Grow Lights

Natural light is optimal for encouraging hydroponic plant growth

, but growth can also be hastened with the use of artificial lighting. Grow lights, as they're referred to, are effective in substituting daylight for plant growth. Since plants need a certain amount of intensity of light and draw from the full light spectrum for different stages of growth, standard incandescent lights don't work well as grow lights. (In this type of method, you have to emulate natural sunlight as much as possible.) Among the ideal lighting systems for hydroponic plants are the High Intensity Discharge (HID) bulbs two of which are described below. Aside from those two, there are still other kinds of bulbs that are ideal for hydroponics:

Metal Halide Bulbs (MH)

Arguably the most popular HID-type bulb, metal halide bulbs produce the closest emulation of summer sunlight available, and generate the spectral colors plants thrive on most especially the blues, which are ideal for vegetative growth. MH bulbs are likely to die out gradually and need to be replaced before they actually burn out, because they eventually do not yield enough lumens to help the plants anymore. Good thing that they are long-lasting, having an average life of 10,000 hours, or a year.

High Pressure Sodium Bulbs (HPS)

The other HID-type bulb, the high pressure sodium bulb, is best suited for supplementary lighting, used together with natural sunlight. HPS bulbs are great at producing the orange-red part of the spectrum - suitable for flowering plants. Compared to metal halide, HPS bulbs as grow lights are longer-lasting (averaging to 18,000 hours) and are less costly. HPS bulbs, on the other hand, aren't recommended to substitute natural light, because they're deficient in blue light. They're most suitable for a greenhouse environment.

Fluorescent Bulbs

The fluorescent bulbs at present, as compared to the earlier days, are intense enough to produce enough lumens needed by hydroponic plants. Regardless if the bulb is high-output or low-output, it can do this job just fine. Fluorescents produce much smaller amounts of heat than HID bulbs, which means they can be placed much closer to the plants and when they're placed closer (but not too close), they emit enough of the spectral colors to promote growth.

LED Grow Lights

LED bulbs are close to perfection: they are comparable in output to high pressure sodium bulbs, emit almost no heat and are extremely energy-efficient. On the flip side, these bulbs promote slower growth and are painful to your budget. In fact, it can be argued that the same growth results can be obtained with fluorescent grow lights, which are far less expensive. So while they're the newest thing, the jury is basically still out on whether LED bulbs shall be the wave of the future for grow lights.

by: Iris Caesar

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