Led Lighting

[Kyle]

Most of my hibiscus do 6 months outside and 6 months inside as the weather here in the NE part of the Midwest limits my outdoor growing season.    My windows face NE so direct sunlight is not an option during the 6 months inside.   This year I added Led lighting which allows me to prune, pinch, shape, and branch my plants in the offseason.    
LED artificial lighting has become a safer, affordable, and advanced way to grow plants indoors.  Some of the benefits of LED lighting are that they significantly draw less power, run cooler, take up less space, and can produce all the required color bands that plants need for vegetative and or blooming in one lamp.  
Floresant  bulbs like t'5 and t'8 have 1 color band and begin to dim and lose lumens the very first day you turn them on and need replaced often as 6 months - year.
Metal halide and Hps throw out to much radiation, heat, and run inefficient.
The 2 main color spectrum bands that plants use to grow and bloom are blue and red.   It is known with plants in general, that the blue color spectrum promotes branching, stem development, reduce internodal length, and create a beautiful green bush.    Red and other shades of red including orange is what plants need for blooming and high amounts of it.    Today's new LED lights use a combination of bulbs (diodes) and chips to create the different color bands.   They come in UFO shapes, light panels, and my favorite led spotlights.  
Some LED grow lights can have as many as 9 different color bands + UV and Infrared spectrum which basically covers the entire wavelength needed for bush development and blooming.  
Some of the latest LED grow lights use 3w and 5w LED's which can be changed  out to customize your needs to bloom or veg but does require time and labor.  Some led spot lights use many tiny bulbs with 1 powerful chip.  
A few drawbacks and safety issues I want to point out about Led and  artificial lighting in the house.  
1.   Protect your eyes and don't look at the bulbs directly unless you have special protective eyewear.   This is a very serious drawback to having any artificial lighting indoors.      
2.  UV light will fade  fabric over time.  Cover any fabric that the light hits.
3.  Always exercise caution around electricity/water and don't overload  outlets with to many plugs.
For me this is all experimental  and have not used led lights long enough to say what really works or what type of lights work best with Hibiscus hybrids.
My plants receive some indirect sunlight from the windows but this is more about giving my plants the supplemental light needed to keep them from going dormant so that when spring arrives they acclimate quicker outside and bloom earlier in the spring and summer months.
In this section of grow space I have a 36w purple Kessil LED spotlight about the size of a coke can in which the manufacture claims is equal to a 150w HPS and above that is a 90W UFO shaped led grow light in which I customized to have more blue spectrum.   The bottom Kessil is a 36w Red led that is not being used as I do not want blooming.    Due to camera aperture and focus point, the shot looks very dark and is not true to color.   At the end of my indoor season I will add an update.    Please feel free to share you experience with LED lighting or any other artificial lighting that you are using.
Kyle



 


 

  

[Charlie]

Thanks for the info, Kyle. This is an exciting new world for those who like or need to grow hibiscus indoors. Please let us know how it works out for you this winter.

Charlie

[farmer d]

Thanks for sharing this Kyle.  This is all very interesting as I was not aware of LED grow lights and the different color spectrums available and their uses.   I am very interested to see the results you get in the spring.  Best of luck to you!

Farmer D

[Rachael]

Just wanted to say I've been using some of these LED grow lights for my seedlings inside over the last few months and they're amazing! I saw a big change when switching from my normal grow light to the LED. The only draw back is how super bright the purple light is (I mean super bright) but can't argue with the results at all. The bulb stays completely cool, takes very little power and makes my plants super happy. Haven't tried them on my adult plants yet, but I plan to soon. : )

[farmer d]

That is good to know Rachel about the heat factor.  I depend on the grow lights to generate heat all winter long to keep my plants inside my plastic covered racks warm.  If the LED lights cannot provide heat then my set up will not work with them.  Interesting!

Farmer D

[Kyle]

Rachel,
Thank you sharing and good luck with trying them on the adults.   I put smaller compact plants under the center of the light and the bigger mature plants around the outside.    

Darren,
In your case you would want more heat and some will come from the chips.   The newer high tech led grow lights run brighter but cooler as the chips become more advanced.   Another problem with LED's in general is that the diodes can suddenly stop working.   It's not that the diode burns out but more likely the chip overheats and fry's.   With most led lights each diode has it's own chip and the light fixture will have 1 or multiple cooling fans running inside the fixture to keep the chips cool.   The fans are quiet and the fancy models will circulate the air a certain way that helps benefit the plants.   Here is something to keep in mind.
Let's say you have a 60watt led grow light and it has 20 3w LED's.  The manufacture calls it 60w and puts on a 60w sticker.  Each diode has its own chip but some chips are 3w, 2w and 1w.  Blue led run warmer so the manufacture can use  1w or 1.5w chips  or if they use 3w chips you can have problems down the road.  Even though the bulbs add up to 60w you might only be pulling 18w from the outlet because the chips are not 3w.  The actual draw power is confusing and people don't realize it.    A large panel style led light can be 500w but only drawing 280w from the outlet.   A larger powerful led grow light will throw out some heat especially if it is  an offbrand with foreign chips but the fans will distribute the heat so the fixture stays cool.     If your using florescent grow lights now, led grow lights will roughly produce similar amounts of heat.    It's the hps, and metal halide grow lights that give off all that radiation and heat (light plants can't use) however these types of grow lights produce bigger yields.  

[Kyle]

With February almost in the books, days getting longer, and just about done with pruning/shaping, I have added  additional red blooming light for a few hours a day from 11am-1pm.    At first, I was only running the main artificial blue lights for 7hrs a day and they were off by 2pm which is about what my plants get outside in the summer.  Over the winter I tried to simulate the artificial light as if my plants were outside receiving the real thing.  Again, my hibiscus receive NO DIRECT SUNLIGHT from mid Sept to mid May and takes almost all summer to bring them out of dormancy.  Not this year!!   Basically I'm trying to trick my hibiscus into thinking they are still outside but reduced the light in accordance with the winter solstice.   As the days get longer, I have increased the amount of light from 7hrs a day to 9hrs a day in which I'm currently at now.      Some of my hibiscus have micro buds forming but only the cv's that were to young to bloom last summer/fall or they never had a chance to get going since I cut them.   
I have not noticed any new node development or node growth from the blue spectrum LEDs.  Even with pruning, the lower dormant growth and nodes have died off for the most part.   Not sure if it's because the top growth is blocking the light from getting to the bottom  or the plant is not getting enough light and using all it's resources for the top or tips of the branches.
Kyle   

[farmer d]

Kyle - thank you for sharing this I find it very interesting and useful.  Please keep us updated on the progress of your plants.  Being that I grow my baby seedlings indoors all winter and spring I can compare the results of my T5 set up to your new LED set up. 

I am most curious about the heat factor as I have mentioned before.  My plants grow incredibly fast in my set up and once too big get stuck outside in the middle of winter and stop completely - as expected.

The one really huge downside to the T5 set up is the cost factor for all the electricity used.  WOW!  It is a lot especially here in So Cal - DWP rip off...

Farmer D