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Lighting The Way: Basic Setup
Published: 01/08/2012 by Meghan G
There are two main sources of light:
| Natural Sunlight | This is the best possible light source and produces approximately 10,000 lumens per square foot on a typical summer day. |
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| Synthetic Light | The next best option if created properly and lumens vary greatly. |
There are several manners in which to produce synthetic light and can be a touchy topic and a matter of opinion amongst gardeners, however, the main sources and their average general production output may look like this:
| Incandescent | Most common everyday light source that can also be referred to as Tungsten, Quartz, Halogen or just plain old Standard. These are not optimum gardening lights. |
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| Mercury Vapor (MV) | Inexpensive and very bright, MV is efficient enough for a garden, but there are better options for light. |
| Fluorescents | Used more and more frequently in compact form, they are also an efficient light source and more commonly used in smaller gardens because of their decent price and they are simple and easily available for novice gardeners. |
| Metal Halide (MH) | Ideal for the vegetative stage because they mostly emit a blue light that can help to sway foliage growth, however, they are more expensive in their initial purchase price but generate similar lumens to Fluorescents. |
| High Pressure Sodium (HPS) | Superb for flowering because of the orange, yellow and red spectrum light they emit. HPS is general a more costly option but can also be used for the entire growth process. They are more frequently used amongst experienced gardeners because of their cost and a higher lumen per watt output. |
The best manner in which to determine what might work in a personal garden is to first decide what size it will be.
-Meghan G
