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How many plants can you grow with a 300w LED Grow light?

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For optimum yield, A good rule of thumb is to choose an LED grow light that outputs at least 50w per square foot of grow space. Make sure that the light can draw 50w from the wall (not the combined capacity of the LED’s) Example: a 2ft long x 3ft wide grow space would require a 300w LED grow light.

You must be familiar with the LED lights as these lights are now commonly being used for almost all purposes. Whether you want a domestic indoor light, a smart light, or outdoor decorative lights, you will find a lot of options that use LED lights.Although, there is one more niche category of LED lights that are only familiar to those who have a passion for indoor plantation and botany in general. Here are some things to keep in mind while buying LED grow lights:

  • The intensity of Light: This is probably the most crucial factor of LED grow light as it directly affects the growth potential of your plants. You will be needing the perfect amount of intensity regarding the plant you are going to use it for. For versatile use, choose the one that can be calibrated.
  • Coverage Area: The coverage area of a LED grow light generally dictates its illumination capability and surface area. Generally, the LED grows light needs to cover the entire planting area to ensure the proper and uniform growth of the plants.
  • Reliability: The LED grow lights are not the most affordable equipment when it comes to its price. Thus, buying the one that offers the most reliability makes more sense as you will not be able to repair or replace damaged LED lights on a panel with ease.

Light Coverage

Knowing how much light your plants need isn’t as simple as choosing any light and then hoping for the best. You’ll have to take into account two important factors:

  1. Plant Coverage — This is pretty self explanatory and means the amount of light each individual plant will receive.
  2. Canopy Coverage — This type of coverage refers to the light that will be spread over the entire group of plants in your grow tent, otherwise known as the canopy.

Whether you’re going with plant coverage or canopy coverage, it’s essential to know how much PAR or lumens you’re going to need for optimal growth. Remember:

  • Lumens measure the intensity of an HID light, which includes HPS grow lights, MH grow lights, and CMH grow lights.
  • PAR, or photosynthetically active radiation, is used to measure the intensity of LED grow lights.

You might be asking yourself, “Why do I need to factor lumens/PAR? Can’t I just use a certain number of watts per square foot in my grow room?” While you could just base the amount of necessary light for your plants on the size of your grow room or grow tent, doing so won’t give you enough light intensity for all of your plants.

  • Plants require a certain amount of lumens or PAR to achieve optimal growth.
  • As such, it’s best to figure out the exact amount of lumens/PAR the specific plants you’re growing will need.Notice that we're ditching the whole "x-watts/per sq.ft." method. Now, the coverage area of any given light will have varying PAR/lumens the further out from the center you go. That's why if you have a large growing area and need to use multiple lights, PAR and lumens is going to be especially handy.
  • This will allow you to figure out how much light they need more accurately than just trying to get a certain amount of wattage per square foot.

Pros

  • Very powerful with 1050 umol at 18 inches
  • Great coverage of 2 x 3 feet
  • Perfect spectrum for all stages of plant growth
  • 100,000 hour rated lifespan
  • Separate veg and bloom switches
  • 5 year warranty and 90 day money back guarantee

Cons

  • Much higher price than the other lights on this list

Pros

  • Good output and coverage area
  • Great spectrum for all stages of growth (but could use more white diodes)
  • 3 year warranty
  • Local US service center

Cons

  • Spectrum could use more yellow and green light (i.e. more white diodes)

How Many Plants Can I Grow?

In general, each cannabis plant you grow requires at least 1sq ft of space.After germination, I like to place one plant in a large 5-gallon fabric container, which has a diameter of roughly 1 sq foot.My plant will stay in this pot until it flowers.This allows the plant to grow big and strong without other plants or tent walls obstructing its progress. I also don’t like transferring plants too often, as it puts a lot of stress on the plant.So this as a guideline, I would be able to grow between 1-6 plants in my example above.

Make Sure Your Canopy Is Covered

Now, it’s also important to understand that most LED grow lights will usually only be able to cover around 1- 6 plants.If you want to grow any more plans than this, you would need to purchase multiple lights to hang side by side ( called daisy-chaining ) to cover the canopy and ensure each plant is getting equal light.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this article has been able to shed some light ( pun intended ) on how to pick the correct size to grow light for your project.

As long as you know the size of your grow space and how many watts per square meter you need, choosing an best LED grow light is pretty simple.

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