What Are The Best T5 Grow Lights For Indoor Growing?
Year-round fresh produce sounds like an impossibility, but with the right light, you can grow and harvest almost anything you desire. Dabbling in various lights and how they can improve upon, or support, plant growth has recently become an interest of mine. Fresh herbs through the winter not only sound appetizing, but it also is a healthy alternative to dehydrated store-bought produce.
Plants only utilize specific parts of the light spectrum. When you understand the specific needs of your plant growth stages and when which light should be used, you’ll be harvesting your own fresh produce in no time. T5 grow lights are a fluorescent bulb choice that emits a very specific range of light wavelengths. Although there are many available choices in the current market, our top-rated picks are found below.
WHAT IS FLUORESCENT LIGHTING?
Fluorescent lighting is created through a chemical process of gases and mercury vapor interacting which produces an invisible UV light. This then illuminates the inside of a glass tube to produce a ‘white’ light that you can see. These glass bulbs are set within a ballast, a mechanism that stabilizes and interacts with your bulb to control the output of your lamp.
WHAT ARE T5 GROW LIGHTS?
T5 grow lamps are considered an excellent alternative lighting source for your home to provide both additional lightings, as well as full-on artificial lighting to aide in plant health, growth, and reproduction. T5 lamps are a fluorescent lighting choice that measures ⅝” in diameter, and are smaller than their relative counterparts, making them a convenient, and lightweight choice for your growing purposes.
Despite being smaller than similar products, the T5 actually puts out a higher luminous flux, or light output, than larger choices- making it an efficient choice as well.
WHY ARE T5 GROW LIGHTS?
Everybody looks for something better than sophisticated products for the garden. So, times have changed now. Halide bulbs are no more a choice neither are the sodium lights because they are not that efficient in terms of energy usage and also give off less light than required.
T5 bulbs on the other hand are cheaper, more efficient, and give off higher yields as compared to any other bulbs. Also, they are installed with reflector hoods that increase the coverage to the maximum and increase results in terms of propagation and growth.
ECO Farm T5 24W Fluorescent Grow Light
Features:
The ECO Farm T5 grow light is a 4 tube, 4 feet system that has many various size counterparts that run in a similar manner in order to better meet the needs of a wider variety of growers. Smaller, as well as larger, units are available with no drop in quality performance. Each unit allows for total control of light intensity through a switch and comes with 6400k lamp outputs. Considered cool running, these units can be mounted both vertically and horizontally and can be placed within inches of your plants without fear of burning- which makes them an awesome choice for germination and seedling growth. Up to 3 units of this size can be daisy-chained together to create a larger grow footprint, and the durable reflective housing helps keep light energy focused on where you need it most.
Features:
Monios-L 2ft led grow light with a full spectrum between 380–800nm, is the professional sunlight replacement for indoor plants.The 60W ultra bright leds provide high PPFD ( photosynthetic photon flux density ), perfect for seedling, vegetative, and flowering cycles. 2900K color temperature makes light appear warm white, which is comfortable for your eyes. This grow light are suitable for planting or displaying plants in any indoor application, including plant grow tents, plant grow shelves, seedling cultivation, hydroponic rooms, basement, greenhouses, storehouse,etc. Equipped with High-quality LED chips aluminum housing, the light efficiency is increased by 20%,which can perfectly meet the light needs of great majority plants throughout the growth cycle,such as veggies/tomato/peppers/leafy greens.
California Lightworks SolarSystem UVB T5 Fluorescent Grow Light
Features:
The UVB bar is used as a supplemental grow light to support the primary horticulture LEDs. It is powered by T5 fluorescent bulbs that have a narrow diameter of 5/8", which makes them highly efficient. The light uses 24-watt power and helps improve the potency and resin development in plants. The UVB light is used during the last weeks or later stages of flowering. The UVB bar uses much less energy to enhance plant growth, chemical profiles, essential oils, and aromas in plants. The bulbs have a narrow diameter of 5/8" which assures high efficiency (the narrower it gets the better results it delivers). The bulbs are more efficient than HPS and MH grow lights. You can install up to 10 units from a single outlet.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST T5 GROW LIGHT FOR YOUR GROW
Since T5 grow lights can be specifically offered in various temperature choices, it is important to realize that not all are created exactly the same. Your lower temperature bulbs will be more specific to mature growth and promotes higher rates of photosynthesis required to influence flowering and production. Higher temperatures provide more light found within the blue range and provide a steady coverage for plants to use for leafing out and growing upwards. Knowing what your needs are prior to investing in your lights is an important step in your plants health.
What stages of plant development do you need to support?
T5 lights are more specific to the blue range of the light spectrum, so therefore they are better used for getting seedlings started and to support plant growth through vegetative maturity stages. Those bulbs that lean towards the cooler wavelengths are great choices to maintain plant health when flowering and production are not needed.
How much space do you need to cover?
The great thing about T5 fluorescents is how much coverage they provide. When combined with a lighting system that uses reflective barriers, you can get quite a bit of square footage out of a single setup. You don’t want to short-change your crops, however, so it is important to take note of how much coverage you can get from your choices depending on what stages of growth they are in.
What crops do you plan on growing?
Producing plants are not going to receive enough of the correct lightwaves from a T5 for maximum harvest prior to this stage of growth. However, they do support plants up until this point. If you are simply looking for a good supplemental light for your household plants that are non-productive, these also are a good choice.
Conclusion
T5 fluorescent lighting is an excellent choice for your vegetative plant growth stages, and in some cases, even for support of bloom and production with the correct lamp choices. Your lighting needs may be a mixed bag at times depending on what you are attempting to grow and what stages of growth your plants are within. Because of this, choosing a light you can get the most out of can be a definite advantage. Our favorite versatile choice is the ECO Farm T5 High Output Fluorescent Grow Light due to the bulb compatibility which makes them easier to use with a wider range of plant growth, as well as the awesome 120 degree range of light for more evenly distributed light coverage.
Leave a comment
Also in News
What are the best LED grow lights to use in a grow tent?
When choosing Best LED Grow Lights, you should also consider the durability of the lamp, energy efficiency and whether it can meet the light needs of specific plants. For example, the LED plant growth lights provided by Philips Lighting are designed for specific crops to promote uniform growth and improve quality and yield.
Can I use normal led lights to grow plants indoors?
What's the best indoor LED growing light on Amazon USA?
On Amazon, hot growth light types include LED Growing Lights, which have a variety of functions and features such as automatic on/off timing, red and blue LED light combinations, multiple dimmable modes, and flexibility for indoor potted plants or indoor gardens.
