Plant Lighting - What and How to Supplement Light?

In recent years, indoor plant growing, that is, cultivation in an indoor environment - in a room, grow tent or even a mini greenhouse - has become increasingly popular. In addition to a suitable growing container, substrate and nutrients, another important factor for plant growth and overall vitality is light. If you enjoy growing, but your flat or house does not exactly have an abundance of windows or enough window sills, supplementary lighting for plants may be the right step.

There is a wide range of plant lighting available on the market that can be used for cultivation. LED lighting, however, offers the best price-to-performance ratio. The main difference compared with classic discharge lamps, which can also be used in indoor growing, is that LED lights have lower energy consumption. Other advantages include a long service life, which manufacturers state at between 30,000 - 100,000 hours depending on the specific product, which is many times more than conventional discharge lamps. There is also a low amount of emitted heat, so it is not necessary to deal with its removal using additional fans or ventilation, and a high efficiency in converting input energy into visible light.

If you want to fully replace daylight for plants, you need to provide them with a light source with an appropriate spectrum for the vegetative or flowering stage. Full-spectrum LED fixtures are therefore ideal, as they provide the full range of colours. This allows plants to ensure photosynthesis and, with it, all physiological processes necessary for their life

How should plants be supplemented with light?
The duration of supplementary lighting will vary depending on whether the plant is shade-loving or light-loving. While the former will only need 2-4 hours in the evening to extend the day, light-loving plants placed far from a window will require more intensive supplementary lighting throughout the day. To make it easier to manage these cycles, a timer switch is used, which you can use to control when the light turns on according to your preferences.

Artificial light should be placed as close to the plants as possible, as its effectiveness decreases significantly with distance. The ideal placement is 20-40 centimetres from the plant, but no more than one metre. For supplementary lighting of smaller houseplants, you can use LED light bulbs with a standard E27 fitting, which can be placed in any household lamp. Artificial light is also excellent for pre-growing seedlings, forcing herbs at home or growing sprouts.

You can find further advice and everything you need for the care of your ornamental and useful plants at higarden.cz.