Sade is right and that is the basic answer
but if you want to look into it more there is a little bit more to it.
You can use several low powered lights to light up an area or 1 powerful light instead.
Both work but the 1 powerful light will actually be more energy efficient and produce better results. This is because light intensity diminishes fast the further you get from the light. So with lots of low powered lights they have to be hung very close to provide the right amount of energy to the "top leaves" but because they are weak lights by the time the light reaches the bottom leaves the light will have diminished considerably.
With a stronger led this happens less, you have to hang it a bit higher to find the right spot for the top leaves and the light dimishing effect will not be as great. There will still be a good amount of light hitting the bottom leaves too with a stronger pwoered light.
So you would have to use a little more if using several lower powered lights compared to one strong one to illuminate the whole area.
But there are advantages to using several lower lights too like with one high powered light things closer to it will receive far more light than at the bottom but with lower powered lights it would be more uniform all over.
One very crude way to look at the difference between a low powered grow light designed for seedlings compared to a high powered light would be for example if you imagine your gas heating breaks in your house. To heat the house you can use some 2000w electric space heaters which would keep you warm.
Or alternatively you could light 100 tea lights which would also give off warmth.
But would the tea lights warm you as much as the space heaters? Or even an open fire in a fire place?
You could maybe light 200 tea lights but still I don't think they would generate the heat to really warm you enough.
I've never tried tbh, its just a hypothetical example, you could imagine it might be tough to heat a freezing home with only tea candles.
It can be the same with low powered lights. Like I have some that probably only consume 0.2watts per led bulb - good for seedlings. but even using 100 of them next to each other I doubt would not be strong enough to get a high light demanding orchid to flower.
So low light units have their place and if you want more light it makes sense to add supplemental lighting but generally at the same time you should pick a light that is roughly suited for the space so that the light doesn't diminish too much in the corners and lower areas. The more energy every leaf gets the better overall. Weaker lights do not have the "light penetration power" that stronger lights have - what this means is that if you have a canopy of leaves with leaves underneath them the lower leaves will not get as much energy.
It's all about trying to get the most energy to the plants without burning them.
seedlings only have 1 or 2 layer of leaves and uniform light is important for them.
But like a big Cattleya will be very tall and will want light to hit the whole plant, not just enough at the top of the plant. So it makes sense to use a stronger powered light instead of for example having several lights surround each plant individually to give each one enough light all over.
Last edited by Shadeflower; 12-21-2021 at 08:09 PM..
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