Grow light strip for indoor plants: a good support

For plants to develop and carry a productive growth cycle, they need certain natural environmental conditions, such as sunlight, soil soil and nutrients, water and some others. When it comes to indoor cultivation, we must replace those conditions with artificial ones. So you may be wondering, can a plant rely on a grow light strip to meet its need for lighting? The answer is yes.

Throughout the article, you'll find that these lights, such as larger LED grow lights, are also quite appropriate to help plants grow and develop under artificial environments. Well, although they are smaller, they handle a color spectrum that benefits them in each of their stages and that can also be adjusted.

Although the lighting can vary according to the type of plants that wish to be grown, since in some cases it is more beneficial a certain color of light over another, the possibility offered by LED grow lights in general, is to provide them with the necessary wavelength at each stage. Even with today's LED technologies, some can be programmed.

Let's discover the reasons why a grow light strip is a good option to illuminate indoor crop plants.

Why is a grow light strip a good choice for small indoor crops?

The first thing we need to clarify, is that we refer specifically to the use of a grow light strip for small crops, because, of course, the size of a strip of light does not compare to the size and amount of light that a standard LED grow light can provide to a crop.

But, what we are going for, is that they also have the characteristics of LED technology, which we know that in recent years has been the one that has rebounded in the market, thanks to its great ability to do artificially, what the sun does to plants naturally. In this way, LED lights can shine at a wavelength desired and controlled by the grower, based of course on the needs and the growth phase in which your plant is located.

In that sense, if you own a small indoor crop, a Grow light strip will provide the amount of light necessary for your plants to develop correctly, favoring their normal growth and avoiding the typical problems that can occur in plants that are grown indoors, which can range from the appearance of yellow spots on their leaves and flowers that fall prematurely,  to fungi or slowing the growth of leaves and stems.

Reasons why you get a better performance from a grow light strip

Here are some of the main reasons why a Grow light strip can be your best ally when lighting small crops indoors:

• Grow light strip, being built with LED technology, are energy efficient, using between 50% and 80% less energy than you would use with any other type of light bulb.
• Additionally, LED technology significantly reduces the emission of heat to plants, allowing them to be located closer to the light without this causing damage such as the appearance of stains, or running the risk of burning.  In addition, LED light strips do not emit UV rays.
• Grow light strip can also provide a full-color spectrum of light (blue, red, green, violet, yellow, and orange). This will prevent you from having to acquire lights of several colors separately to be able to cover all the wavelengths necessary for your plants, which translates into greater economic and space savings.
• Grow light strip have a much longer lifespan, preventing you from having to replace bulbs frequently.
• The grow light strips are flexible and take up less space, this will allow you to position them in the desired way in your crop while your plants take advantage of the maximum benefits of lighting, either from the top, the sides or from the ground, providing greater comfort in your spaces. In addition, the LED strips can also be cut (of course, following the lines designated for it), which would allow you to obtain strips of a shorter or greater length according to your needs.
• The Grow light strip adapts to each stage of growth of your plants (planting, cloning, flowering or fruiting). Many of the strips of growth lights allow you to regulate the color and brightness of the lighting, with this you can selectively control the "feeding" of your plants, according to the stage in which they are.
• Depending on the lighting needs of your crop, the grow light strip can work as both main lighting and complementary lighting.
• If you are one of those who cares about the impact on the environment, you will be delighted to know that LED lights are also more ecological, since they do not contain mercury and, in addition, their waste or components do not pollute as much as more traditional bulbs.

Finally, although the grow light strip can provide benefits almost identical to those provided by natural lighting provided by the sun, you must take into account that not all plants manage to survive exclusively with LED lights, since some plants not only require lighting but also heat, so you must make a careful selection of both light,  as of the plant you want to grow.

Most important questions about plant lighting

As is well known, plants use light mainly to carry out the process of photosynthesis. Therefore, adequate lighting will be vital for the optimal development of your crop. Among the most important aspects, you should be aware that your plants will need the full spectrum of light, just as would happen with the emission of sunlight in a natural environment, so that they can grow and develop correctly. In such a way, knowing the benefits of each of the colors of the light spectrum could give you important keys to the lighting that best suits your crop.

In this sense, each of the colors and their respective wavelengths can affect your plants differently, therefore, here we discuss some of the processes in which each of the colors intervenes.

First, within the visible light spectrum, the blue color (450 nm to 495 nm) promotes faster plant growth. The red color (620 nm to 720 nm) is very convenient when the plant is in its fruiting process and also in combination with blue, contributes to the appearance of leaves and intervenes in the flowering process.

Violet (380 nm to 450 nm), on the other hand, provides better taste, smell and color; yellow (570 nm to 590 nm), intervenes secondarily in the growth of plants and finally, orange (581 nm to 618 nm) is linked to the good development of transplants.

So far, it is important to emphasize that each wavelength of light provides different benefits and participates, to a greater or lesser extent, in each process of the growth cycle of plants.

Therefore, it is vital that your crop has all the colors of the visible light spectrum and that as a grower you know what growth phase your plants are in, to optimize the usefulness of the growth light strip in your interior spaces and the benefits you can obtain for each of your crops.

Which Grow light strip is most convenient for your indoor crops?

As mentioned throughout the article, the selection of your Grow light strip will depend largely on the type of plant you want to grow, the growth phase in which your crop is located, and of course the dimensions of the space you want to cover.

In the market you will find a large number and variety of LED lights for your crops, but what should we know before acquiring a grow light strip?

The answer can be found in the lumens and in the color temperature of the light (k), since it will depend to a large extent if you can use it as main or complementary lighting and the potential benefits it will bring to your crop.

Standard grow light strips have an average emission of 450 lumens. Some experts recommend an amount greater than 2000 lumens for crops. In such a way that if what you want is a supplementary LED light for your crop then one of 3000k will suffice, but if you want to use it as the main lighting, you must opt for a higher spectrum, of about 6000k, approximately.

Likewise, if you need a higher brightness (very necessary in the development of seedlings, as well as during the vegetative phase of your crop), the 5050 LED light strips will be the most appropriate, with a luminous flux (per meter) between 1080 and 1320 lumens approximately.

However, it is important to mention that each plant begins its photosynthesis process at a different light level, that is, that the intensity of light could increase or decrease the speed of photosynthesis of your crop.

Summary

In short, there are many benefits that the Grow light strip can provide to your plants, because they have optimal lighting with which you can artificially recreate the full spectrum of visible light that the sun transmits naturally to the plants.

The efficiency in the electrical consumption and the possibility of controlling the wavelength of light, currently positions the LED growth light strips as the best option to illuminate your small crops indoors.

In addition, because the growth of your plants depends largely on the quantity and quality of light it receives, LED lights provide an efficient solution, both for their versatility and flexibility to locate them in almost all types of spaces, and for their easy and quick installation at a lower cost.

If you have a small crop, then you can go to buy a grow light strip, but if you have a larger crop and you are convinced that LED technology is the best and most efficient on the market, then enter our website and discover the models we have available for you.