Fluorescent lights are often measured in kelvin, a measurement of color temperature.įor example, you’ll often see fluorescent grow lights labeled as 2100K or 6500K. As a general rule of thumb, the narrower fluorescent tubes are, the more efficient and brighter they will be. The most common sizes you’ll find out there for grow lights are T5, T8, and T12s. Fluorescents also make great seed-raising lights, offering optimal lighting conditions that encourage new seedlings to put out robust growth.įluorescent lights are typically manufactured in a variety of sizes.

Modern grow lights you’ll find on the market today will emit several hundred units of foot candles.įluorescent lighting is a great option for indoor plant varieties that enjoy either full sun or low or medium light conditions, like Snake Plants, Dracaenas, and Aglaonemas. A foot candle represents how much light is concentrated on any area from a distance of a single foot away. Although, this measurement is now a bit of a relic of the past. Foot candles: Foot candles are one way a grow light’s output is measured.Lumens, however, is not a unit of measurement specific to plant growth and defining intensity in lumens isn’t the best way to determine how effectively a grow light delivers full-spectrum light to a plant. Lumen: Lumens can be used to measure the brightness of a lightbulb, the amount of lumens usually corresponding to the brightness of the light produced.Therefore, PAR exists in ranges of between 400-800nm. Like Nanometers and Kelvin, PAR is a measurement of visible light. PAR is the measure of photons that a light emits. PAR: Another measurement you might run into is photosynthetic active radiation or PAR for short.For plant growth, it is best to expose them to light that is like natural sunlight, something between 2,000K to 7,000K.

The color temperature scale is measured in degrees of Kelvin (K) ranging from 1,000-10,000.

Kelvin: Color temperature is a way of representing the light appearance provided by a grow light.

This is called the visible spectrum, and it is in this range, 380-700nm, that grow lights emit their light. Nanometers: Most commonly grow lights are measured in nanometers (nm), this measurement represents the amount of light emitted in both visible and UV light.There are several ways grow light outputs are measured, these include: How a grow light’s performance is measured

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