Love to see the new folks rocking the inda-gro, keep them coming! Wish I had the money to buy now, just had to invest in a better fan to keep the heat down from these darned hps. Fully convinced thanks to spliff and others that induction is the future of cool energy efficient grow lights, not LED.
thanks for that -=o).
however, i just wanted to mention on that topic, that i firmly believe that LEDs do have their place in an indoor garden. and that would be an EXPERIMENTAL garden. allow me to explain:
the overall spectral response that plants demonstrate to the PAR spectrum is due to several different pigments and light sensing molecules. various photosynthetic pigments are sensitive to rather narrow bands of light. to name a few:
Chlorophyll A is most sensitive at about 400-450nm and at 650-700nm
Chlorophyll B absorbs mostly 450-500nm and at 600-650nm.
Xanthophyll responds to 400-530nm.
Phytochrome has 2 states, red (Pr), which is stimulated by 650-670nm and far red (Pfr) which is stimulated by 705-740nm. this molecule works to let the plants know when it's time to flower, and also helps sun loving plants to avoid the shade.
there are more pigments that i could list out, that are all just as picky about what part of the spectrum the sun provides (and then what physiology within the plant they use it for)... what i am trying to get cross is that all the plants on Earth have developed several pigments that work together to keep the plant "aware" (quotations used to hopefully avoid topical digression into a needlessly philosophical/existential tangent) of what's going on around it. what we know now of these pigments and how they work in plants is due to botanists utilizing incandescent bulbs and color cells to provide lab plants with spectrally filtered light and then observing the results. LEDs, being that you can custom tailor the nm balance of the fixture, is ideal for experimentation.
to be honest, i don't think that anyone other than a research botanist really have anything beneficial to gain in using LEDs to grow plants. and at that all they will be looking to get from the whole endeavor is a better understanding of how plants make use of the various parts of light.
even then, i would imagine that after full understanding was achieved, the verdict would be that plants do best to a full spectrum exposure with nm specific enhancement (via LED) at certain times in the plant's daily rhythm.
