I have gardening related book which states that far red besides flowering induction adds stretch. Any experiences on that?
knna, when you say "especially those using yellow-amber," what brand and wavelength leds are you referring to? also, the 630-640 nm leds, is there a specific brand you prefer?
1500 umol might be the magic number and it might not be obtainable but that isn't the maximum sir... their study said that was the maximum of a non CO2 enriched grow, cannabis may well take even higher levels of energy with CO2 enrichment for yields that ultimately may surrpass 2g/w.
Leo, I am in relative agreement with you about this. I was just thrown off by the way you said 1500 umol was "needed." I'd consier it a pretty high number, for most indoor growers who don't get free light. As long as we both recognize that we currently making do with half that, we can prepare to push the limits further in terms of light intensity. This is why I'm so interested in LEDs, because they allow us to get much better umol/burned watt ratios if properly utilized.
If it plays out like that then HID is dead in the horticultural market, just a matter of time.
Agreed. However, how much time before people let go of it is something I don't have loads of confidence in. As much as I am excited about the future of grow lighting, I'm also a little depressed by the idea that HPS groupies might cling to their precious lights till kingdom come, even AFTER newer lights officially win out.
I cite that research so much because they had the funding and the laboratory to have empirical findings, I don't think many of us have the funds or the space to do that. I don't, otherwise I'd be doing it obviously.
Jeebus, wouldn't we all? The pot smoker's ultimate wet dream....
DaVinci your spectra looks great, but I would suggest as your target the Philips MasterColor RetroWhite 400W as your goal vs the Eye Hortilux. There are many many discussions about CMH on here and several big time HPS growers that converted upon testing and for very good reason. To me aiming for any HPS even the superior Hortilux is inferior to aiming for CMH.
However CMH has its limits too, it has lots of green energy that isn't really needed, tons of UV-A and B, energy into the Deep DEEP red. But of all the HID if you can emulate that one you're going to be one happy smoker, lemme tell you that, I highly suggest you check out the CMH threads on here.
Leo, I think we are on the same page on this subject also. Re-read my post and you'll see I praise CMH highly. You are correct, CMH gives massively superior QUALITY results compared to HPS. However, you do concede the extra unneeded wavelengths produced by CMH, and this results in lower QUANTITY of the bulb. Essentially, a bit less weight, waaay better bud.
This means that CMH is the obvious choice for growers who can afford the electricity to run it, or who are willing to yield a little less weight for the kickass CMH quality bud.
But the whole POINT of led experimentation is to figure out what different wavelengths of CMH and HPS we can get rid of, to improve efficiency. Wjy should we have to choose between yquality and quantity? We're pot smokers, dammit, we deserve both!
This is why I've chosen to model my light after the HPS. Hear me out.
Yes it is lacking the full spectrum of the CMH, but this model is just step one. It is easier to add in wavelengths to an HPS curve and see if they do anything, than to try to find ways of dropping parts of the spectrum of CMH. This array solves the problem by giving us a third spectrum to compare to HPS and CMH. Ccomparing the three outputs to the pros and cons of each bulb will allow us to come closer to pinpointing what parts of the HPS and CMH spectrums we can drop, in order to kick both their asses.Die, HID, Die, DIE!
Hence, my approach is attempting to best HPS and CMH at the same time, but in order to do that, it is necessary to model version 1.0 of this array after the HPS. Baby steps, mon. Baby steps.