I'm thinking about going LED when upgrading our old HPS system this year, but not entirely convinced yet. Can someone point me to some LED resources?
Thanks in advance~ruralgirlz
There are quite a few nice journals around that have proved LED's do a fine job. Couple comparative journals below...
300w LED - Sunset Kush
300W LED vs. 400W HID Demonstration
In my opinion there has never really been a serious argument that they weren't adequate for vegetative growth. In the early days the debate was over whether they could flower reasonably, but this has been put to bed.
The last remaining argument is cost and efficiency. For the indoor gardener on small to medium scale they seem to be at least as efficient as HPS on a electrical consumption basis, but the capital cost is still higher. When the light footprint is optimized for plant count then 1 g/w is a reasonable goal, with 1/2 to 3/4 g/w being typical performance for non-optimized gardens or beginners.
Typically, the LED has been in the defensive position (people questioning whether it was up to par with HPS), but a newer argument has been emerging that the LED trichome production and effect may be more pronounced than with HPS. I've seen this statement made both subjectively from trimming and smoke tests, as well as single-sample quantitatively with equivalent input yielding higher hash output with LED (all else equal).
To make a long story short, no exploding bulbs and if you can afford the initial purchase price the latest generation of lights are pretty effective.