light sources
like sunlight. However, in the case of an indoor
garden, an artificial light source has to be
provided. The best way of providing light in this
case is to use grow lights.
What are grow lights?
Grow lights are lamps that mimic outdoor
lighting conditions in an indoor setting. These
lights emit light in the same electromagnetic
spectrum or wavelength as that emitted by sunlight.
Most grow lights available emit light of a
particular wavelength only since plants rely on
different wavelengths at different stages of growth.
For example, light in the blue spectrum promotes
vegetative growth while flowering and fruiting
relies on the red spectrum of light.
How are grow lights used?
Grow lights have a wide range of uses, both
domestically and industrially. To maximize the
efficiency of the lights though, it is necessary to
install reflectors as part of the
lighting system. The most commonly used
reflector is a PVC (polyvinyl chloride) sheet
painted white on the inner side for reflective
purposes and black on the outer side to prevent
fungal growth. Other reflectors used are white paint
containing titanium dioxide, or special reflective
substances like Mylar, Astrofoil, and Foylon.
Another way to obtain maximum light is to set-up
grow lights as close as possible to the plants. The
disadvantage of doing so is that the plants also
receive excess heat produced by the lighting system
and may get damaged by it.
What are the different types of grow lights
available?
Many different types of grow lights are available.
The choice of lighting system will largely depend on
the lighting needs of the plant itself. The
preferred systems for most plants are
high intensity discharge (HID) lights like metal
halide (MH) and high pressure sodium (HPS) systems.
Other popular lighting systems make use of
incandescent, fluorescent or LED (light-emitting
diode) grow lights. |
