This is the one I got last year and I like it. I have to plan ahead so that I can transfer some seedlings outside since this is on the small side. Thinking about getting another one. I see they now offer one with four bulbs... link to Home Depot

That Feit lamp is inexpensive, but it's also pretty dim. Only 1200 lumens (over two feet). That compares with an average double T8 fluorescent, that puts out about 4500 or more (over four feet).

That double 4-foot T8 fluorescent will cost you twenty bucks.

Works fine for my little seedlings... I do put them outside on sunny days so they get supplemental light. I used a similar one in the past with fluorescent bulbs and my seedlings were always leggy.

Well, best to talk lumens per square foot. Seedlings are usually leggy if they only get artificial light. Very hard to get artificial light that is as bright as sunlight. In fact both this lamp and T8s are vastly dimmer than real sunlight. Of course, it helps to keep the lights turned on for 18 hours, but still ...

Dim light is somewhat forgivable for seedlings. But it's simply inadequate for mature plants.

I bought mine from Garden Trends, after reading a recommendation by Ken Druse in his book Making Plants. They aren't cheap, but they do seem good. I second dan's comment about the merits of fluorescent vs LED. That's why I went with the fluorescent.

Kitasei, what lights did Ken Druse recommend in the book?

I’m using lights for seedlings, and as soon as all seeds in a cellpack germinate, they’ll be going outside to harden off when it’s a bit warmer. I do not want to babysit larger plants indoors.

I’m also going to try microgreens so will need something for them after my veggies go outside. Time will tell whether I stick with growing them.

But I do start seeds every year, on a very small scale, so I need lights. I have big shop lights in the attic from when I started more in past years, but I want a smaller fixture for the small batch/small space.

He just recommended Garden Trends as a source.

When getting lights for plants, it's really useful to keep in mind the illumination. Otherwise, you're just shooting blind (or, ha ha, shooting in the dark?). First of all, direct sunlight from a high sun at a northern-hemisphere angle is about 7000 lumens/square foot, and it's very unlikely you're going to manage to create that with bulbs. As I said, my 4-foot double-T8 puts out about 4500 lumens, so if you can get all of that pointed downward, that can end up around 1000 lumens/square foot, VASTLY less than sunlight. Now, you keep the bulbs on for 18 hours a day, and that's about three times as long as pretty-much-overhead sun, so you end up with the equivalent of about 3000 lumens/square foot. Call that the equivalent of a cloudy day. Plants can survive. Seedlings will do fine. Yes, you'll be lucky if your lights produce the intensity of a cloudy day!

Many of the advertised lights don't call out the number of lumens they produce. Not handy. But you can sorta figure it out. Fluorescents produce about 70 lumens per watt, and LEDs produce about 90 lumens per watt, so you can look up the lamp wattage and make a good guess at the illumination by the wattage. If you're shooting for 3000 lumens/square foot equivalent, you need about 30 W of LED pointed down into that square foot, and about 40 W if fluorescent.

Now, this all relates to the height of the lamp. A guesstimate about the number of square feet illuminated is with a beamsize of 45 degrees. That means that a 1 square foot lamp lights up one square foot IF it is one foot above the plants. The higher the lamp, the more the light will be spread out, and the lower the effective illumination. A four foot long fluorescent, one foot above the plants, will illuminate about 4 square feet. That's what I assumed above. This is why you put the lights close to the plants! In fact, my lights actually touch the tops of my plants, so I'm doing even better than 3000.

Sorry about the long exposition, but the point is that the FIRST question you need to ask yourself is how large an area you want to light up. THEN go price out lights that will do that. Very expensive lights just might light up a large area.

for your budget, i'd just get a 4-bulb T5 HO (high output) fixture. each tube puts out 5,000 lumens (54w/ea) so a combined total of 20,000 lumens.

home depot sells a nice one with high reflective light reflectors that focuses almost all the light downward so it's very efficient. it's about 90 bucks. you'd have to buy the bulbs, but they're fairly inexpensive (about $7-10 per bulb). link

keep in mind, you'd have to attach a cord/plug to this fixture, but is fairly easy to do. it's technically designed to be permanently mounted on a ceiling, but it can easily be adapted as a grow light with some chains bought at a hardware store, or rope you might have laying around. it's a no brainier for only $90, you'd spend a bit more if you buy a light marketed as a grow light since they typically already have all the fluff built in.

Edit: and the bulbs you want are 6500K 54W. bulbs are probably a bit cheaper at htgsupply might want to check if there is one locally to you.

Good point about HO bulbs. While normal fluorescents put out about 70 lumens/watt, these guys put out almost 100. Now, it is also true that their lifetime is about half that of regular bulbs.

Another thing I like about LED over fluorescent bulbs is I can position the bulb very close to the seedlings without worrying about scorching the leaves which happened a couple of times with the fluorescents.

I've not had a problem with regular T8 fluorescents scorching leaves unless the leaves are butted right up against the glass. Even then, many leaves don't seem to mind. I prop up all of my seedlings, as they grow, so the top leaves are always about a half-inch away from the bulb. I can imagine that T5 bulbs could be hotter, however, since the same amount of energy is passing through less glass. Certainly the HO lights will be hotter.

I bought a Feit LED shoplight at Costco for around $20 - 4000 lumens, 4000K and I was very pleased with how my seedlings did. My tomatoes are stout and healthy, not leggy at all and the few flower seedlings I had also grew very nicely. I like the chains that allowed me to raise the light as the plants grew.

Good catch! I think Amazon has them for $35.

Walmart has them too.

I'm not a Costco member... I'll have to order from HD or Walmart. Great find lgteacher....

This is kind of historic. As of a half a year or so ago, the cost-per-lumen of LEDs was 2-3 times higher than fluorescent. Now, it seems, the costs are getting comparable. I'm not going to dump my fluorescents, but new users should certainly be trying to go with LEDs. The color temp of these Feit lights is 4000K, which isn't quite "daylight", but is pretty good nonetheless.

Of course, if you shop at a garden store for LED grow lights, which are spectrally tweaked to be "ideal", you'll pay a mint, but these will do nicely.

I was at Costco today. They’ve discontinued carrying them in the stores, but I ordered them online for $60 plus tax and shipping with delivery in 3-5 days. It’s still under $100 and their return policy is excellent just in case. I couldn’t find them at any Home Depot near me and I need them ASAP.

Thanks to all all who offered info and advice, esp Dan - I’ve learned a lot about lumens!

Here’s the Costco link in case anyone is looking for them: https://www.costco.com/Feit-4'-Linkable-LED-Shop-Light-2-pack.product.100462723.html

Here's one for about $22 +tax at Walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Hyper-Tough-4-Ft-Led-Shop-Light-5000-Lm/345205251

They are more expensive up front, but if you want the best (or one of) LED lights/boards , check out HLG. The HLG 65 is $100 and has a small power draw. It will give you great coverage in a 1x1 ,2x1 or maybe 2x2, depending. . It will work from seed to harvest. These lights are typically used to grow cannabis, but i use them (the 288s) for Peppers, Tom. etc. and they work incredibly well. You can also source the same diodes (Samsung) that these boards use and DIY if you're so inclined. Might be a bit more up front than you were wanting, but it is well worth the investment if you'll be doing any kind of full cycle /semi-serious indoor growing (imo). They put off very little heat and are incredibly efficient. You can find all sorts of PAR tests etc. on Youtube and elsewhere. Purple LEDs will do the job but they are inferior imo. For flowering plants you might not want the 4k. They have other spectrums if you can find it.

https://horticulturelightinggroup.com/products/hlg-65

https://horticulturelightinggroup.com/products/hlg-100?variant=8108197478492

The Costco product is for TWO lamps. So that works out to about $30 each. Good deals around on these with many vendors. The Walmart lamps are actually from "Hyper Tough", which is a vendor I had never heard of before. Actually, it's a Walmart brand. Feit is a respected name in lighting. Probably good either way.

Re HLG, it is more expensive, but there are more lumens. Lumens/$ is just a bit higher on that unit than for the others. As I said, the power draw is just going to be proportional to lumens for any LED source. So the issue should be more how many lumens you need, and not how much power draw you can tolerate. If you don't want a lot of power draw, don't grow a lot of plants!

Well i didn,t get to read all the comments.

I have bought and bee using 48" twin shoplight like, for 5 years now. Initially they each cost me unde $25, each complete. The units came wired with plug in cable. I use daylight delux light

Each bulb/tube is about 38w., very efficient. So my $50 system is on now and i get the happiest seedings.

How can you tell when you need to replace your lights? I have about five sets of florescent lights, and two Aerogarden's with LED's, and noticed the LED's are billed as lasting years, while the fleurescent are not. A few of my tomato seedlings are stretching, but most are not, so it might be just one or two of the bulbs. I understand they are a bit of a recyling/land fill problem,so I want to think before I toss them.

How far should I keep the lights (dual LED ‘tubes’), 4000 lumens, from my seedlings? I’ve started to harden some of them off with 1/2 hour of morning sun at about 70 degrees. I don’t want to burn them, but do want to prevent leggy-ness. They’re peppers, tomatoes, basil, cosmos, zinnias and a few more things. I need to pot them up soon, as most have one set of true leaves.

I wonder if this would be better tags "growing from seed" or "growing under lights" , or something like that.

I bought a nice pricey LED setup, not sure if it has any advantage over much cheaper alternatives, but I can raise and lower the lights very easily. I was disappointed as in I didn't really get much better results than half arsing it like a did before using a windowsill or desk lamp. LEDs don't put any heat, so that can't help.

What surprised me was that growing heat loving pepper plants was so easy, I will grow whatever seeds I want now, instead of worrying about finding types.

Cool weather lettuce and onions sprouted but grew horribly under the LEDs. Is room temperature too warm and mild for them? Weak leggy lettuce that was not close for being prepared for April outside, but they still grew eventually. Lettuce started inside was only marginally faster than direct seeded, but still somewhat of an advantage. Onions simply stopped growing inside and ill prepared for the outside world.

Romanesco and sprouting broccoli grew "okay", older cauliflower types worse, kohlrabi was pathetic. I thought kohlrabi would be easy.