cranky, The largest use of LEDs is aimed towards general lighting. In that case, the color is tuned either by the phosphors or by multiple LEDs with differing wavelengths for a change in perceived wavelength. Preceived color is irrelevant to a plant, obviously, but that's a significantly smaller portion of the pie.
VE1, most white LEDs are phosphor based. They use a blue die with a yellow-emitting phosphor, which blends to white. Some of the more "advanced" phosphor LEDs use multiple phosphors to cover the spectrum a little better... these are typically used where color rendering is more important, such as in displays, museums, etc.
IR, California has taken to sippin' the RoHS Kool-Aid in a hard way.
I wouldn't sleep too soundly, nickle can grow whiskers too.
I was thinking a good name for one of the cats living in my barn could be "tin whiskers".
LEDs will only make sense when they come way down in price. I bought one on a lark at Wally World. It was around $35 and had much less output than the flood light that it replaced. I tried it out only because I kept breaking the flood light with vibration/shock, and thought the LED would not be as susceptable. But $35 vs. $4? Not gonna happen in the real world!
Right or wrong, LED's are the next wave. You can't stand in front of the "perception=reality" train for very long. And that is exactly what marketing groups and governments base their decisions on. I still find gas lamps charming.
Hey Shhhuuuuush about the tin wiskers - work in a data centre and mention tin wiskers and you can see all the facilities guys go a whiter shade of pale. Its still an issue and one that is causing headaches - a manufacturer of computer racks used tin plated metal work within the racking assembly and this has reared its ugly head once again. The wiskers growing and then when the racking is worked with these whiskers fall down and can get into the data cabling or even the power distribution causing the type of failures that just can be tolerated in the business.
At least tin whiskers in a data center environment do not usually end with clouds of black smoke, scorched insulation, twisted bus bars and 9000 horsepower enjoying some serious (and fairly long-term) quiet.
However, MY failure point was pretty easy to locate. (Uh, it's right there, in the middle of the big black smudgy spot, where you see the shiny bits from the arc.)
