Full Spectrum Bulb vs. Standard LED - Is a grow light worth it or do your seedlings not care?

One of my favourite parts of gardening is the experimentation that goes along with it. It's a continual process of learning and improving on your findings.

Recently I came to realize I just don't have enough window space for all the plants I want to start indoors. A good solution for me was to utilize some old desk lamps for supplemental light that would easily pack away for the rest of the year. While I started by using any light bulb I had available I got curious whether a grow light aka full spectrum bulb would provide an additional benefit to the seedlings.

In this video I put them to the test against each other to see if the extra $$$ for the grow light is worth it. I'll show you the process and results from start to finish so you know exactly what to expect!

0:00 - Intro
1:21 - Planting
1:51 - Placing seedlings under lights
2:41 - Week 2 update
3:20 - Week 4 update
3:48 - Week 6 update
6:10 - Final Thoughts

#gardening #homestead #seeds

[PuraVidaPhotography]

Thanks everyone! As a newer creator here I've been really blown away by the interest this video has generated. My goal is to continue putting out great gardening content for everyone to learn from and enjoy. I like to present my projects start to finish, which can take many months before being ready to compile. If you enjoyed this one please consider subscribing as I have a lot of projects in the works, I just can't guarantee a regular posting schedule for them! Thanks & happy gardening!

[VAM_Physics_and_Engineering]

thanks for taking the time to do this experiment. This was exactly what i was looking for.

[pawelkapica]

A 6400-6500Kelvin LED Tube is sufficient. Most plants benefit more from the blueish to cold white light spectrum in the early growth stages. Way cheaper and if you place your plants outside later on, it won't matter as they will get the boost from the sun. I started many plants like that from tomatoes to chili. Growth lamps will make a difference if the whole grow cycle of the plant will be under artificial lights as the warmer red spectrum are more beneficial for blooming and fruiting.

[chelseaclerke]

Wow, I didn't think it would be that close! I do use LED lights to boost light for my houseplants but to grow plants in my windowless basement I stick to grow lights, this makes me want to conduct an experiment of my own!

[bcfa]

Thank you, I'm about to buy some lights for my house plants because I ran out of space under the windows. It's kind of relief to see it's not that significant. I didn't even know regular lightbulb is enough for them.

[nedcramdon]

I've tried CFL's, cool and warm. Incandescent, cool and warm. LED, cool, daylight and warmer. An LED actual grow light. I've even mixed color temperatures in the same fixture. They all work fine but the timing is critical. I usually start too early for my zone. Wish more people would grow gardens in my area. It's getting quite rare lately.

[OOTurok]

The one flaw to this experiment is that they are both in the same roon, close enough to each other, that the indirect light from both light sources can influence the growth of all the plants.
For more accurate results... you should grow the plants in separate rooms, each with a different light source.

We did this same experiment in my botany class. The plants were seperated into 2 groups, in seperate rooms... 1 room with grow lights, & the other room lit with 6000k LED lights.
After 8 weeks... both groups of plants were equally strong & healthy, under both lighing conditions... but the plants grown under the grow lights were on average 40% larger.
The plants under the grow lights produced more sugars, because a much greater percentage of the light output from the grow lights is in the Blue & Red spectrums, than what the normal white LEDs produced.

[zenobibonsai]

This was just what i was looking for.... great experiment! many thanks :)

[ross]

Thank you for this! Just started learning about home gardening, very interesting video.

[Appophust]

Walmart sells daylight spectrum LED bulbs in multiple sizes. They even have street lamp replacements in daylight spectrum. Pretty cheap as well. Like 3 dollars for the lowest wattage.

[colleenmcdonnell]

GE makes LED light bulbs in different color spectrums ranging from warm to cool. I need supplemental light for my orchids and other flowering plants and combined bulbs with blue and red ranges in floor lamps and it’s working quite well. They’re not marketed as grow lights but pretty much accomplish the same thing, IMO. I have an LED lamp but it is too bright and the light is so blue that it gave me a headache. My plants are responding well. Although my setup was not expensive, it works for me. The output is around 1500 FC which is pretty bright. I thought I might experiment with summer annual seed starting as well.

[RobSidhuPB]

Thanks for doing this experiment so that we don’t have to do it.
It helped me a lot.

[Aidan.]

To help strengthen the stems you really need a fan as well. Wind is an important strengthener of stems. Thank you for your comparison video!

[bonniemccormack]

I love how you're gardening in a beautiful living area like it ain't no big thing 😅 Thanks for a great video 🙂

[nataliegist]

Thanks for the information. I would put silver bubble wrap behind the plants.

[assog]

I've been growing cannabis indoors for a little over 30 years.
When LEDs came out of coarse I purchased a few.
To try and cut my electricity cost.
So over the years I have spent thousands on numerous supposedly high end LEDs.
Well about 12 years ago I decided to give aeroponics a try.
So I started designing my own aero systems. As I was doing this I could see it would be more efficient to grow in what is called the Sea Of Green ( SOG ).
Which means you grow your plants very close together.
For example, in my aero systems my plants are a little less then 2" apart.
My aero systems measure
2'9"x 3' so lets say 9 s/ft.
In that 9 s/ft I have 46 plants.
You might be saying " well what the hell good is that".

First off I am using every single bit of light that the fixture is producing.
And next, when you grow in the SOG, you are concentrating on the main top of the plant, which is always the most potent and produces the biggest bud.

So in my 9 s/ft area I'm getting 46 main tops compared to the normal of growing 1 plant in that same area and getting only one main top.
Now I'm sure hear, there is going to be people making comments that you can train your plants to get a even canopy. Yes you can.
And it's a total waste of time. And adds a tremendous cost on to your final product.
No matter how you train the plant, you are still only going to get one main top.

So now finally I'm going to get to the point of this long story.
So once I started growing with my aero Systems. Right away I was seeing a problem. And it was very strange. All the plants all the way around the outside edge of my aero Systems. Like 3 rows of plants all the way around. Were suffering. They weren't growing good. They were like only half as big as the plants in the middle of the system.
So this was my first grow with aeroponics. So of coarse I thought it was something to do with that.

So I checked and rechecked and rechecked again. And everything was fine.
What the heck.

Well one night I was just sitting in my flower room. Banging my head against the walls. I just happened to look up. And noticed that the LED light fixture I was using was the exact same size as the demission of all the plants that were growing good.
Now every LED light I have purchased was well over a thousand dollars. So you would think they are top of the line. And they are.
But here is where the problem is with LED lights.

Like I said my aero systems measure 2"9" x 3'. Well the LED light fixture I was using was only 18"x 18".
Even though the manufacturer stated that this LED light fixture will cover a 4'x 4' area in 12/12.
Which it does project the light that far.
But what happens with LEDs is the par in that projected light weakens dramatically the further you get from the diode. Even only a eighth away, the par drops almost half.

So what was happening with my grow was the plants in the rows that were only a quarter of a inch away from the diodes were only growing half as big as the plants directly under the diodes. Then the row of plants further away grew smaller than that.
Well at that time there was no LED light manufacturer producing a fixture bigger than 2'x 2'.
I put 2 of my lights together. But I still had rows that were not directly under the diodes. Plus it was defeating my purpose of wanting to cut my production cost.
So I started looking into building my own. How hard can it be.
There was plenty of options. But there still wasn't anything as big as I needed. Plus I wasn't impressed with the quality.
And I thought shoot for that kind of quality I could get some LED light bulbs and build a better one.
Wait what did I just think of ?
I started doing some research and bam, it's on.

Well I own my own business, so it took me like 8 months before I could find the time to build one.
So I had a few complete grows with the LEDs I had.
And I was impressed with the final yield and quality.
Even though half the plants were suffering.

So what I planned to do was just throw one of these lights together using these LED bulbs.
So I cut a 3'x 3' piece of half inch plywood. Drilled out the holes for the sockets. I can't remember how many. But it was a lot.
Probably close to 30.
Lmao 🤣😂.
The bulbs I used were a mixture of regular LEDs cool and warm white. And then I mixed in some ( supposedly) true grow light bulbs.
I started in one corner with a grow light bulb then went with a regular cool, then a regular warm. Then a grow bulb then a cool and warm then another grow bulb in the other corner. Then went all the way around the outside of the plywood.
Then mixed in all the same kind of lights in the middle of the plywood. There is alot of them.
I did cut off all the covers off the bulbs.
Because.
This is probably something that most growers don't know.
That ANY kind of lens that covers the diodes can weaken the par up to 30 percent.

So my finished bulb light is 650 watts.

And I'll tell you what right away I could see that this funky looking bulb light.
Actually it looks pretty.
Was going to out perform all of my thousand dollar LED lights.
And man did it ever.
I couldn't believe how much better.
The final yield and quality was off the charts.

So much so that I built 3 more.
Because I have 4 aero systems. This way I have one light over each system.

I run these aero systems and lights. Just in my flowering room.
I run them on a 2 week rotation. Which means I start one system then 2 weeks later start another and so on till all 4 systems are in 12/12.
Then 2 weeks after the forth system is in 12/12.
I harvest the first system and start all over again.

So in conclusion you will be surprised what you can do with these LED light bulbs.
You just have to do some research to make sure you buy the correct ones.

I know the question everyone is going to ask.
I can't remember how much it cost to build. This was 10 years ago.
And you know what ?
EVERY light bulb is still growing strong.

Take care.
And happy growing.

ASS OG

AeroSystemsSea Of Green.

[Jebu_Nubisa]

Beautiful video, thank you very much! your voice is so sweet!

[_cloudface_]

I've posted this a few times but it seems it's not that widely known: if you take off the plastic defuser you'll get stronger light from the LED bulb.
The easiest and safest way to take off the diffuser is by squeezing it in a bench vice. They can removed by cutting them off but this can be tricky with less favourable results. The diffuser is basically a plastic half ball that's attached with glue so a little pressure in a vice makes it kind of "pop off".
Farming LEDs don't have diffusers so it should be safe to take the defuser off.

[mrskye]

Thank you! I've been thinking of just using regular led lights than grow light. Grow lights are too expensive!

[michaelwescott]

Fantastic demonstration, very sensible. Thanks.