brettmccft0
Well-Known Member
Only a newb focuses on lumens..unless your trying to decide what lights to install when remodeling your fucking kitchen.
Light is nothing more than electromagnetic radiation. The "light" we see radiating from the sun, or your grow bulbs is but a narrow sliver of the total amount of radiation being emitted. Humans needed a unit to measure the light we can see and thus the lumen was born.
Last time I checked, and correct me if I am wrong, I didn't see any eyeballs on my plants. Thus buying light bulbs based soley on lumens is as meaningless as debating which dog whistle would sound best to humans. It's about PAR, as that is the frequency of electromagnetic radiation plants "see", or more specifically, they can utilize to produce glucose from co2 and water.
Halogen bulbs produce a shit load of lumens but you don't see anyone growing plants with them.
The future is led's that can produce the appropriate frequencies of PAR for optimal growth. And you can bet that the newbs will come our in droves asking " how many lumens does that LED put out"
Only a noob DOESN'T focus on lumens. Exactly what Bwpz said, you dont see ppl using LED because the light spectrum is perfect, but the strength of the light is shit, which is why you will grow bean stalks if you use one of those. Lumens in relation to temperature is just as, or even more important than the light spectrum being produced because you have much more control over that than the actual electromagnetic spectrum. You dont see people using halogen bulbs because they are so darn hot, cant remember the percentage but like 50% or more of the energy is lost as straight heat, so it has to be really far from your plant... not cuz the spectrum is really bad.