How Far From a Plant Should an HPS Bulb Be?

From time to time, the weather or yard space will not cooperate with your plans that are growing. In those cases, using a mild indoors is possible, but the kind of lighting does matter. High-pressure sodium lights, also referred to as HPS lights or blubs, are an effective, if pricey, choice for lighting your indoor garden. The placement of the lights is different in the placement of a fluorescent bulb. If you don’t have exactly the HPS bulb at the ideal distance from the plants, you could seriously harm the living matter in your indoor garden.

A Rainbow of Light

To ensure that your plants can develop large, they desire a powerful source of lighting. In comparison to less-intense fluorescent lights, HPS bulbs shine stronger light onto the plants, which the plants use to create more food through photosynthesis and, subsequently, more growth. HPS bulbs offer light in the red spectrum, making this a better lighting option if you are growing plants which produce flowers or fruit. Light has wavelengths in various spectra, and a few are better for growing in relation to many others. You won’t notice the red spectrum when you plug in a HPS lamp because the light appears yellow to the eye, but you are going to find a difference in your flowering plants.

Go the Distance

HPS lights should not be placed inches from the plants, since you would place fluorescent lights: you ought to place HPS lights greater, generally between 8 and 5 feet in the plants. Whether you’ve got a reflector with your HPS lighting makes a difference for how close you can keep it in the plants. The authors of “Gardening Wisdom and Know-How” recommend no closer than 2 feet over the plants for lights with reflectors which have a wide angle and no more than 6 feet over the plants using conventional mounted HPS lights.

A Little Change Is Great

HPS bulbs will get quite hot after the 10 to 15 minutes it requires them to warm and mild in their brightest. This surplus heat requires alterations of the indoor gardening practices to ensure the health of your plants. Check the moisture level in the soil more frequently because the extra heat in the HPS lights causes the plants’ leaves to transpire more water. You might also notice your plants produce blooms sooner than they would if grown outdoors. This might move up some of your routine maintenance with your plants, if you change them based on flowering and fruiting schedules.

Mix It Up

Since HPS bulbs produce mainly red spectrum lighting, you need to consider including a mercury halide lamp for your growing region. These lights offer blue spectrum lighting, which helps leaves to develop. Using mercury halide using HPS lights, that are both high-intensity release lights, which provides your plants using a full spectrum of light which is closer to the wide spectrum provided by sunlight and maximizes your plants’ growth.

See related