LED and BUD QUALITY

[CannaT]

If its towards me I dont have heat problems here its AC room always set on 24C with leds only.
4 hours a day AC is off and at that time ony dehumifier works. In that time room temps goes down a bit dependent on climate outside from 23-20C.
And its good to plants some time have bit different temp than room temp is.

Aircooled room with leds only in hot climates is good. Even than its good to have bit of cmh during our night they daylight peek at least for 4H

 

[Lexstar]

LED or any other under powered bulbs (low w CFLs) will not mature the trichomes enough.
They will grow killer plants, very healthy, but dont do much for in flowering.
there's a reason why your HPS buds are great, can you guess what it is ? ))

I recently bought a Vipar Spectra KS5000 LED and it's not good for flowering????

 

[Rgd]

doing my two fave plants under both... 600 w 3000 k led and1000w red hps..organic

will take notes when I get to smoke them ...they ar all looking pretty good

 

[ILoveWeed138]

The short story is I live in Australia and it gets very hot here in summer (and even in spring/autumn) while winters are pretty mild, so I was always battling heat, even though the vertical set-up had very good ventilation – what I called a "column of air" that started with a floor fan blowing straight up over the HPS bulbs and being extracted by a fan directly above (as you can see in the photo above).

When I moved house, the only place I could really grow was the attic, and it was even hotter than downstairs. I also didn't have enough room for a 4x4 so had to settle for a 4x2.

So I started experimenting with LEDs. Firstly with a friend's grow (below). Once I saw the results I knew I had to go LED myself and started building strip lights. Then Quantum Boards. And then I simply designed my own LED panel and started using that and selling them to friends.

I get better yields per watt under LED and I get good quality too. Everything runs cooler and no more bulb changes. I am designing a vertical strip light at the moment so that I can go back to vertical growing.

Here is the first LED trial I did. Note the LED fixtures far left.
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Results from the second LED grow – sold!
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And my very first LED design – I designed and built this from scratch. Note the UVA diodes with the mix of 2700K.
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Genius!!
I have always thought LEDs need to be more toward 2700k, I think there's something that just dont look right with grow LEDs and their bright blue white 6000k over dominating the mix clearly. By comparing the LED light hitting the wall to sunlight hitting the wall through a window. The sun light clearly has more amber yellow in it even in summer.

 

[greyfader]

Im talking about that plants recive for milion of years sunlight on their leafs that is 50% IR and 50% visible light...and Leds are mising that in high amount.
Thats why plants dont behave naturaly under leds...have brown spots and other symptoms that when grown under Hids dosent have.
So in reality best led board will be 1 by 1 IR /Full spectrum diodes...but it will be much hotter than led board we have atm.

then how do you explain why my led-grown plants are almost visually perfect? i never show spots or anything but lush, green growth. it's not the lighting producing these visible displays you speak of.

i can see using a 1 to 1 ratio if you are trying to grow plants indoors that, morphologically speaking, attain the physical size and shape of outdoor plants grown under sunlight only.

outdoors, when examining the depth of field represented by a single plant, the ppfd measurements are equal on all parts receiving direct light at any given moment because of the nearly parallel ray pattern and equal intensity the sun presents on the face of the earth. regardless of plant shape, height, or diameter.

indoors, we have much weaker emitters that cannot present equal intensity on all lighted surfaces of a naturally shaped plant. so we resort to an incredible assortment of light application schemes to try and compensate.

reflectors or bare vertical bulbs arranged around the plants in the case of hid lighting or thousands of overlapping beams spread evenly over a relatively flat canopy for leds.

in addition to these mechanical manipulations of light we also can use manipulation of spectrum to control growth in various stages of a plant's life to get a better end product.

the 1 to 1 ratio throughout life is not ideal for our goals indoors.

by using a heavily blue-weighted spectrum during the vegetative and stretch phases i get a more compact plant with more nodes producing more flowers.

switching to a heavily red-weighted spectrum with supplemental IR i then get the elongation caused by the shade avoidance response.

because the plant has switched to flowering mode the stems do not tend to elongate any longer but the same elongation response that we artificially trigger by intentionally manipulating the red/far red ratio now causes cellular and flower expansion.

everything we do indoors is artificial and unnatural. starting with putting the roots in a container and continuing with light manipulation. attempting to grow like sun-grown plants indoors is counterproductive.

 

[CannaT]

then how do you explain why my led-grown plants are almost visually perfect? i never show spots or anything but lush, green growth. it's not the lighting producing these visible displays you speak of.

i can see using a 1 to 1 ratio if you are trying to grow plants indoors that, morphologically speaking, attain the physical size and shape of outdoor plants grown under sunlight only.

outdoors, when examining the depth of field represented by a single plant, the ppfd measurements are equal on all parts receiving direct light at any given moment because of the nearly parallel ray pattern and equal intensity the sun presents on the face of the earth. regardless of plant shape, height, or diameter.

indoors, we have much weaker emitters that cannot present equal intensity on all lighted surfaces of a naturally shaped plant. so we resort to an incredible assortment of light application schemes to try and compensate.

reflectors or bare vertical bulbs arranged around the plants in the case of hid lighting or thousands of overlapping beams spread evenly over a relatively flat canopy for leds.

in addition to these mechanical manipulations of light we also can use manipulation of spectrum to control growth in various stages of a plant's life to get a better end product.

the 1 to 1 ratio throughout life is not ideal for our goals indoors.

by using a heavily blue-weighted spectrum during the vegetative and stretch phases i get a more compact plant with more nodes producing more flowers.

switching to a heavily red-weighted spectrum with supplemental IR i then get the elongation caused by the shade avoidance response.

because the plant has switched to flowering mode the stems do not tend to elongate any longer but the same elongation response that we artificially trigger by intentionally manipulating the red/far red ratio now causes cellular and flower expansion.

everything we do indoors is artificial and unnatural. starting with putting the roots in a container and continuing with light manipulation. attempting to grow like sun-grown plants indoors is counterproductive.

means you know how to compensate well.

 

[Prawn Connery]

Yep u are right depends of setup you have.
If not ac cooled room,only air cooled room 40C outside and have great buds under hps...I will like to know how to do this magic trick.

I dont know but you start sound bit funny.
For some grower with such expirence.

It's no magic trick. I already showed you a plant in another post.

I start to talk about light quality you start to talk how I grow...wtf man ?
I have no problems my led plants are good and hids plants 2.

Stay on topic.

LOL!

What are we doing with that light, my man? Are we not growing plants with it? At least I am.

Why are your buds so small? This is one plant under LED in a tent that had five. If I sound a bit funny it must be my accent.

 

[greyfader]

Easy way to fix the not enough heat problem....throw in more light!

given the amperage considerations this is the smarter choice to produce more heat. more light for the same total amperage using other forms of supplemental heat.

 

[greyfader]

means you know how to compensate well.

yet you still blame leds for the visual displays.

 

[Prawn Connery]

I did try this combo, the yield was smaller than just leds alone but the quality was way up with the led/cmh combo.

I'm sure leds have come a long way since i tried them but the units i tried are still currently for sale in growshops.

Maybe better units will become available with leds (one that has a bolt on cmh in the middle )

That second bud in the 'guess the light used' post is massive, what led unit was used for that grow and what was the strain?

Great to see some detailed honest and open discussions.

That was a Paradise Seeds Acid (NYCD mix) bud grown under a pair of Samsung 3000K strip lights I built about 6 years ago. After I'd built a few LED lights for friends I decided to build something for myself.

There are 24x 24V H-Series strips wired in series/parallel for 48V over two frames (12 strips each frame). Each frame had a 240W Mean Well driver but I never ran them that hard as I only had a 4x2. I ran them at just over 400W, which was still a bit too much power.

I built quite a few of these types of LED frames back in the day. This one used F-Series strips.

 

[Prawn Connery]

Genius!!
I have always thought LEDs need to be more toward 2700k, I think there's something that just dont look right with grow LEDs and their bright blue white 6000k over dominating the mix clearly. By comparing the LED light hitting the wall to sunlight hitting the wall through a window. The sun light clearly has more amber yellow in it even in summer.

What I've found is there is a generally a trade-off between yield on the red side of the spectrum and quality on the blue side. Far red also has desirable qualities that accelerate growth and flowering while reducing flowering times. This is partly due to the Emerson Effect but mostly due to photomorphogenic changes (bigger leaves, slightly longer internodes that let in more light for penetration).

Red diodes are the most efficient in terms of umol/j and you don't need a lot of blue to get the desired photomorphogenic response (capped internode length, secondary metabolite production), but in my experience a "true" full PAR spectrum makes for very healthy plants and is easy to work under when spotting nutrient irregularities and pests. CRI95 gives close to true colour.

If we are talking standard CRI80 LEDs (or even CRI90), then 3000K on the whole has about 14-15% blue and 2700% has around 12-13% blue. You don't really want or need much above 15% blue if you want the best compromise between yield and quality, but it's not always as simple as that because there are many ways to produce a ~3000K light using different combinations of RGB, especially if you have different sources of blue apart from the usual 450nm blue pump white phosphor diodes (or 437nm with the new Samsung Evos).

Sunlight is dynamic and tends to be redder at times cannabis flowers in nature, when days are shorter and the sun is lower on the horizon and so there is a higher red:blue ratio and a higher far red:red ratio.

 

[Prawn Connery]

all electromagnetic radiation has vibrational-rotational qualities. i'm looking at research that shows IR having profound effects on plant cells and tissues aside from heat. such as causing migration and rotation of cell contents. i'll show it soon. i need a little more time to read and think about it.

Here, I found this Bugbee study on leaf temperature vs light source. I don't have the entire study, only the abstract, but the crux of it is, leaf temps varied by only a couple of degrees, and LED leaf temps were actually higher under LED compared to sunlight at the same PPFD.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282669441_Analysis_of_Environmental_Effects_on_Leaf_Temperature_under_Sunlight_High_Pressure_Sodium_and_Light_Emitting_Diodes

Leaf absorbance vs spectral output. Note the oldskool "blurple" LED!

The numbers – HPS has 13x more NIR and sunlight has 29x more than LED. However . . .

. . . leaf temps were higher under LED than sunlight, but lower than greenhouse or HPS. But only by about 2C each way.

 

[CannaT]

It's no magic trick. I already showed you a plant in another post.

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LOL!

What are we doing with that light, my man? Are we not growing plants with it? At least I am.

Why are your buds so small? This is one plant under LED in a tent that had five. If I sound a bit funny it must be my accent.

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Nice 5 pictures in 30 years of grow and now you at least cut over grow tag.
Bud are small cuz in SOG are small plants.

 

[maryjaneismyfre]

If adjustments are made and if you know what you are doing, it can be done. I am not contradictory at all. Only you, like an led seller, misunderstand my words. The palm tree cannot live "naturally" in the northern regions. But if you know how to make things that will cover her flaws she will survive. Marketing trolls and salespeople please. To stick to the topic.

Ever since the led bulbs for the grow room came. always looking for some reason to justify them. Calcium and magnesium, raise the temperature, and add IR... it's obvious that they are insufficient by themselves. Only blind people don't understand that. How many growers do I know who have added a couple of hid bulbs to their grow rooms to make it easier to handle things with LEDs.

Or just use the new age LED's that come with IR diodes mixed in, and then they made red bars if you want to increase that. That pic of mine had an added 200ppfd of red for first half of cycle. I think though for next run I will just add more light..My diet already has plenty of calcium and magnesium, must just keep these moms free of viroid and the lawn of sticky stinky colas should continue, just get bigger more light and more co2..

 

[Crooked8]

Everyone here complaining about LEDs has not put in the work to match cardinal parameters or used shitty lights imo. You dont just need to add cal or mag, you need to up all feed to handle the increase in photons from leds. HID is easier for sure, but its basic in comparison and very inefficient. Our setup is currently dialed in. Here we are at the beginning of our cycle. This is almost two weeks in. No health issues whatsoever, we had some issues first couple runs because we weren't feeding enough. Last run was nearly perfect the entire run. This one looks even better. The quality is beyond anything i ran under HPS in my 20 years growing.

 

[Prawn Connery]

You dont just need to add cal or mag, you need to up all feed to handle the increase in photons from leds.

That is so true. It's the one error I see most new LED growers make. You need to increase the EC to compensate for the slightly lower transpiration rate under LED compared to HIDs. A good feed can make all the difference!

Nice looking lights! What are they? The whole set-up is very clean. Results speak for themself!

 

[Crooked8]

That is so true. It's the one error I see most new LED growers make. You need to increase the EC to compensate for the slightly lower transpiration rate under LED compared to HIDs. A good feed can make all the difference!

Nice looking lights! What are they? The whole set-up is very clean. Results speak for themself!

They are Agrobar 720s. I am in love with them. Ive tried several other Led brands and its no comparison. They crank, but they arent for the feint of heart. Not everyone can drive a race car and this is no different. Thanks for the kind words @Prawn Connery and for fighting the good Led fight!

Let me introduce a new inspiration to me…..

Tyler Incognita, what the actual hell…..103g/sf? That is insanity. Im jacked about my room hitting nearly 30lbs, if i hit those numbers id be looking at 55lbs in the same space. WHAT!? Everyone take notes because this is someone who is on point and understands the actual science here. No HIDs in sight, no need for inefficient outdated equipment. He is embarrassing HID results.

 

[greyfader]

They are Agrobar 720s. I am in love with them. Ive tried several other Led brands and its no comparison. They crank, but they arent for the feint of heart. Not everyone can drive a race car and this is no different. Thanks for the kind words @Prawn Connery and for fighting the good Led fight!

Let me introduce a new inspiration to me…..

Tyler Incognita, what the actual hell…..103g/sf? That is insanity. Im jacked about my room hitting nearly 30lbs, if i hit those numbers id be looking at 55lbs in the same space. WHAT!? Everyone take notes because this is someone who is on point and understands the actual science here. No HIDs in sight, no need for inefficient outdated equipment. He is embarrassing HID results.

for your personal safety, i hope your love for your leds is purely platonic!

 

[Crooked8]

for your personal safety, i hope your love for your leds is purely platonic!

It might get weird if they start giving me 55lb harvests

5lbs per light? Might get me excited in all sorts of ways.

 

[greyfader]

It might get weird if they start giving me 55lb harvests

5lbs per light? Might get me excited in all sorts of ways.

me too but i'm still keeping my pecker out of the works! but, to each his own!