Choosing An LED For Your Indoor Marijuana Crop

Below are the points one needs to keep in mind while selecting an LED lighting setup for their cannabis crop-

1 Grow Space Area/Wattage Requirements

Higher the wattage of an LED, the more light it will produce. One should keep in mind that these bulbs do not draw the mentioned wattage, for example, a 100 watt bulb will draw somewhere between 50%-60% i.e 50-60 watts.The total actual wattage required by your grow space will give you an idea of the number of bulbs/total wattage required. 400W and 600W light bulbs are usually used for indoor growth, (400 W will cover approximately 1 Sq.Mtr area, 10-12 plants). You can also go up to 1000 watts, but keep temperature control in mind and also the costs, higher wattage means higher cost.

2 Chip Capacity
The brightness and efficiency of LED panel depend on the chip capacity too.  For example, having three 1W chips will not be as efficient as having one 3W chip, the higher the chip wattage, the better. Growers go for 3W, 6W or even 10W chip LEDs.

3 Plant’s Growth Phase
Different phases need to Grow Light of different wavelengths. As a base rule, vegetative phase needs blues, clones and saplings grow well in whites and flowering stage needs reds. So choosing a multi spectrum LED with blue, red, white, IR and UV will be a good choice since IR and UV are greatly useful in growing marijuana.

4 Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD)
PPFD is a measurement of the light (photons) that reach the target each second. PPFD is measured in micromoles per square meter per second and expressed as µmol/m2/s. Wondering how much PPFD is right for your plant? In order for your plants to show growth, the minimum PPFD values should be:
255 – 350 µMol/m2/s on a 24/24 light cycle
383 – 520 µMol/m2/s on a 18/24 light cycle
510 – 695 µMol/m2/s on a 12/24 light cycle
Longer the light cycle, lower the PPFD should be. Don’t know the PPFD of your product? Here is a simple calculation to find it out – (PPF) µMol/S· (grow area) M2 = (PPFD) µMol/M2s

5 Quality
A good LED lamp should be made of a quality raw material, the panels should be made of sturdy materials. If one single bulb is damaged it will result in a whole portion of your lamp being useless. If you are looking at the very cheap ones in the market they need to be checked twice for quality to avoid disappointment. Good quality lights come with reflectors and lens that allows to magnify the light and improve penetration. Additionally, check for an aluminium heat sink that will prevent damage due to heat emission. Some products such as iPower 300W LED Grow Light comes with a built in fan and heat sink which makes working with it much easier.

6 Warranty
LEDs naturally have a longer life due to the technology they are built with, any decent product should offer at least 3 years of warranty to over 10 years. The ones with longer warranty are more expensive. One should be vary of lights that come with short warranty such as for 1 year. These are best avoided, since LEDs are comparitively an expensive choice, a damaged item will result in double the investment and also discouragement.

Hope this will help with making your LED choice easier and fruitful. Happy growing!