Why Choose LED Grow Light For Your Plants?

There are three major light source technologies: incandescence (incandescent lamp), electrical discharge (fluorescent, HID), and solid state light sources (LED, OLED). The first two are known as “legacy” technologies, and the third is considered as modern technologies. All of the three technologies have been used in horticultural lighting solutions. But by now, after tens of years of technological improvement and cost reduction, LED outperforms in every respect compared with other artificial lighting systems for crop production.

One is the ability to control the spectral output of the lighting system, something not easily done with broad spectrum sources, such as fluorescent, HPS. The spectral output of an LED lighting system can be matched to plant photoreceptors and optimized to provide maximum production without wasting energy on nonproductive wavelengths. The ability to dynamically control the spectral output can also be used to influence plant morphology. Spectra can be customized for specific crops or production protocols and the output even modified over the course of a photoperiod or growth cycle, such as sunrise and sunset simulations can be programmed. Special lighting modes might possibly even be used to enhance disease or injury visualization.

Because they are solid-state devices, LEDs are easily integrated into digital control systems. This allows complex control options not generally available with other light sources. LEDs can be continuously dimmed between zero and maximum. This feature makes it uniquely energy-efficient in different growth stages of crop which require different PPFD levels, such as the cloning stage, vegetative stage, flowering stage of cannabis cultivation.

LED lighting systems can produce very high light levels (well in excess of full sunlight if desired) with much less power consumption than HPS systems. The typical LED grow lights efficacy is about 2.5-3.0 µmol/J, the comparative HPS efficacy is only about 1.5-1.7 µmol/J. This means you can get the same PPFD level with up to 50% less energy consumption which also produces 50% less of heat according to the law of thermodynamics.

So when you use LED grow lights for your indoor gardening, even at high light outputs, they can be operated in close proximity to plant tissue because they have very little radiant heat output when cooled properly. Operating close to the canopy allows most of the light produced to be intercepted by the plant, improving the use efficiency of the lighting system. Moreover, the low heat generation characteristics of LED grow lights also considerably reduce your investment in HVAC system of your growing facilities.

LEDs have a very long operating life; New LED technologies are rated as maintaining 70% of their original luminous output after 100,000 h or even more, and this is probably a conservative number as long as the devices are cooled adequately. The longer lifetime of LEDs also contributes largely to the long term cost-saving in addition to the high energy efficiency. Because of their long operational life, procurement and disposal costs for replacement bulbs is mostly eliminated along with associated labor costs. In comparison, the best HID light sources such as HPS, MH have an average life time of only 20,000 h. VANQ uses some of the best LED chips on the market, such as Cree, Osram, Samsung, Bridgelux and Epileds, etc. The expected lifetime of our LED grow lights are 10 years.

LEDs have the potential for significant cost savings over current horticultural lamp types, such as HPS. LED grow light is able to provide two times more light output for the same watt of input power of a HPS grow light. This means that you only need to pay half of the electricity bill of HPS lighting solution to get the same amount of PPF output with an LED lighting system. The unique capabilities of LEDs can also significantly reduce power use over existing lamp types through the ability to operate in close proximity to plant tissue, the ability to optimize the light spectrum for productivity, and advanced control capabilities that allow optimization of lighting patterns.

LEDs do not contain mercury that needs to be disposed of and do not have high surface temperatures that can cause injury, making LEDs the safest horticultural lighting solution for any home, commercial growing facility, or greenhouse.

Because we understand not only what LEDs can do, but more importantly what plants need.

Since our establishment in 2009, VANQ has been focusing on the research, design, development and manufacturing of professional LED grow lights for commercial growers and research institutes all over the world. In order to have a more comprehensive picture of plant growth with artificial lighting and the first-hand data of LED grow light’s actual performance, we set up our agronomy laboratory in 2010 and have conducted hundreds of cultivation tests which range from common leafy and fruiting vegetables to medicinal herbs, ornamental plants, etc. At the same time, thanks to the valuable trust of hundreds of our global professional grower partners, we have been improving our products according to their feedback and advice from actual field application of our grow lights along the whole journey. In this way, we have built up our own plant cultivation database, especially of tens of spectra for various crops and different growing purposes. All this accumulated knowledge has been thoroughly integrated into every VANQ LED grow light.

Plants need light not only for photosynthesis but also for biosynthesis which significantly affects the plant growth both physiologically and morphologically. And different species of plant usually prefer different light spectral compositions for the most efficient and healthiest growing, let alone the different cultivation purposes of even the same crop. For example, UVB wavelengths of 280nm-320nm have a positive effect on the synthesis of many secondary metabolites in multiple cannabis species, especially showing a considerable 20%-30% increase of THC level in some cannabis strains with originally high THC level.

Understanding that horticultural lighting system requires far more precise and complicated spectrum configuration than conventional illuminating lights, we set up our own COB and high power LEDs encapsulation plant in 2010, in order to provide the real tailor-made solution for different customer’s requirements. By now, every COB LED chip used in our LED grow lights is crafted with a delicately-tuned spectrum for your specific crop cultivation. And if you already have a preferred spectrum for your crops, we can easily realize it for you as well.