LED vs T5 Grow Light Comparison: Nepenthes

Having access to hydroponic & indoor growing supply vendors means we get the opportunity to demo lights and see for ourselves what really works and if its worth investing in an expensive lighting system when Fluorescents have already proven to be an adequate source of lighting for most carnivorous plants . Your grow room size and many other factors come into play when choosing a lighting system, but to focus on this experiment… In our shop we use full spectrum LED’s and mixed spectrum T5 HO Fluorescent Lighting for indoor growing.

A few months ago we received a Kind LED L600 Veg Grow Light  instead of the Fulll Spectrum L600 LED Light  we requested. I was interested to see what the difference would be in growth on our CP’s and the guys at Kind were nice enough to let me give it a test run. At this point I had already used their full spectrum light on all of my CP’s and the most noticeable results were on our Dionaea ,Drosera , Cephalotus , & Heliamphora’s . All showing increased growth rates, extremely high production of anthocyanin’s and overall healthy plants not showing any signs of stress.  Nep’s didn’t do so well….

So, the test begins… I chose a variety that was forgiving and one that I could afford to damage if the test went bad. Two trays of N. Ventrata  were prepped identically. 100% LFS was used for growing, no fertilizer was given to either batch, both grow tents had CO2 bags which increase CO2 levels by about 20% (It can be much higher but these are big tents).

Both tents received 12 full hours of lighting per day for a period of two weeks. After two weeks, I placed both trays under our T5’s for a period of one week. This decision was made because the Nep’s grown under the L600 Veg Light had vastly outgrown the ones grown under T5’s and I wanted to make sure that the growth was stable and not simply a burst of growth followed by little to no growth or signs of stress from growing too fast.

You can see the results below. Overall size of the plants is similar but the tray grown under the LED was noticeably larger. Pitcher production & size is what really stood out the most. With temperatures and humidity being nearly identical it was clear that Kind LED did provide better growth overall… Best of all I had the LED setup roughly 3ft above the canopy, making it ideal for larger grow rooms. This test was done roughly 3 months ago.  Since then I have been brave enough to place some rare highland varieties under the LED, so far I like what I see but have no way to compare results.

N. Ventrata Grown Under Kind L600 Veg Grow Light

Nepenthes Grown Under 6 4ft T5 HO Bulbs, 3 x 6400k & 3 x 3500k

 

• Posted on  Nepenthes