The majority of indoor gardeners are using 1000-Watt High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps to light their plants and are still using magnetic ballasts.  Believe it or not this technology has been around for more than 30 years in its same form.  If you think of the computer industry a lot has changed in that same time frame.  This was because of all of the human ingenuity and the demand for more from the consumer side.  This is hopefully what will happen in the near future for indoor horticulture lighting.

We don’t need a Ph.D. in Photobiology to know that the sun is the only benchmark for new technologies in the indoor lighting field.  Plants have adapted over millions of years to best exploit the solar energy generated from the sun.  How plants relate to light can be related to how we as humans hear, by frequency.  One of the primary reasons that indoor gardeners have used HPS bulbs is because NASA did a study basically stating that plants are efficient at using red light.   HPS bulbs do a great job at promoting vigorous plants but they only provide plants with a limited light spectrum and a lot of heat in the infrared part of the spectrum.  As we all know, heat can be a nemesis to your indoor garden if not taken care of properly.

There are alternative lighting systems out there that will provide a fuller spectrum of light and produce much less heat but they are not very economical and in some case not even in the stores.   More information will be provided on the future of indoor horticulture lighting soon.

Article by, Brett McCormick, co-founder of Good Green Builders.  Good Green Builders is a grow room contractor in Oakland, Ca.  For more information or a free consultation call today, 415-246-8055.

Source: Urbangardenmagazine.com