LED and BUD QUALITY

[Ca++]

I think I'm a page late, but here is a sodium. Just a reminder that lots of light works, even if it missis the points of interest.

There is plenty of agreement that LED is more efficient. Plenty of good LED bud pics. However the feeling is, that LED is still producing something equal to what HID can. Not better. The idea LEDs produce better bud, is rarely spoken.

Many of the things we look for in an LED, look less important when view on the sodium graph. We chase 660, yet even running 50% more power with sodium, we don't have half what LEDs are making. Half the sodium power goes into yellow and green, which are few peoples focus. The sodium appears to get it all wrong. Really wrong. Yet with about 50% more power, is pretty much sat at the same table as LED. You might think, from the graph, that 3 times more power is needed for sodium to compete in these red/blue levels we like.

Truth is, our plants are quite adept at using most light. Blue seems to have a negative effect though. Which might be why the sodium does so well. It's not what spectrum it has, but rather, what spectrum it doesn't have. Blue does grow some plants that instead of growing up to the light, produce shade leaves. This can look like good morphology. The yield is down though. Is that morphology actually a hint they would rather hide from the blue?

 

[Ca++]

You see, we can't add any more to the peak values (580ish) of a sodium. They are already too far ahead of other colours. This promotes processes of one type, that can't be supported without processes of other types. The result is that lots of sodium, causes bleaching as processes collapse. To add more light to the son spectrum, we must add things like the 660 is lacks, and more green, as it won't hurt. It won't be cost effective either. It depends why you are growing though

It's this leveling of the spectrum that LEDs can achieve.

 

[Crooked8]

Agrobar 720s have been the absolute best led weve come across. They are crazy efficient and have produced denser and higher quality buds than we could with 1k double enders or 630 cmh. At this point imo going any route other than led is just being stuck in the past.

 

[shiva82]

5 year warranty with the agrobar is decent

 

[CannaT]

Leds will do fine just dont use temps and RH of hps.
There is no difference in quality at all.
Just stick to these numbers.
Hps:
Room temp.
20-24C
30-50%RH

Leds:
26-28C
20-30%RH

Its easyer to grow good bud with hps...than with leds...
But with leds it can be good grown as with hps.

Problem is that people think that leds will make lover cost of electricty.
But they forgot to add more heat to the room which is very importent with leds.

If you grow leds in cold temps....it will never be good product no mather how it look good.
It will never have terps and sticky icky thing on your fingers.

So if you have 100% controlable room,or you live in very hot part of world or 100 sealed room go with leds.

In all other situations I will go straight with hps/hids.

 

[Crooked8]

Leds will do fine just dont use temps and RH of hps.
There is no difference in quality at all.
Just stick to these numbers.
Hps:
Room temp.
20-24C
30-50%RH

Leds:
26-28C
20-30%RH

Its easyer to grow good bud with hps...than with leds...
But with leds it can be good grown as with hps.

Problem is that people think that leds will make lover cost of electricty.
But they forgot to add more heat to the room which is very importent with leds.

If you grow leds in cold temps....it will never be good product no mather how it look good.
It will never have terps and sticky icky thing on your fingers.

So if you have 100% controlable room,or you live in very hot part of world or 100 sealed room go with leds.

In all other situations I will go straight with hps/hids.

Pardon my possible ignorance here, but, what do lighting styles have to do with RH? Imo, your environment controls your RH, not your lights.

 

[CannaT]

Pardon my possible ignorance here, but, what do lighting styles have to do with RH? Imo, your environment controls your RH, not your lights.

Lower the RH...faster metabolism of plant.
More water evaporates...

Leds does not reduce humidity...hids does...
Why people with leds need less water and more nutes...cuz plants have much slower transpiration rate and metabolism.

You cant have good plant with slow metabolism. Even people with slow metabolism tend to have more sickness,obesity...etc.
Just my expirience...

 

[YellowCanaryConsulting]

Why people with leds need less water and more nutes...cuz plants have much more slower transpiration rate and metabolism.

In my experience it's because led manufactures jumped the gun and reeled it back in super quick. In other words, they are selling shitty lights so they can sell you replacements in next year.. In my heyday it was common knowledge to grow under 6400k (460nm) or you would get weak roots that cannot uptake enough nutes for flower. It was common knowledge to bloom under 4500K (660nm)or you would not metabolize starches/carbs correctly. Emerson effect was proven in 1957. UvB photooxidation effect was proven thousands of years ago, when various civilizations realized high elevation grew superior crops.

Almost all Led lights on the market are severely lacking in 460nm, 660nm,730nm and 280-315nm. The 3-3500k general purpose led lamps are not good for veg, and they aren't good for bloom.

I'm fairly certain many of the hated blurple lights had heavy 460 and 660, with a veg/bloom switch.. Far superior to any of the "full spectrum" led everyone uses now. In 10 years everyone will be under blurples again,lol.

 

[CannaT]

In my experience it's because led manufactures jumped the gun and reeled it back in super quick. In other words, they are selling shitty lights so they can sell you replacements in next year.. In my heyday it was common knowledge to grow under 6400k (460nm) or you would get weak roots that cannot uptake enough nutes for flower. It was common knowledge to bloom under 4500K (660nm)or you would not metabolize starches/carbs correctly. Emerson effect was proven in 1957. UvB photooxidation effect was proven thousands of years ago, when various civilizations realized high elevation grew superior crops.

Almost all Led lights on the market are severely lacking in 460nm, 660nm,730nm and 280-315nm. The 3-3500k general purpose led lamps are not good for veg, and they aren't good for bloom.

I'm fairly certain many of the hated blurple lights had heavy 460 and 660, with a veg/bloom switch.. Far superior to any of the "full spectrum" led everyone uses now. In 10 years everyone will be under blurples again,lol.

Its becouse led light dont have that radiant heat. Which heat them leafs are colecting heat and heat makes everything goes faster...everything moves nothing is solid.
So if everything in plant is being faster their metabolism is also faster.
So lights on 24c its like 28c plants feel.

With led lights 20c is 20c...so when lights are on you need to provide heat with convection. To plant have fast metabolism like it have with hids.
You need to mimick night and day...day is always warmer not just brighter than night..

But anyway today scientist and doctors...are so much in one thing...and they only look small picture...like they dont know that every small picture is part of big picture...what is happening in big picture,must be happining in small picture...as above so below...and many of them dont have good money...only way to they make their money is to play external associate for some companies...and they shit around like they are independent experts but in reality just low money whore.

I like science I like scientists im not like Leds are Monsanto lizard people agenda lights cuz its stupid......but I question every fucking statement there is on this planet !
The less you question,the less you will know.
And when you know very much...you know that you know very little.
Thats the way of life always contradictions like oxigen nothing will live without it...and when you look its the first thing that kills you every day by oxigation it litteraly burns you slow at 36.5C - 37.5C when parameters of life are optimal.

Its my way.

 

[FranJan]

Fluence's guide to switching from HPS to LED. Lots of interesting info here.

 

[Ca++]

Looks like Fluence have done some more UVB testing. Like the latest blue light research, a lower yield was seen.

Perhaps there is a link between UV and a protection mechanism, as people have long thought. However, the idea we can use it to our advantage, isn't bearing fruit. The plant doesn't seem to like it. I have never seen it work any other way either. Just a growing amount of proof that these higher energy photons are damaging.


Edit: I'm going to chuck in a wild idea. Some gains have been seen after treating cuttings with UV. However, treating cuttings with UV will decrease the viral load. It's a known technique. My wild idea is that some gains people see from UV, are actually from reduced viral load. Not a genetic trigger. Think about it. An early clean up with UV, will clean up a plant. A plant that has time to recover before it's flowered. This, to me, seems a more logical explanation for improvements seen after an early UV treatment.

 

[FranJan]

Interesting doctorate paper about light spectrum and cannabis production linked by SuperAngryGuy over on Reddit. I haven't read the whole thing, and I don't think it's been peer-reviewed, but there are some pretty startling conclusions about differences in HPS and LED cannaboid and terpine production in c. sativa that ya'll will find polarizing, err, interesting. Personally I don't like the choice of the LED company used (Vanq) but I guess if they used a true horti company's offering they wouldn't have the cash handy to pay for the space and electricity .

https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/downloads/7p88cn54p?locale=en

6. Conclusion:
.......When considering whole plants as a means to quantify cannabinoid levels of a given crop, HPS light resulted in the highest cannabinoid content (g plant-1), whereas LED light with different blue-red light ratios lowered cannabinoid content. It is important for growers to consider the impact of individual light wavelengths on both growth traits and secondary metabolite production since inappropriate spectral design could lead to a greater reduction in overall THC production. Data highlight the importance of optimizing plant growth conditions for 50 maximizing cannabis production. Future studies could expand on this research by deploying light qualities richer in the amber region of the spectrum and modifying the fraction of blue light with a proper metric to determine secondary metabolite production in C. sativa.

 

[Koondense]

It looks a bit sloppy for a research.

They used "red" diodes of 630nm instead of "deep red" of 660nm, a flawed design imo. Such a light would not be popular for its performance. Also the "blue" is really not the classic 450nm but 430nm.

"The light spectra evaluated included blue (430 nm), red (630 nm), rose (430 + 630 nm, ratio 1:10), purple (430 + 630 nm, ratio 2:1), and amber (595 nm) LED treatments, in addition to a high-pressure sodium (HPS, amber-rich light) treatment as a control."

The graphs show it clearly:

The HPS here is a top product compared with badly designed led fixtures.
The "amber" diode certainly does a better job covering the 660nm region so it performs better than the 630nm "red" diode.

If I were reviewing that paper I would not let him get his master of science titule without repeating the experiment with different leds and reviewing the paper.
It's not ok to do sloppy experiments, get wrong conclusions and support further misinformation while having a master of science. Totally unacceptable imo.
I could do a much better job with designing the experiment

Cheers

 

[Ca++]

I'm not entirely sold on 660nm used predominantly. It does sit well between the two chlorophyll peaks, but it's un-naturally so. This region is often concerned with signalling, and I'm not sure we I know enough about this. The more practically found macree curve, shows 630nm more effective. I'm happier with 630 peaks from my whites, and some 660 to broaden that peak. A look at HPS shows it's not massively important. With most studies actually finding the best light, is more light. With little evidence of much else. Except that 730 grows plants, but no better. While UV and even blue, annoys them. Other plants differ, but these days we are starting to single out cannabis needs from other plants (or algae) which is great

 

[goingrey]

Any thoughts on vitamin D supplementation to compensate for the lack of UV(B) in LED light?

This is what they suggest to us humans during the winter months when it is lacking in sunlight...

Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble secosteroids responsible for increasing intestinal absorption of calcium, magnesium, and phosphate, and many other biological effects.

The major natural source of the vitamin is synthesis of cholecalciferol in the lower layers of epidermis of the skin through a chemical reaction that is dependent on sun exposure (specifically UVB radiation).

Vitamin D - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Alternatively, should we just be chugging calmag instead of eating vitamin D pills?

 

[Ca++]

I was just thinking... The Philips Agro traded some red for blue, and while some species liked that, cannabis didn't. It's dislike of blue in bloom has always been peaking around the corner at me. I see LED vegging plants on hardly any light, and raised N demand at the same time. There is just no question is grows better. Bloom though.. I'm still not sure. It seems it's power efficiency, and lack of heat, are the real gains in bloom. I'm not sure the spectrum is at all better.
Back to the agro, and the many other sodium lamps with enhanced blue. They didn't yield as well. Keeping with basically the same tech, and just changing the spectrum, might of offered us some very relevant info regarding spectrum. Today we try and compare LED and sodium, but as yet, have not made the sodium spectrum with LED. A friend has been pounding away at a UK design team to do this, but their horti education has them blinkered to the idea.

I have no interest in adding UV. I would like to keep blue at just 10% of red, at the most. IR offers the chance to stretch a plant, so as a tool, it needs to be used only when needed. What I would think about adding to me LEDs though, is amber. The widen the red peak at 630nm, to get in more amber and even yellow. Though I wouldn't add more green, as I prefer to light the lower canapy from lights positioned to do so.

I might look at this more. I have a 630 peak from my 3000K whites, and a 660 peak from.. well 660s. I need some something around 600nm, or even 580 like the basic sodium.

 

[Ca++]

I'm really getting a bit tied up in ideas here. The use of IR does bring about more stretch, but I have not seen a recovery to the levels of stretch of sodium, or outdoors. My minds on blue, and the squat veg growth it gives us. What sort of plant steering do we accomplish with lights that give squat growth. We know that lght gets a lot more red at the end of season, and this along with light hours influence many plants to speed up. Remember sox lamps? Lower pressure sodium lamps had the 220lm/w efficiency we see from decent LEDs, back in the 80s or something. The problem was the narrow band of light around 580nm, that grew very stretchy plants. Note there was no IR to speak of, causing this stretch. The plants were hunting for something, thought to be a token amount of blue. It's all long ago now, when nothing was actually proved. However, a story does come together, bit by bit.
I'm trying to find doubt in my mind, but everything tells me blue lights have always vegged well, and done nothing for yield. Actually, proofs in that blue is lowering yield.

I looked up the ambers. They have not had the development work of whites, so are nothing like as bright. 50-100lm/w was the range of some fancy ones. The sox lamp seems it could be a cheaper route to amber light. Though the levels from a 100w white, might only need a few watts to get the amber back to to the levels of red. It's a tiny portion of the overall output. Gains might be difficult to even see.

This sox has been on 24/7 for a while. It's on it's last legs. I had to get a picture, it's a sight I might not see again, but was once common. I might get another at night, as it's still lighting quite an area.

Very dominant wavelength. Shifted towards the red as it fails.
Edit: The high pressure sodiums we use, run hotter to get a wider band of light out of it. Giving a better cri (we can see more colours under it) but a lower efficiency. Like LED, the sox ran cold. Though it was maaaaaasive.

 

[Ca++]

I think I need to rein it in. I'm off on a tangent. Just to finish though..
The amber could be used, as it's very specific. So specific though, that using the right amount may be a very small increase it overall light. A few percent.
A better use of my time would be the Lime or PC amber. Look at their bandwidth. They add more of the surrounding colours. The amber may add so much red, as to make it unusable. It would be pushing the red, not flattening the curve. The Lime green sounds like entirely the wrong colour, but the graph.. it says yes.

That could be worthwhile. The sort of change that would show if results could be found.
The Lime is one of the better output LEDs, with about 110lm/w it can output 100lm

 

[awwwc]

You guys can argue all you want about quality of your lights but I haven't seen anything beat the quality of bud grown under HPS imo.

 

[BuckeyeGreen]

With high power LED and soil, I have found out that 3-5 C more heat is your friend if plants can otherwise take it.

I found the same thing. I leave a couple doors open on my tent and the room temps. hover around 82F/28C. I think marijuana “in general” prefers warmer temps. My room was always hot when I ran HPS bulbs. As long as I watched the distance from the bulb to the canopy, I never had a problem with heat. Naturally you have to watch your watering with higher temps. but it’s nothing more than general maintenance. Check the pots weight each day and water accordingly.
My first couple of grows with led’s we’re pretty poor and I thought LEDS were junk. Got better lights and allowed the temps to rise based on the the results from others and it made a big difference.