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Experiment: Do grow lights really work?

28 September 2021

You’ve probably heard about grow lights before, and probably know that it is a good investment for your plants. But how big of a difference do they really make? To find out just how important grow lights are in order to cultivate strong, healthy plants, we put together experiment. What happens when you plant the same seeds at the same time, but only provide one of them with grow lights? Let’s find out!

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Test: How important are grow lights?  

At the end of August, we sowed the same vegetable, pak choi, in four mini greenhouses. We placed two greenhouses with cultivating plugs with pak choi seeds, underneath a leadlight bulb, 18 W, made for cultivating. This light bulb was lit about 16 hours a day. The other two greenhouses stood on a table beside them only provided indoor temperature and daylight.  

Even in August, one of the warmest summer months, the days are remarkably shorter with fewer hours of daylight compared to July. This became clear in the experiment. Just two weeks later, at the beginning of September, we truly saw the importance of grow lights for our pak choi plants.

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In 16 days, the pak choi seeds that had been left without grow lights had germinated and formed small, rather thin plants where the first character leaves had just appeared. The seeds in the mini greenhouses under the grow lights had, in the same amount of days, germinated and grown into small, compact mini-plants with pak choi lettuce.

We could also see a significant difference in the root system of the plants. The roots of the larger plants, the ones provided with grow lights, had begun to grow outside the plug and looked strong and healthy. The roots of the smaller plants, cultivated without grow lights, still remained inside the plug.

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Conclusion - why you should use grow lights 

Cultivating indoors works fine most of the year, with or without extra lighting. However, plant lighting will make a big difference, not only for how fast your plants grow but also for how big and strong they grow. Treat your plants the way they deserve - provide them with grow lights!

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