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Can You Use Regular LED Lights
If you’re looking to grow plants indoors, then you should know that your plants will need a few specific things to grow. Soil and water are easy enough to procure, but light may be difficult. Plants need light for photosynthesis, otherwise they won’t be able to properly grow.
There are tons of LED growth lights available, but they tend to be more expensive than regular LEDs. Can you get away with using a regular light? Is a regular LED light effective whatsoever? We will discuss here what these lights can do and why growth lights are obviously the best choice.
Light Spectrum
When you look at growth lights, you’ll typically see words like “dual spectrum” and “full spectrum” as selling points. That’s because these lights are set to show red and blue lights in the former, and several other colors in the latter.
Plants don’t just require light, they require the proper spectrum of light to create energy. In general, red and blue are the most important color, but white and violet are useful as well in creating healthy plants that grow big and strong.
Regular White LEDs
We mentioned that white lights are often used in full spectrum LEDs, so you might be thinking that regular LEDs can be used as growth lights. It’d be great because you’d save a good chunk of change, but the truth is that regular LEDs are very inefficient as growth lights.
They don’t give off the proper spectrum of light for plants to go through photosynthesis. In fact, while regular light bulbs will have some partial effect on plants, regular LEDs are uniquely unsuitable for plant growth due to how they are manufactured.
LEDs are able to be produced in nearly any color, but that’s because they are made to specifically show that color and nothing else. While regular light bulbs typically have a small spectrum aside from white, white LEDs are really just showing white and no other color.
Are Regular White LEDs Useful for Anything?
White spectrum light can add a little to your plant growth, but the effect is much less than red, blue or violet light. So when it comes specifically to growing the plants, regular white LEDs aren’t very helpful. Getting the proper colors and dishing the money for a real LED growth light is truly worth it.
However, you can use regular LEDs to light the growth area to make it easier for you to see. Red and blue light can make the area a little harsh to see, it may also be unsafe as you might trip over something. White LEDs are great for lighting an area and improving vision.
So if you really want to incorporate white LEDs, they can help you see the area, but they won’t help the plants at all.
Conclusion
LED growth lights are amazing since they can produce a full spectrum of useful light to your plants that will help them with photosynthesis. While regular LEDs are cheaper, they can’t help you grow plants. While they can make it easier to light the area, you really do need a real growth light if you want your plants to succeed.