LED and BUD QUALITY

[CannaT]

Looks like a mold problem cannaT

What mold ?

 

[CannaT]

How far along were these? Do you typically enjoy stuff thats taken a little earlier? Looks like it has some sparkle to it. It also looks like a lot of foliage died off, was this on purpose? And yeah, 1 week veg typically wont show huge yields.

They flowered for 65 days its not to early. But buds are extremly small it was case also on previous one.
Sparkle is a must.I dont like dry trich and no sticky weed.
I put only water last 2 weeks. And organic nutes.

 

[CannaT]

How far along were these? Do you typically enjoy stuff thats taken a little earlier? Looks like it has some sparkle to it. It also looks like a lot of foliage died off, was this on purpose? And yeah, 1 week veg typically wont show huge yields.

About foliage I always lolipop at 3 week
everything I cut i put on ground.
When I harvest I use some stick to mix a soil a bit and than put all these leafs + plant that is harvested at top and some egg shels or on last runs I put crushed bio tabs tabs 2 pcs.
And put new soil on top water soil very hard and let it stay for week or 2 than reusit and only use organic nutes.
Its soil old 3,5 years and still going good.

 

[Hammerhead]

A78 x P420 @ 40 days under an HLG Diablo..

 

[CannaT]

A78 x P420 @ 40 days under an HLG Diablo..
View attachment 18885324

Your plants rarley dont look perfect.
Nice skills

 

[CannaT]

A78 x P420 @ 40 days under an HLG Diablo..
View attachment 18885324

Your plants rarley dont look perfect.
Niceskills

 

[Hammerhead]

Thanks, After 55 years of growing weed, anyone should be good at growing it ..

 

[Ca++]

What mold ?

I'm not sure. What do the insides of the trunk look like? Is there a brown core, or a brown ring?

 

[greyfader]

@CannaT "But buds are very small I dont know why"

since i switched to LEDS i have been seeing the same thing. i've been using screw-in light bulbs, 5000k and 2700k. i have experimented using both color temps simultaneously in various ratios. 50/50, 30/70, and others. i was growing dank, terpy plants but the flowers did not get as large as HPS flowers.

this last grow i used the 5000k alone throughout veg and in flower up to the end of the third week. this keeps the architecture tight and reduces internode space. at that point, i removed all of the 5000k bulbs and installed all 2700k bulbs plus some 25 watt incandescents.

the last grow was a pheno hunt for a breeder friend who is the owner of Bluestarseedco.com. he is a vendor here. the seeds were a cross of his Blue Star and Triangle kush.

when he saw the flowers he remarked that they were larger than the mother's flowers.

most manufactured led lights are typically 1/3 5000k diodes and 2/3 3000k, a warm white. Then, depending on the manufacturer, they will include a few 660nm diodes and sometimes a few 745-750nm diodes.

while the 5000k and the 3000k are "white" diodes achieved by coating blue diodes with phosphors to get the desired color temp, the 660 deep reds and the 745-750 far reds are built specifically for the single frequency and therefore very narrow applications of deep red and far red.

no manufactured LED light that i know of produces any infrared. the heat they produce is from electrical resistance.

you could build a LED with some specific infrared diodes but i haven't seen one yet.

so some people are supplementing the led lights with HPS or CMH in an attempt to produce a more complete spectrum. this is an expensive way to do it. and because of the power ranges they are offered in they produce too much infrared. and too much heat in the grow room.

well, i decided to use low-wattage incandescent bulbs instead. and i think this is what caused the larger flowers that i got.

an incandescent produces more deep red than the sun as a portion of PAR. it produces a continuous curve instead of hitting just one wavelength.

like green and far red, infrared penetrates plant tissue deeper than red or blue.

i think the plant has evolved using a complete range of the sun's frequencies to trigger some of the processes.

i think that we don't need the power of these deep red, far red, and infrared frequencies that an HPS or a CMH produces. maybe just enough for internal signaling. The LED lights are fairly complete in spectrum up to about 630nm.

we know that the ratio of red/far red controls the elongation response and when the fan leaves become occluded the plant stretches more. this is because the fan leaves have specialized cells scattered randomly on the top surface that sense the change in the red/far red ratio.

well, after the vegetative and stretch stages of growth, the plant won't stretch anymore.

it looks to me that the same factors that cause stretching up to this point also cause flower elongation and flower bulking during the rest of the flowering phase.

this complete spectrum is missing from most manufactured led lights. even the ones that supplement 660nm and 745-750nm are just hitting spots on the curve and not producing a complete curve. and still lack even enough infrared for signaling.

Josh of BlueStarSeedco thought that my flowers were significantly larger than the mother plant's flowers.

i've put this graph up on this thread or the other one before. it is a representation of what a tungsten incandescent looks like superimposed over a warm white led. probably a 3000k. i found them both on the same site using the same graph so it was easy to put this together.

my two homemade fixtures are 72 bulbs each totalling 1008 watts and, after stretch, i removed 12 led bulbs from each and substituted 6 25-watt incandescent appliance bulbs per fixture making each fixture 990 watts.

i got significantly larger flowers than i've gotten previously using LEDS alone.

you can see where the two cross and the incandescents start producing deep red and then continue up through the far red and infrared ranges in a smooth continuous way. the incandescent curve goes way past 850nm.

"Tungsten incandescent lamps are thermal radiators that emit a continuous spectrum of light extending from about 300 nanometers, in the ultraviolet region, to about 1400 nanometers, in the near infrared region." from Florida State University.

this graph shows the spectral emission of a 25-watt incandescent bulb. it is a smooth, continuous curve.

i need to grow the same plant without the incandescents to prove it to someone else but i'm satisfied that the combination produces larger flowers.

 

[Ca++]

Good post @greyfader

Was this the first time you didn't use cool whites?

Blue has been seen as a limiting factor. The compact nature you speak of using them, isn't a good sign for yield. It seems great, as the plants are not getting bigger, and the nugs don't spread out. Yet that's not really the goal.

2700K is very warm. Then you added incandescent lamps. The ratio of blue may of been very low. Lower than the commercial lights we are sold. Though perhaps not the 5% we see in HPS. Where we see elongation leading to large dominant heads.

I have also used incandescent lamps to control the grows shape. There is no question the plants respond to just a scattering of lamps.

I think the incandescent is about as efficient as an IR emitter can be. Using LED, you can hit just certain bands, if it's triggering you are looking for. Which I have not tried. The 660/730 lamp I bought, just looks too good in my lounge area, to be giving it my plants


I'm in that HPS mixing club. In efficiency terms, the HPS is making 1.7umol which is loosing about a third beside a 2.6umol LED. So when I put in a 600, I get the light a 400w LED would make, plus about 200w of light outside the recognised PAR range. Virtually all IR. My last couple of runs, have put about 80w of this IR over a meter. I'm unsure how far your 150w is spread. Though I expect it's similar. I'm doing this all the time, and stretch might be near half of that of a HPS grow. It hard to call it. There is certainly a few heads stretching internodes out 100mm, as they look for dominance. It's more LED than HID though.


I have let my panels warm a little, so my LED's give more IR. I had them on low power, running pretty cool with fan assistance. I saw reason to stop extending their life, and get some IR out of them. A cold rooms just not good. Though running my lights hot, was just a temporary measure.

The reasons for IR are amassing, and nothing is coming forward but likable results. Only using 730s seems to of fell mute. A colour used to compliment 660 in photosynthesis. I think my IR musings, are about something else. You speak of signalling, and it's a good point to make.


I have been musing over water movement. As have many. If we look to rising damp for a moment (not the sitcom) we see it only gets so high. Water being lifted, by any means, isn't easy. If we have blue light opening the stomata more, and higher respiratory rates, then more water is being lost lower down the plant, since the switch to LED. While at the top, less transpiration is likely, which should be drawing up water. The need for Ca was quickly identified. While pics of saggy tops have appeared a bit. Maybe the upper reaches of the plant need that little bit more heat, but also there is a trigger in this IR light. The stretch response is surely connected to water need.
Using the 2700s and incandescent lamps, moves away from that blue light and no IR scenario.

 

[CannaT]

I'm not sure. What do the insides of the trunk look like? Is there a brown core, or a brown ring?

No, nothing at all like this.
If there is brown core...I would not trim those they will go straight to garbage can.

 

[CannaT]

@CannaT "But buds are very small I dont know why"

since i switched to LEDS i have been seeing the same thing. i've been using screw-in light bulbs, 5000k and 2700k. i have experimented using both color temps simultaneously in various ratios. 50/50, 30/70, and others. i was growing dank, terpy plants but the flowers did not get as large as HPS flowers.

this last grow i used the 5000k alone throughout veg and in flower up to the end of the third week. this keeps the architecture tight and reduces internode space. at that point, i removed all of the 5000k bulbs and installed all 2700k bulbs plus some 25 watt incandescents.

the last grow was a pheno hunt for a breeder friend who is the owner of Bluestarseedco.com. he is a vendor here. the seeds were a cross of his Blue Star and Triangle kush.

when he saw the flowers he remarked that they were larger than the mother's flowers.

most manufactured led lights are typically 1/3 5000k diodes and 2/3 3000k, a warm white. Then, depending on the manufacturer, they will include a few 660nm diodes and sometimes a few 745-750nm diodes.

while the 5000k and the 3000k are "white" diodes achieved by coating blue diodes with phosphors to get the desired color temp, the 660 deep reds and the 745-750 far reds are built specifically for the single frequency and therefore very narrow applications of deep red and far red.

no manufactured LED light that i know of produces any infrared. the heat they produce is from electrical resistance.

you could build a LED with some specific infrared diodes but i haven't seen one yet.

so some people are supplementing the led lights with HPS or CMH in an attempt to produce a more complete spectrum. this is an expensive way to do it. and because of the power ranges they are offered in they produce too much infrared. and too much heat in the grow room.

well, i decided to use low-wattage incandescent bulbs instead. and i think this is what caused the larger flowers that i got.

an incandescent produces more deep red than the sun as a portion of PAR. it produces a continuous curve instead of hitting just one wavelength.

like green and far red, infrared penetrates plant tissue deeper than red or blue.

i think the plant has evolved using a complete range of the sun's frequencies to trigger some of the processes.

i think that we don't need the power of these deep red, far red, and infrared frequencies that an HPS or a CMH produces. maybe just enough for internal signaling. The LED lights are fairly complete in spectrum up to about 630nm.

we know that the ratio of red/far red controls the elongation response and when the fan leaves become occluded the plant stretches more. this is because the fan leaves have specialized cells scattered randomly on the top surface that sense the change in the red/far red ratio.

well, after the vegetative and stretch stages of growth, the plant won't stretch anymore.

it looks to me that the same factors that cause stretching up to this point also cause flower elongation and flower bulking during the rest of the flowering phase.

this complete spectrum is missing from most manufactured led lights. even the ones that supplement 660nm and 745-750nm are just hitting spots on the curve and not producing a complete curve. and still lack even enough infrared for signaling.

Josh of BlueStarSeedco thought that my flowers were significantly larger than the mother plant's flowers.

i've put this graph up on this thread or the other one before. it is a representation of what a tungsten incandescent looks like superimposed over a warm white led. probably a 3000k. i found them both on the same site using the same graph so it was easy to put this together.

my two homemade fixtures are 72 bulbs each totalling 1008 watts and, after stretch, i removed 12 led bulbs from each and substituted 6 25-watt incandescent appliance bulbs per fixture making each fixture 990 watts.

i got significantly larger flowers than i've gotten previously using LEDS alone.

you can see where the two cross and the incandescents start producing deep red and then continue up through the far red and infrared ranges in a smooth continuous way. the incandescent curve goes way past 850nm.

"Tungsten incandescent lamps are thermal radiators that emit a continuous spectrum of light extending from about 300 nanometers, in the ultraviolet region, to about 1400 nanometers, in the near infrared region." from Florida State University.

this graph shows the spectral emission of a 25-watt incandescent bulb. it is a smooth, continuous curve.

i need to grow the same plant without the incandescents to prove it to someone else but i'm satisfied that the combination produces larger flowers.


View attachment 18885376

Thank you man for this answer.
I really apriciate time you given in this answer.

Thank you for your words.
I plan to take 2 more leds and put there 2 hps lights.
Thats what I also think that IR and lil of UV Leds are missing.
Also I saw if plant is bit broken on lst that under HPS it recover much,much faster than with Leds.
Due to UV IR benefits 4 plants.

I think one of the most importent aspect of sun is IR its by some mesures 300w of IR on 1m2 and 1300w of light on bright sunshine day.

Even by myself I really like that IR of sun.

My leds have space between diodes and through that space will HPS penetrate. It will be perfect than.
I think led/cmh or led/hps still is best compared to hids or leds alone.

Without uv/ir plants cant be grown to full potential no mather how hard you try.
Thats my expirience.

Through these wholes will HID penetrate it will be next to Led but bit higher than Led it will be almost sun like spectrum under boards.

 

[Rocket Soul]

@CannaT "But buds are very small I dont know why"

since i switched to LEDS i have been seeing the same thing. i've been using screw-in light bulbs, 5000k and 2700k. i have experimented using both color temps simultaneously in various ratios. 50/50, 30/70, and others. i was growing dank, terpy plants but the flowers did not get as large as HPS flowers.

this last grow i used the 5000k alone throughout veg and in flower up to the end of the third week. this keeps the architecture tight and reduces internode space. at that point, i removed all of the 5000k bulbs and installed all 2700k bulbs plus some 25 watt incandescents.

the last grow was a pheno hunt for a breeder friend who is the owner of Bluestarseedco.com. he is a vendor here. the seeds were a cross of his Blue Star and Triangle kush.

when he saw the flowers he remarked that they were larger than the mother's flowers.

most manufactured led lights are typically 1/3 5000k diodes and 2/3 3000k, a warm white. Then, depending on the manufacturer, they will include a few 660nm diodes and sometimes a few 745-750nm diodes.

while the 5000k and the 3000k are "white" diodes achieved by coating blue diodes with phosphors to get the desired color temp, the 660 deep reds and the 745-750 far reds are built specifically for the single frequency and therefore very narrow applications of deep red and far red.

no manufactured LED light that i know of produces any infrared. the heat they produce is from electrical resistance.

you could build a LED with some specific infrared diodes but i haven't seen one yet.

so some people are supplementing the led lights with HPS or CMH in an attempt to produce a more complete spectrum. this is an expensive way to do it. and because of the power ranges they are offered in they produce too much infrared. and too much heat in the grow room.

well, i decided to use low-wattage incandescent bulbs instead. and i think this is what caused the larger flowers that i got.

an incandescent produces more deep red than the sun as a portion of PAR. it produces a continuous curve instead of hitting just one wavelength.

like green and far red, infrared penetrates plant tissue deeper than red or blue.

i think the plant has evolved using a complete range of the sun's frequencies to trigger some of the processes.

i think that we don't need the power of these deep red, far red, and infrared frequencies that an HPS or a CMH produces. maybe just enough for internal signaling. The LED lights are fairly complete in spectrum up to about 630nm.

we know that the ratio of red/far red controls the elongation response and when the fan leaves become occluded the plant stretches more. this is because the fan leaves have specialized cells scattered randomly on the top surface that sense the change in the red/far red ratio.

well, after the vegetative and stretch stages of growth, the plant won't stretch anymore.

it looks to me that the same factors that cause stretching up to this point also cause flower elongation and flower bulking during the rest of the flowering phase.

this complete spectrum is missing from most manufactured led lights. even the ones that supplement 660nm and 745-750nm are just hitting spots on the curve and not producing a complete curve. and still lack even enough infrared for signaling.

Josh of BlueStarSeedco thought that my flowers were significantly larger than the mother plant's flowers.

i've put this graph up on this thread or the other one before. it is a representation of what a tungsten incandescent looks like superimposed over a warm white led. probably a 3000k. i found them both on the same site using the same graph so it was easy to put this together.

my two homemade fixtures are 72 bulbs each totalling 1008 watts and, after stretch, i removed 12 led bulbs from each and substituted 6 25-watt incandescent appliance bulbs per fixture making each fixture 990 watts.

i got significantly larger flowers than i've gotten previously using LEDS alone.

you can see where the two cross and the incandescents start producing deep red and then continue up through the far red and infrared ranges in a smooth continuous way. the incandescent curve goes way past 850nm.

"Tungsten incandescent lamps are thermal radiators that emit a continuous spectrum of light extending from about 300 nanometers, in the ultraviolet region, to about 1400 nanometers, in the near infrared region." from Florida State University.

this graph shows the spectral emission of a 25-watt incandescent bulb. it is a smooth, continuous curve.

i need to grow the same plant without the incandescents to prove it to someone else but i'm satisfied that the combination produces larger flowers.


View attachment 18885376

Thats extremely interesting, ive also played with the idea of adding something incandescent to the diy growlights i build.

You mentioned some pics to see the difference, any chance you could repost them here?

Also, you mentioned bigger buds: adding some IR seems to grow the buds but to a fair extent seems to be mostly more water in the buds, a pound of straight led bud looks like about 2/3ds of a pound of hps buds if you look at size and volume.
Where you able to quantify your results for weight; was there an increase in dry weight with IR or was it just mainly bigger buds.

Led quality is a bit different, some dont like it some are fine with it, but it seems that led buds are more dense; not dense as in big and hard and will resist being squeezed. But dense as in more weight per volume.
I think this has to do with 2 things: ample green and no IR.
The plants green response is not super known by growers: green light is an antagonist to blue light response (which is shorter internodes, smaller leaves and stomata apperture, plant drinks and transpires more). It also makes the growth more fibery. Imagine it as a "intracannopy" response: the plant constructs tissue which is more in line with support growth and structure. Compare a led grown stem with a hps stem and you get the idea: the led stem is almost wooden while the hps stem is softer and more like a huge stem of grass or similar. My guess is that this response is part responsible for the increase in real density and yield.

 

[CannaT]

Thats extremely interesting, ive also played with the idea of adding something incandescent to the diy growlights i build.

You mentioned some pics to see the difference, any chance you could repost them here?

Also, you mentioned bigger buds: adding some IR seems to grow the buds but to a fair extent seems to be mostly more water in the buds, a pound of straight led bud looks like about 2/3ds of a pound of hps buds if you look at size and volume.
Where you able to quantify your results for weight; was there an increase in dry weight with IR or was it just mainly bigger buds.

Led quality is a bit different, some dont like it some are fine with it, but it seems that led buds are more dense; not dense as in big and hard and will resist being squeezed. But dense as in more weight per volume.
I think this has to do with 2 things: ample green and no IR.
The plants green response is not super known by growers: green light is an antagonist to blue light response (which is shorter internodes, smaller leaves and stomata apperture, plant drinks and transpires more). It also makes the growth more fibery. Imagine it as a "intracannopy" response: the plant constructs tissue which is more in line with support growth and structure. Compare a led grown stem with a hps stem and you get the idea: the led stem is almost wooden while the hps stem is softer and more like a huge stem of grass or similar. My guess is that this response is part responsible for the increase in real density and yield.

Yep Im waiting scale to see...I belive now that yild is crap cuz buds look small. But I will wait for scale to judge and to I really see.
BB was also small buds but scale is off the charts.

As I said somwhere here most of us much more belive than really see. Only sometimes we see something that is hard to believe so this phenomenon surprises us.

 

[greyfader]

Good post @greyfader

Was this the first time you didn't use cool whites?

Blue has been seen as a limiting factor. The compact nature you speak of using them, isn't a good sign for yield. It seems great, as the plants are not getting bigger, and the nugs don't spread out. Yet that's not really the goal.

2700K is very warm. Then you added incandescent lamps. The ratio of blue may of been very low. Lower than the commercial lights we are sold. Though perhaps not the 5% we see in HPS. Where we see elongation leading to large dominant heads.

I have also used incandescent lamps to control the grows shape. There is no question the plants respond to just a scattering of lamps.

I think the incandescent is about as efficient as an IR emitter can be. Using LED, you can hit just certain bands, if it's triggering you are looking for. Which I have not tried. The 660/730 lamp I bought, just looks too good in my lounge area, to be giving it my plants


I'm in that HPS mixing club. In efficiency terms, the HPS is making 1.7umol which is loosing about a third beside a 2.6umol LED. So when I put in a 600, I get the light a 400w LED would make, plus about 200w of light outside the recognised PAR range. Virtually all IR. My last couple of runs, have put about 80w of this IR over a meter. I'm unsure how far your 150w is spread. Though I expect it's similar. I'm doing this all the time, and stretch might be near half of that of a HPS grow. It hard to call it. There is certainly a few heads stretching internodes out 100mm, as they look for dominance. It's more LED than HID though.


I have let my panels warm a little, so my LED's give more IR. I had them on low power, running pretty cool with fan assistance. I saw reason to stop extending their life, and get some IR out of them. A cold rooms just not good. Though running my lights hot, was just a temporary measure.

The reasons for IR are amassing, and nothing is coming forward but likable results. Only using 730s seems to of fell mute. A colour used to compliment 660 in photosynthesis. I think my IR musings, are about something else. You speak of signalling, and it's a good point to make.


I have been musing over water movement. As have many. If we look to rising damp for a moment (not the sitcom) we see it only gets so high. Water being lifted, by any means, isn't easy. If we have blue light opening the stomata more, and higher respiratory rates, then more water is being lost lower down the plant, since the switch to LED. While at the top, less transpiration is likely, which should be drawing up water. The need for Ca was quickly identified. While pics of saggy tops have appeared a bit. Maybe the upper reaches of the plant need that little bit more heat, but also there is a trigger in this IR light. The stretch response is surely connected to water need.
Using the 2700s and incandescent lamps, moves away from that blue light and no IR scenario.

on the cool white question, no, it was not the first time i've omitted the cool whites in flower. it was the first time i used incandescent.

"Blue has been seen as a limiting factor". yes, and i think the the LED manufacturing process of using phosphor coatings leaves the LED fixture with a huge blue spike that heavily influences the overall blue/red ratio. This, of course, is because they use blue diodes to begin with.

this is a comparison of various light sources.

this is various LED color temperatures. the 2700 has the lowest amount of blue. but still significantly more than an HPS.

so, my thinking was to start with the lowest amount of blue to begin with and then further shift the ratio to the red end of the spectrum by using incandescents. affecting the overall blue/red ratio as much as possible.

the 6 incandescents were over a 4' by 4' area which would be 1.486 sq meters. so around 100 watts per meter.

 

[greyfader]

Thank you man for this answer.
I really apriciate time you given in this answer.

Thank you for your words.
I plan to take 2 more leds and put there 2 hps lights.
Thats what I also think that IR and lil of UV Leds are missing.
Also I saw if plant is bit broken on lst that under HPS it recover much,much faster than with Leds.
Due to UV IR benefits 4 plants.

I think one of the most importent aspect of sun is IR its by some mesures 300w of IR on 1m2 and 1300w of light on bright sunshine day.

Even by myself I really like that IR of sun.

My leds have space between diodes and through that space will HPS penetrate. It will be perfect than.
I think led/cmh or led/hps still is best compared to hids or leds alone.

Without uv/ir plants cant be grown to full potential no mather how hard you try.
Thats my expirience.
View attachment 18885463
Through these wholes will HID penetrate it will be next to Led but bit higher than Led it will be almost sun like spectrum under boards.

thank you, i don't think HPS is the best choice for supplementing LED. it is very similar to LED in the deep red range and produces lots of infrared but duplicates much of the LED spectrum and uses a lot of electrical energy. and produces more heat than necessary.

same with CMH. because of the power ranges these two sources are offered in you must buy expensive bulbs and ballasts.

i think low wattage incandescents are probably ideal for supplementing LEDS. you could use several 25 watt bulbs in the same holes in your LED array.

 

[CannaT]

on the cool white question, no, it was not the first time i've omitted the cool whites in flower. it was the first time i used incandescent.

"Blue has been seen as a limiting factor". yes, and i think the the LED manufacturing process of using phosphor coatings leaves the LED fixture with a huge blue spike that heavily influences the overall blue/red ratio. This, of course, is because they use blue diodes to begin with.

this is a comparison of various light sources.

View attachment 18885580


this is various LED color temperatures. the 2700 has the lowest amount of blue. but still significantly more than an HPS.

View attachment 18885582

so, my thinking was to start with the lowest amount of blue to begin with and then further shift the ratio to the red end of the spectrum by using incandescents. affecting the overall blue/red ratio as much as possible.

the 6 incandescents were over a 4' by 4" area which would be 1.486 sq meters. so around 100 watts per meter.

Now I see why people stole xenon from cars before.

 

[greyfader]

Thats extremely interesting, ive also played with the idea of adding something incandescent to the diy growlights i build.

You mentioned some pics to see the difference, any chance you could repost them here?

Also, you mentioned bigger buds: adding some IR seems to grow the buds but to a fair extent seems to be mostly more water in the buds, a pound of straight led bud looks like about 2/3ds of a pound of hps buds if you look at size and volume.
Where you able to quantify your results for weight; was there an increase in dry weight with IR or was it just mainly bigger buds.

Led quality is a bit different, some dont like it some are fine with it, but it seems that led buds are more dense; not dense as in big and hard and will resist being squeezed. But dense as in more weight per volume.
I think this has to do with 2 things: ample green and no IR.
The plants green response is not super known by growers: green light is an antagonist to blue light response (which is shorter internodes, smaller leaves and stomata apperture, plant drinks and transpires more). It also makes the growth more fibery. Imagine it as a "intracannopy" response: the plant constructs tissue which is more in line with support growth and structure. Compare a led grown stem with a hps stem and you get the idea: the led stem is almost wooden while the hps stem is softer and more like a huge stem of grass or similar. My guess is that this response is part responsible for the increase in real density and yield.

i only have pics of this one grow which is a new strain for me and a pheno hunt with different expressions. i have not grown the winner by itself with and without incandescents yet. i have Josh Blue of BlueStarSeedCo's opinion thus far. he is an accomplished breeder with 30 years experience whose opinion i highly respect.

and nothing has been quantified yet. but i'm not doing peer-reviewed research and use the empirical method because that's all i have. i'm not trying to prove a point here, just offering my opinions.

i know from years of experience that i can produce tight, dense buds from either HPS or LED. i used sunlight supply ac/de fixtures with Philips greenpower bulbs in my last effort with HPS in Oregon 5 years ago.

the flowers i just grew with LEDS and incandescent bulbs were mostly dense, depending on pheno. the pheno i chose produced very nice, dense, tight flowers. and i can show you pics of that one and maybe some canopy shots of most of them. but since there is nothing to compare them to it doesn't mean much.

first, a canopy shot of some random phenos. then a couple of the one i selected. this was done without co2 and humidity control as i'm in a leaky old rented farmhouse while i'm building a home down the road.

 

[greyfader]

i forgot to add that the one i selected has great potency and a very nice terp profile. citrus fuel up front with a floral perfume back. Blue Star OG from BlueStarSeedCo.com.

Blue Star x Triangle Kush

Genetics of Blue Star

Blue Star = Death Star x Whitaker Blues

Death Star = Sour Diesel x Sensi Star

Whitaker Blues = Quimby x DJ Short 98 F4 Blueberry

 

[ZK7]

@CannaT "But buds are very small I dont know why"

since i switched to LEDS i have been seeing the same thing. i've been using screw-in light bulbs, 5000k and 2700k. i have experimented using both color temps simultaneously in various ratios. 50/50, 30/70, and others. i was growing dank, terpy plants but the flowers did not get as large as HPS flowers.

this last grow i used the 5000k alone throughout veg and in flower up to the end of the third week. this keeps the architecture tight and reduces internode space. at that point, i removed all of the 5000k bulbs and installed all 2700k bulbs plus some 25 watt incandescents.

the last grow was a pheno hunt for a breeder friend who is the owner of Bluestarseedco.com. he is a vendor here. the seeds were a cross of his Blue Star and Triangle kush.

when he saw the flowers he remarked that they were larger than the mother's flowers.

most manufactured led lights are typically 1/3 5000k diodes and 2/3 3000k, a warm white. Then, depending on the manufacturer, they will include a few 660nm diodes and sometimes a few 745-750nm diodes.

while the 5000k and the 3000k are "white" diodes achieved by coating blue diodes with phosphors to get the desired color temp, the 660 deep reds and the 745-750 far reds are built specifically for the single frequency and therefore very narrow applications of deep red and far red.

no manufactured LED light that i know of produces any infrared. the heat they produce is from electrical resistance.

you could build a LED with some specific infrared diodes but i haven't seen one yet.

so some people are supplementing the led lights with HPS or CMH in an attempt to produce a more complete spectrum. this is an expensive way to do it. and because of the power ranges they are offered in they produce too much infrared. and too much heat in the grow room.

well, i decided to use low-wattage incandescent bulbs instead. and i think this is what caused the larger flowers that i got.

an incandescent produces more deep red than the sun as a portion of PAR. it produces a continuous curve instead of hitting just one wavelength.

like green and far red, infrared penetrates plant tissue deeper than red or blue.

i think the plant has evolved using a complete range of the sun's frequencies to trigger some of the processes.

i think that we don't need the power of these deep red, far red, and infrared frequencies that an HPS or a CMH produces. maybe just enough for internal signaling. The LED lights are fairly complete in spectrum up to about 630nm.

we know that the ratio of red/far red controls the elongation response and when the fan leaves become occluded the plant stretches more. this is because the fan leaves have specialized cells scattered randomly on the top surface that sense the change in the red/far red ratio.

well, after the vegetative and stretch stages of growth, the plant won't stretch anymore.

it looks to me that the same factors that cause stretching up to this point also cause flower elongation and flower bulking during the rest of the flowering phase.

this complete spectrum is missing from most manufactured led lights. even the ones that supplement 660nm and 745-750nm are just hitting spots on the curve and not producing a complete curve. and still lack even enough infrared for signaling.

Josh of BlueStarSeedco thought that my flowers were significantly larger than the mother plant's flowers.

i've put this graph up on this thread or the other one before. it is a representation of what a tungsten incandescent looks like superimposed over a warm white led. probably a 3000k. i found them both on the same site using the same graph so it was easy to put this together.

my two homemade fixtures are 72 bulbs each totalling 1008 watts and, after stretch, i removed 12 led bulbs from each and substituted 6 25-watt incandescent appliance bulbs per fixture making each fixture 990 watts.

i got significantly larger flowers than i've gotten previously using LEDS alone.

you can see where the two cross and the incandescents start producing deep red and then continue up through the far red and infrared ranges in a smooth continuous way. the incandescent curve goes way past 850nm.

"Tungsten incandescent lamps are thermal radiators that emit a continuous spectrum of light extending from about 300 nanometers, in the ultraviolet region, to about 1400 nanometers, in the near infrared region." from Florida State University.

this graph shows the spectral emission of a 25-watt incandescent bulb. it is a smooth, continuous curve.

i need to grow the same plant without the incandescents to prove it to someone else but i'm satisfied that the combination produces larger flowers.


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Dimlux sell a light with a near infared option.

Dimlux Xtreme Series Near Infra Red LED Grow Lights

Dimlux Xtreme Series LED Grow Lights

www.onestopgrowshop.co.uk