LED Lights For Flowering Stage: Best Bloom Fixtures For Monster Yields

For the longest time, LED lights had trouble flowering plants.

No longer.

Now, nothing beats the top LED lights for flowering. They have the perfect spectrum and get deep canopy penetration.

But that’s only the best. The rest are far less effective.

That’s why you need to make sure you get one of the few LED bloom grow lights that are actually up to the task.

And ideally, ones that don’t cost thousands of dollars.

I’ll show you exactly which fixtures give you the best yields below.

I will also show you the best all-red supplemental LED grow lights, in case you already have primary lighting and are simply looking for a bloom booster to really ramp up your yields.

 

LED Lights For Flowering Stage: Summary Of Recommendations

But before we get to everything else: a quick summary of the top lights. I’ll explain why I recommend each one in more detail below.

 

Highest Yielding LED Grow Light

The LED grow lights that result in the largest yields are generally those than contain every wavelength in the visible spectrum plus UV and IR light.

But they provide larger amounts of red light than other colors, with blue also being prominent.

There are a number of lights that provide this spectrum, but those that include COB LEDs get the highest yields on average.

The powerful chip on board LEDs get a much deeper canopy penetration than regular diodes. This leads to larger buds further down on the plants.

The most powerful light with that spectrum is the Optic 8+. It is expensive, but if you can afford it, that’s the light to get for the highest yields.

Another light from Optic LED, the Optic 6, also gives you a large output, but since the fixture is much smaller, you end up with more intensity in the center of the coverage area and less around the outside of the area.

Larger fixtures, like the Optic 8, simply achieve a more even light distribution than smaller ones.

Personally, I would not recommend the Optic 6 (or the Optic 4 or 2).

That’s because Phlizon lights exist.

You’ll find an in-depth review of them here.

The 3000 watt version (it is not actually 3000 watts—more on that in the review) is their most powerful light. It is virtually identical to the Optic 6 (in terms of specs), but costs far less.

The drastically lower cost for basically the same light, is why I recommend this fixture over all others.

The Optic 8+ is better if you can afford it, but the Phlizon gives you far better value for money.

I’m not going to go into any detail on the Phlizon light here, since I have already covered their lights in great detail in my review and also in my posts of the best COB LED and the best 2000w LED.

 

All Red LED Grow Light

Some people will tell you that a red spectrum LED grow light is ideal for flowering, but this is completely false. Flowering plants want light in all colors.

What IS true is that they want more red light than anything else. For that reason, many growers look to supplement their existing lighting with an all-red LED grow light during the bloom stage. These red spectrum lights function as a flower booster LED to increase both yield quantity and quality.

The main options when looking at supplemental lighting are UFO LEDs (round lights), LED light bulbs (that screw into a regular light socket) and small LED panels. We’ll take a look at the best of each type.

 

UFO Style Red-Spectrum LED Grow Light

UFO lights can actually be powerful enough to light a small grow on their own, but not ones with all-red light. Those are specifically designed to supplement existing (usually all-white) light, to give plants additional red light during bloom to boost yields.

The G8LED 90 watt red flower booster LED grow light is easily the best option. It features red diodes in two wavelengths: 660 nm and 630 nm.

Used as supplemental lighting, it will cover an area of around 8 to 10 square feet. When hanging 12 inches from the canopy, it delivers an output of 770 μmol/m²/s. It achieves this output while only consuming 80 watts.

The only real drawback of the G8 UFO is the price. It costs considerably more than most other UFO lights, but it is also much better made.

That said, if you are looking for a good budget alternative, check out the 300w Growstar. It is slightly less powerful and only has 660 nm diodes, but it still delivers a ton of red light for a great flowering boost. And it costs a good bit less.

 

660 nm Red LED Grow Light Bulb

LED bubs are small LED fixtures that screw into any standard light socket. This makes them extremely versatile and flexible, but it also limits their potential size and power.

They only feature a small number of diodes and those diodes are usually all the same color or two different colors. Generally, they are either all red, all blue, or a mix of those two colors.

Due to their limited size and power, they are only suited as supplemental lights. For a flowering boost, we naturally want all red light. The flowering LED grow light bulb from ABI delivers this.

It actually comes in 4 versions. There is a 26 watt version with all 630 nm diodes, a 25 watt version with all 660 nm diodes and two 12 watt versions: one with 660 nm and one with 630 nm. 630 nm is red light, while 660 nm is a deep red led grow light.

These bulbs fit a standard household E26 socket. The come with a 3 year warranty and are rated for 50,000 hours of use.

 

Red LED Grow Light Panel

Depending on your setup, a round LED or an LED bulb may not work as well as a panel. IT is harder to find panel style supplemental lights, since most panel lights are designed to be primary light sources. There are a few good all res LED grow light panels, though.

The best among them is the HQRP 225 Red 14 Watt LED Plant Light Panel. It features 225 low wattage LEDs with a red light spectrum (the wavelength is 630 nm). All 225 diodes are powered by a mere 14 watts, which means a very low power consumption.

It also means the output is nowhere near powerful enough to be used as a primary light source, but it makes for excellent supplemental lighting during the flowering stage to give yields a boost.

This is especially true if you use several of these panels. A great configuration is to put them on the walls, with a panel or two on each side, to really envelop your plants in a yield-boosting red glow.

 

Do LED Lights Take Longer To Flower?

You may have heard that one big drawback of LED grow lights is flowering time. They simply take longer to flower.

While that used to be true, it no longer is. At least not for the best flowering LED grow lights.

The majority of LED lights will take longer. That is still true. They often don’t have enough power to bloom, or they simply have an ineffective spectrum. The reason HPS bulbs flower so well is a light spectrum that is heavy in red. It is great for flowering.

But it is not ideal. Adding blue light to that spectrum would improve it and lead to better results.

The LED grow lights I recommended above have the ideal spectrum. It is close to sunlight, but with additional peaks on read and blue.

The result is faster flowering times and better yields, both in terms of quality and quantity.

In short: while most LEDs are still pretty useless, the best LED grow lights are now also the best flowering lights on the market. Some do still have less canopy penetration, but if you remove the lower branches of the cannabis plant, that won’t matter much anyway.