Grow Lights 101: Best Plant Growth Spectrum Color? White vs Red/Blue LED + What is PAR & ePAR Light?
Published 2023-01-23
This video is all about Light Quality. What effect do different light wavelengths have on plants and their development? Do plants need UV light? How does Far Red light effect plant growth? Do plants use green light or is green light wasted energy? These questions are answered, along with scientific research that you can read more about, depending on your level of interest.
00:00 - Intro
00:32 - Kelvin Color Temperatures
01:28 - Visible Light Spectrum
01:39 - What is PAR Light?
02:38 - Do Plants Use Green Light?
04:30 - Benefits of Green Light For Plants
05:07 - Photomorphogenesis
05:25 - Do Plants Use UV Light?
05:51 - Do Plants Use Far-Red Light?
06:25 - How Plants Use Photoreceptors
07:11 - What is ePAR Light?
07:46 - What is the Emerson Enhancement Effect?
08:33 - How Plants Use Green & Far-Red Photons
09:07 - Is Full Spectrum Light Good For Plants?
09:36 - Custom Light Spectrum vs Plant Shape
10:57 - Is White Light Good For Home Gardeners?
11:59 - How Do LEDs Make White Light?
12:44 - What's the Best Light Spectrum?
We'll take a look at the visible light spectrum (a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum). Why is it better to analyze grow light colors by their wavelengths rather than using generic Kelvin ratings? This video answers: What is PAR light (Photosynthetically Active Radiation)? It also looks at the McCree Curve & the Emerson Enhancement Effect. And we'll see how to define ePAR (Extended Photosynthetically Active Radiation). We'll compare the efficiency of LEDs, fluorescents, high-pressure sodiums and metal halides.
When considering LED vs HID, the spectral composition can be a major factor. Some LEDs have a few limited color bands, using only blue & red light. Some include a "full spectrum" light source. How do they make white light from LEDs? This video explains phosphor coated white LEDs. Are these white LEDs good for plant growth?
How do plants use green light? How does far-red light help plants to grow? What about plant photoreceptors?
This is the basics of plant lighting and grow lights. It is intended to benefit a broad audience, from home gardeners, to greenhouse growers, to vertical farmers and even "medical" growers.
#GreehouseGrowers #LEDLights #IndoorGardening #knowledge #ArtificialLighting #GrowLights #Albopepper
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All Comments (21)
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As a new hydroponics chilli hobbyist with a background in electronics engineering including radio & optics, this is exactly the level of depth and clarity I like to see in informational resources. I will now stop worrying about possible inadequacies of my white LED setup which costs 3x less per watt than commercial grow lights
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As an electrical engineer who is assigned to design such horticulture led grow lights, your video helped me so much. Can't thank you enough.👏
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This is incredibly helpful, I had never considered anything beyond "growth," but to break it down into specific response behaviors to various wavelengths is revelatory!
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Something nobody seems to address is using straight blue, red, or blurple lights, prevents you from seeing the plants true health. Leaf color is an important tool for determining the health of your plants, and I quickly learned if everything is glowing red or purple, you never see the actual leaf color, and deficiencies can go unnoticed.
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As an hydroponics beginner I ve learned so much about the relationship between plants and light in a great and not boring way 👍 I started with self built led lights for my well planted aquarium in times where no manufacturers had seddle on led and always used human eye friendly light and the plants grew well.
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i’ve been binging these hort lighting articles the past few days and stumbled upon this video and your channel. You are excellent in your delivery summarizing the state of the research! Respect!
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At last, I understand the science behind light spectrum with regards to plant growth
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This was awesome. Your style of reporting is so intriguing. I hope you keeping giving us such great material to savor. Thanks a milli!
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This is exactly the video I was looking for. Thank you very much. Had to skim 4-5 home-grower videos where different lights were tested on a single plants. I wish these home-growers had seen your video before they started to experiment themself.
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This is absolutely THE BEST guide I've found for understanding light needs! Thank you so much!!! I'm subbed, and looking forward to watching your past videos (probably repeatedly 😂)
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Perhaps the most useful video I have seen for understanding indoor grow lighting!
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Really worth all the waiting time for your videos. You nailed it, as usual, thank you.
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I am very much a more casual gardener. This was a fascinating look into something that I would have never considered due to my more layman knowledge around this stuff
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I used a few of those giant spiral florescent bulbs to grow plants in a small space and they worked fairly well. I did switch to the red white and blue led light though for the next crop and did see much better results. The led lights also create less heat which is a great added benefit.
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I got a purple grow light on sale and my orchids are doing MUCH better. I would like a normal sunlight lamp but weirdly enough THOSE are stupid expensive where I live. But I can definitely say that adding a lamp has dramatically improved my plant growth over the windowsill
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Honestly one of the most informative and well researched videos on what lights to use for growth, I learned about the far-red and green being used for plant hight which might be beneficial (or detrimental) on how much space you have and how big you want the plant to grow
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Wow! That’s one of the most complete and condensed explanation of the subject matter. Thanks!
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Great video. I started using the grow LED lights for starting my children in winter and then throw them at the sun when it gets warmer but I quickly realized that white LEDs work just fine and are way better to work with. So that's my experience, simple, cheap white LEDs.
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Ok, I've seen A LOT of cannabis videos and by far this has been the most informative and understandable of seen thus far. Thank you for taking the time and effort to explain this so well. I've had so many suspicions answered by this content. Whoa!
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I just started looking into this, cuz i have a bunch of rare succulents I want to preserve in the winter months, so this has been super helpful
