Hot Indoor Growing Topic: LEDs or HIDs?

For those who don't live in Florida or Hawaii, or some other warm area, the cultivating/gardening season might seem quite short (I know it does for me). Two or three months of fresh produce just simply aren’t sufficient. The good thing is experts have supplied a way for us to keep cultivating fresh fruits as well as vegetables even during the cool winter months. Interior growing lights offer all the lighting your plants will ever need. This means you no longer have to be jealous of your neighbors in Florida.  

What Lights are Available?

You may have heard of indoor growing lights, but you might want to know what some of your general options are. There is an overwhelming amount of inside growing lights out there. That being said, the two types that realistically work the very best tend to be HID (High-Intensity Discharge) lighting as well as LED (Light-Emitting Diode) lights.

In earlier times Metallic-Halide and High-Pressure Sodium (both of them are types of HID lamps) lights were the only indoor lights being used. Just recently (within the past 10 years or so), more and more people are beginning to invest in LED plant lighting fixtures. This has resulted in a rather fierce debate about which lamps are better. Personally, I believe both work great, however we'll spend some time to evaluate a few of the issues.

Price Tag

Whether businesses like it or not the price of a product is extremely important to us consumers. HIDs are flat-out less expensive when compared to LEDs. As I mentioned LED grow lights are still relatively new and their selling prices represent it (even though costs are decreasing constantly). A superb HID plant light system might only set you back around 200 bucks. A great LED grow light system will cost you a minimum of $500. Now this is considering you want a light that will grow the plant from start to finish. If you just want a light to get your plants started, then the price tag is considerably less.

In defense of LEDs it should also be considered that as time passes LED plant lights could possibly save your hard-earned dollars. LEDs survive for a longer period (meaning you don’t have to buy a new one every year like you do with an HID) plus they utilize less energy.

After a year or more Light Emitting Diode lights could possibly end up being less costly when compared to HIDs (this really depends on your replacement rate and energy rate). That being said, when people who are on an extremely tight budget are asking me which light to go with I usually end up recommending an HID light.

 

Heat Diffusion

Using a term like “High-Intensity” you can visualize that HIDs make quite a bit of heat. The truth is HIDs can get really scorching hot. This is a big deal when you are growing inside because you've got to worry about burning your plants and your house. If you choose to go with an HID planting system, make sure you don’t burn your house down, seriously.  

HIDs require heating up the filament to produce light. 

LED plant lighting, on the other hand, puts off minimal heat. The entire concept behind the Light Emitting Diode is to develop an efficient light that does not require heat to produce light. HIDs require heat to light up the filament that produces light (kind of like a fire). LEDs use very interesting technology that doesn’t require heating up a filament. It involves electrons dropping in energy orbits and photons shooting off. It’s a topic for another day because it usually takes me about 2,000 words to describe it.

Management of Wavelength or Color

If you can remember back to first grade science, you will recollect that the sun sets off a spectrum of various colors. These colors can be seen in a rainbow. Astonishingly, scientists have discovered that crops usually do not utilize all of the colors or wavelengths of light through during the process of photosynthesis. In fact, researchers have discovered that blue and red are the two wavelengths most critical for vegetation and flowering respectively.

This is interesting because LED grow lights can be made to beam only particular colors. Which means that the ideal quantity of every single color a plant needs may be dialed in with LED lighting! This in turn results in one large advantage for LEDs: significantly less power is needed because wasteful lighting need not be produced. In the present environment, using a reduced amount of electricity is crucial.

HID plant lighting can't be manufactured to simply emit certain wavelengths or shades. The technology of the filament simply doesn’t allow for it. This means that they use up a lot more energy than needed.

Interesting, So Which Light Do I Recommend?

Regrettably there's no perfect recommendation. A number of people swear by Light Emitting Diode grow technology while other people are just as captivated with HID grow lights. Each light possesses its particular disadvantages and advantages. HIDs possess a successful history and are generally economical. Light Emitting Diodes don’t produce heat, can generate specific wavelengths, and are better for mother earth.