Bouncing The Sun Around.

[Guest]

It is common practise (almost doctrine) for indoor growers to use reflective surfaces to compensate for their inferior 'suns'.

It is also common practise in greenhousing, and even reflective sand etc used in the rows of orchards these days.

So, I want to know if any outdoors guys are bouncing the sun around in their grows. And more importantly, if anyone knows the effectiveness of reflected sunlight.

I want to enhance a greenhouses winter light by bouncing the dawn sun round a corner using a mylar billboard.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Figures on reflecting sunlight?

 

[slyfoxberg]

any kind of reflector outdoors is just a signal mirror for unwanted attention to your grow. good luck.

 

[Deft]

Yep, we tend to let mother nature do it all, anything extra can cost you your harvest or your freedom.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for stating the obvious. now, who's allowed to grow.

 

[Laxpunker]

I've been growing outdoors for a few years now and I gotta say the most important thing you can do lightwise, is put your plants on a southern facing slope.

 

[Stoner133]

Tropical Sunlight peaks out at 50W m^2 and that's pretty well the maximum plants have evolved to handle.

Those of us in temperate latitudes get much less energy, about half or 25W m^2 at 40N. Installing a reflector to capture use the additional light should help.

I would expect to see the greatest gains if you can increase the number of hours of light exposure by using a reflector. If your green house falls in shade for a portion of the day, a suitable placed reflector will fill in the missing hours.

 

[Guest]

Ya the sun is giving so much more stronger light than indoor lights that it seems like it would be unecessary, esecailly if the plants aren't in an enclosed space.

 

[Guest]

Thank you Stoner 133. I'm in temperate latitude and have the added drawback of being just over a crest from the morning sun. The sun in winter takes till midday to reach the greenhouse site however it runs in a strip between houses beside the greenhouse (2 metres away) for 3 hours longer than this. So I plan to bounce that sun round a corner into my greenhouse with reflective backing bouncing it back.

I'm intrigued as to how much light will actually reflect. I guess this is dependant on the reflective surface but a rough idea of the dilution of reflected sunlight would give me a place to start.

I don't know if this has been explored yet. Surely it has, bouncing light around slopes. Be hell for air traffic hehe.