I saw for sale a largish panel of red + blue LEDs to be used as a grow light for plants (the site I saw made a big deal about the reduced IR signature, which leads me to believe that it is meant to appeal to cannabis growers --which I am NOT, just to be clear). I wonder if the pegboard might be an apt stand-in for the much more expensive and pre-fab panel I saw elsewhere... Anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks in advance-
pa6otaet

So far as I know, LEDs don't work (well) as grow lights.

Quote by: Windell

So far as I know, LEDs don't work (well) as grow lights.

yeah, I thought the same, but the claim is that by using a particular of red and blue LEDs (a ratio of something like 4:1 red:blue), plants get the proper spectrum of light... What I wonder is how the pegboard would perform if it was chock full of lights (625 in all) and was left running for 12-14 hours a day.

The pegboard is designed for full-time operation, so that's not an issue-- but it really wasn't designed for illumination; you're probably better off getting a few high-power discrete diodes for the same price if that's what you're after.

Just to fill in a little info here, LEDs can be quite good for horticultural applications. Because you can buy them with outputs exclusively in the narrow bands used by photosynthesis, LEDs can be very power cost effective. People building grow lights typically buy one or two red frequencies (roughly 630, 660nm) and a blue frequency (430nm), and depending on the relative output of the LEDs, you typically want a 7 or 8 : 1 red:blue ratio for generic growth, and possibly different ratios if you only grow one type of plant (the optimums for various popular plants like tomatoes are well known).

I too came here wondering if peggy could be used in this application since actually getting a custom LED mix for something like tomatoes is quite expensive. But for agricultural use, you want high power LEDs (which typically have better luminous efficiency), all lit all the time.