How Far Should a Grow Light Be From Indoor Plants? (2022 Updated)
Light is one of the most crucial requirements for growing plants indoors. Positioning your grow light in the perfect area is important to ensure your plants get the appropriate grow light quantity.
We will be discussing how far should your plants be from grow light so they can grow appropriately.
LED Grow Seedling Light & Wattage
Generally, you should position your LED to grow light around 24 to 36 inches above the canopy seedlings.
Also, how far you should position your grow lights towards your seedlings will solely depend on the power or wattage of the light bulb. A bulb that is bright and far away from the plant could supply a similar light intensity with a dimmer or low light bulb closer to the plant.
Grow light with lower wattage of around 200 should be positioned between 12 to 20 inches above the plants’ canopy. On the other hand, grow light with higher wattage should be placed 34 to 46 inches from the plants’ canopy.
LED lights release mostly red and blue wavelength, thus there are appropriate for plants early stage such as seedlings. They are also great for the flowering phase and fruiting phase as these stages require more intensive light for optimal yield.
For timing, all plants should have at least 12-hours of daily full light coverage. That can be extended to as long as 18-hours and even 24/7 for succulents.
Any flowering plant will need about 16 hours of light per day. Remember too, every plant needs its downtime.
When they’re under light, photosynthesis can happen. The downtime is when they use that energy for respiration. All that water, air and light needs put to good use.
That happens when the plant gets to rest as it puts the energy into releasing oxygen back into the environment, and it’ll help it flower too.
Best Small LED Grow Lights Recommend
Features:
This ECO Farm LED Grow Light consumes 200 watts, has a high PPFD of up to 436 micromoles/sec, a top output of 2.5 g/W, and 2.3 micromoles/J PPE. This LED grow light is composed of full-spectrum white light + 660nm plant red light, suitable for all growth stages. Red light is especially useful during flowering and fruiting, speeding up time and increasing yields. It is perfect for personal and commercial indoor growers. This LED grow light ensures a sturdy and high-quality design, safety and long life. The light board is made of thick aluminium material, and there is no fan for heat dissipation, bringing you a noise-free growth experience.
Electric Sky ES180 V3 LED Grow Light
Features:
The Electric Sky 180 V3 (ES180) is a compact yet powerful grow light. It’s a lightweight machine at 200 watts, yet suitable for any tight growing space. Its broadband spectrum and linear optics create an interesting growing experience. You will appreciate the quick response of the plant from seed to flower. Additionally, the ability to “target” light where plants need intense growth energy most — reducing light loss to aisles and walls while increasing canopy penetration. The included dimming kit makes it easy to “dial-in” the perfect brightness for your garden. Also, the distributed design allows for tight canopy deployment without burning plants for maximum headroom.
Features:
VIPARSPECTRA LED Grow Lights are suitable for full-spectrum sunlight for indoor plants. This grow light, fanless design, gives you a quiet growing space, features a sun-like full spectrum layout and an upgraded SMD LED chip to optimize your plant output, is a great choice for a variety of houseplants in all growth stages, vegetables and blooms ideal choice. VIPARSPECTRA Spectrum was developed by indoor growers after years of careful trial and testing. With this light, you’ll see an increase in quality by growing larger flowers that are dense and fully resin-coated. LED lighting is completely silent when operating. The light is made with the latest SMD LED chips. SMD LEDs improve efficiency and longevity.
The correct LED light placement changes for each stage of growth. If your LED is dimmable, you can use dimming to adjust the intensity of the light on the plant surface. If your LED is not dimmable, your only option is to change the hanging height. These examples aren’t hard-and-fast rules, so don’t follow them without the blessing of your light’s manufacturer. But just to give you a ballpark sense of what LED light placement generally looks like throughout the growth cycle:
LED Light Placement For Seedling Stage
Seedlings need the least intensity and most distance between the canopy and the lights. You may have the instinct to blast these little guys with a high-intensity light to promote fast growth. The truth is, they’re young, vulnerable, and likelier to thrive with a gentler approach.
Vegetative Stage
In the vegetative stage, you want to get your LED lights closer to your plants. In general, plants in veg only need about half the light that they need in bloom. It follows that you could have up to twice the hanging height that you use in bloom.
Flowering Stage
It’s in the flowering stage that you really need the highest intensity. It is important to build in a “hardening off” phase as you move from veg to bloom. Slowly increase the intensity or lower the hanging height until you reach the manufacturer’s recommended height in bloom.
When to Use Grow Lights for Your Indoor Plants?
Since most homes don’t have enough natural lighting, it’s important to give the plants plenty of artificial light that mimics the sun. That’s what grow lights do.
If you’re starting with seedlings, you should use a grow light from the day you plant them. As the seeds sprout, the plant searches for sunlight to know which way to push out of the ground. Therefore, it needs to have natural light hitting it from the very beginning.
Some people do try to grow seedlings without a grow light and are successful. However, the tiny plants are very weak and thin when compared to those at a local garden center.
Seedlings that grow like this never recover. The plants never grow well when transplanted into the garden. You could waste a lot of money and time trying to save them when you could just buy grow lights and use them at the time of planting.
The type of light you choose matters for various stages of growth. We discuss this a bit later, but the general idea is to have daylight bulbs at higher Kelvin ratings for the initial growing phase. Then, switch to warm white light with a lesser Kelvin rating for those plants that are flowering.
Conclusion
One distinct advantage indoor growers have used artificial light is the light is a fixed amount every second of every minute, every day. It’s not like greenhouse growers whose crops and plants are affected by seasonal changes and cloudy days.
The bulbs produce the same light intensity constantly and consistently. That gives you more PAR for longer, which also means, you can harvest crops year-round, and faster. Just imagine — fresh produce year-round, of any type.
Just adjust the light intensity to suit your growing stages. From flowering to vegetation to harvesting your crops indoors…artificial lights can let you grow more and cost-efficiently too.
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