What is the most efficient grow light?
For the many growers who are unable to cultivate cannabis outside in the free abundant sunshine, grow lights are necessary to successfully grow cannabis indoors. Cannabis grow lights take the place of the sun, and power the growth of your plants and their buds. Light is like “food” for your plants, so without a lot of bright light, even a healthy cannabis plant won’t produce much bud at all.
Fluorescent lights are the most popular choice for home growers. Some newer types offer a wider light spectrum for all-purpose use, but traditional fluorescent bulbs lack the appropriate range for flowering and are best suited for germination and vegetative growth. Because they produce less heat, fluorescent lights are safer, more versatile and more effective than incandescent bulbs while remaining budget-friendly.
HPS Grow Lights have grown in popularity and are overtaking fluorescent tubes and bulbs. These lights are more common among commercial and experienced indoor growers and the technology behind them is well established, already over 75 years old.
The problem with HPS is that it produces a considerable amount of heat. As such, you must keep the lights a good distance from the plants. They require a significant amount of investment to set up and maintain. Therefore, HPS is not recommended for small growers.
LED grow lights are one of the most popular options available on the market today. Whilst not the cheapest, they are the most efficient type of grow light, produce specific wavelengths of light to promote plant growth and are incredibly durable.
LED grow lights produce much less heat than HID grow lights, so dissipation of heat is rarely a significant issue. For this reason, they can be placed closer to the plants that you are cultivating, resulting in increased light uptake by the plants.
Green Sunshine Electric Sky ES300 V2
The Electric Sky ES300 by The Green Sunshine Company was released last year and quickly became popular among both home and commercial growers. It uses top bin, mid-power wideband diodes. The spectrum is a unique GS1 wide-band spectrum that includes IR. This LED grow is excellent at spreading the light evenly across the coverage area. Two of these lights will cover a four-foot by four foot grow space. The ES300 has a PAR output of 600 micromoles per second in a PAR efficacy of 2.0 micromoles per joule.
VIVOSUN HPS/MH Grow Light Air Cooled Reflector Kit
Vivosun is a top brand in hydroponic growing equipment, and this kit has all of the parts in one package to start lighting up your garden right out of the box. The kit comes in three sizes: 400W, 600W and 1,000W and each size comes with a matching ballast, reflector hood, timer, and hanging equipment. Both MH and HPS bulbs are included so you can use this kit all the way through both vegetative and flowering growth stages.