High Intensity Discharge (HID) lights are the main source of grow lights in any serious indoor garden. With the application of a grow light,  indoor gardeners are no longer limited by the number of lumens in the growing environment. HID lighting is also the most efficient source of indoor plant lighting available today. These high pressure sodium lights and metal halide lights produce 4-6 times as many lumens per watt compared to any incandescent light of the same wattage and will last much longer.

How does a plant light work?

An HID lamp operates with a properly matched transformer, capacitator and lamp bulb which consists of an inner tube filled with a chemical mixture. To simplify, it is a metal ballast with a cord that goes to the wall outlet and a cord that goes to the socket powering the bulb. A reflective hood sits around the plant light bulb and reflects light onto plants that would otherwise be lost. Reflectors are painted white inside or else will be plated with a highly reflective aluminum or brilliant chrome. Some reflectors are built to allow for air cooling which exhausts hot air out from the bulb and out of the room.

Are there any drawbacks to plant lights?

The two main drawbacks are 1) the  intense heat put out, which subsequently causes plants to dry out faster 2) they are incapable of providing the entire natural spectrum. Grow lights come as close to natural light as human technology can take us, but natural sunlight is still more full and vibrant.

You mentioned High Pressure Sodium lights and Metal Halide lights, what is the difference?

There are two types of plant lamps to be aware of, Metal Halide lights and High Pressure Sodium lights. Although high pressure sodium indoor grow lights and metal halide plant grow lights are both types of  indoor grow lights, they emit different color spectrums. High pressure sodium light bulbs emit very bright light that is concentrated in the red to yellow side of the spectrum and weak in the blue-violet end. Metal halide grow light bulbs, by contrast, emit a very balanced light, which contains all the energy peaks of the visible spectrum. Both types of lighting have their place in an indoor grow room environment.

Another difference is the lumens per watt of both bulbs.  High pressure sodium lights produce between 97 and 150 lumens per watt and Metal Halide lights produce 65-115 lumens per watt. An easy way to tell difference between the two grow lights is by appearance. High Pressure Sodium bulbs appear very yellow-orange; metal halide bulbs appear more blue-white.

What is the difference between lumens and wattage?

Lumens is the measurement for the efficiency of the bulb or how much light you’re producing for the amount of electricity you’re using and refers to the total number of light particles coming from the bulb. Wattage refers to the amount of electric power, expressed in watts or kilowatts which a bulb uses. In other words, lumens describe bulb brightness while wattage describes the power usage.

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