LED and BUD QUALITY

[zachrockbadenof]

I’ve never grown outdoors. When I started doing some work in warehouse grows I started to notice that the higher your ceilings/lights are, the taller the plant you can grow effectively.

A 600 or even 1000w light a couple feet from the canopy supports different growth patterns than a room with 50 1000w lights 30 feet above the plants.

i question how much light the plant will absorb at 20 or 30ft above the tops

 

[Hiddenjems]

i question how much light the plant will absorb at 20 or 30ft above the tops

Use the inverse square law and you’ll know light intensity at every distance.

Not sure you understand how it works. In a warehouse with lights 30 feet away we get over 1,000 ppfd at the canopy. And the light a couple feet down the plant is 700-800 instead of 300-400.

Outdoors there is no measurable drop at 8’ elevation vs 0 feet.

 

[Charles Dankens]

Golden goat looks amazing

One of the mods here on IC turned me on to Golden Goat. I grew it a couple years ago. It came out real nice. When I bought a new batch of beans I had miserable germ rate. I wrote Rasta Jeff and he set things right.

This plant is the one out of six that flourished.

 

[zachrockbadenof]

Use the inverse square law and you’ll know light intensity at every distance.

Not sure you understand how it works. In a warehouse with lights 30 feet away we get over 1,000 ppfd at the canopy. And the light a couple feet down the plant is 700-800 instead of 300-400.

Outdoors there is no measurable drop at 8’ elevation vs 0 feet.

i don't understand- so my 1000w hps/mh, hung from my ceiling which is 12+ feet high will give more light to the plant, then if i hang em at 2 feet as was the norm when growing with mh/hps??

does that work with led's??

 

[Bona Fortuna]

i don't understand- so my 1000w hps/mh, hung from my ceiling which is 12+ feet high will give more light to the plant, then if i hang em at 2 feet as was the norm when growing with mh/hps??

does that work with led's??

The only way you get similar lighting levels at 12+ feet is if you increase the lighting saturation. You’d need many more times the KW worth of lighting at 12+ feet to reach the same light levels with 1KW at two feet. Led or HPS.

Can it be done? Yes.
Is it wasteful, unless you are a massive operation? Yes.

The normal home growers are better off with the HPS at two feet.

 

[zachrockbadenof]

The only way you get similar lighting levels at 12+ feet is if you increase the lighting saturation. You’d need many more times the KW worth of lighting at 12+ feet to reach the same light levels with 1KW at two feet. Led or HPS.

Can it be done? Yes.
Is it wasteful, unless you are a massive operation? Yes.

The normal home growers are better off with the HPS at two feet.

that's what i always thought... i try to keep my lights be it hps/mh or leds as close as possible without doing damage... my thought is even if i added a shitload more light at a 12foot height , i don't think the light will make it down to the plants - this was always my thought-

 

[Bona Fortuna]

that's what i always thought... i try to keep my lights be it hps/mh or leds as close as possible without doing damage... my thought is even if i added a shitload more light at a 12foot height , i don't think the light will make it down to the plants - this was always my thought-

The light will make it down there, it just doesn’t make economic sense to run a grow with high headroom like that at small scale, or large scale for that matter. You’d be pissing money down the drain from electricity costs with an inefficient design like that.
Why use 50KW+ on just lights, not to mention A/C, when you can use far less power closer to the plant to the same effect?

Just run your HPS/CMH vertically at that point or get the LED and run them overhead as close as you reasonably can.

 

[greyfader]

Interesting about the effect of fulvic acid. I have read the paper that shows humates depressed THC content. However that researcher applied humates every watering.

Is there paper showing a correlation between terpenes and fulvic?

Ive got these three in my 2x 4 under Chill led 500 View attachment 18905861 View attachment 18905860 View attachment 18905859

here is the paper from Nirit Bernstein showing the negative effects of humic acid on cannabinoids. it is the only one i could find showing negative effects but she is a very respected scientist.

Frontiers | Impact of N, P, K, and Humic Acid Supplementation on the Chemical Profile of Medical Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L)

Mineral nutrition is a major factor affecting plant growth and function. Increasing evidence supports the involvement of macro and micronutrients in secondar...

www.frontiersin.org

Mr Fulvic is the retail version of AGT50. here is a reference to a study but for some reason i can't find the actual paper. i have never seen it either.

"To truly understand the effect Mr. Fulvic could have on cannabis plants the team conducted two controlled studies. One of these studies compared a crop of cannabis plants that were watered with their regular nutrient regimen and one that was watered with Mr. Fulvic. In this study, by the third week in vegetative growth, the plants showed distinct advantages in growth rate, height, size, number of leaves, leaf size, and water consumption. By the ninth week, the cannabis crop being fed Mr. Fulvic was 20% taller than the control group with a substantially higher number of flowering sites. These plants also showed more robust flower growth in the lower canopies and significantly better roots. By week twelve each crop showed nearly equal THC content but the plants watered with Mr. Fulvic tested with 11.8% more terpenes along with 20.9% higher yield."

taken from; https://www.ganjapreneur.com/mr-fulvic-gardening-additive/

i've been using mr fulvic at 1ml per gallon in a continuous liquid feed scheme and i think i can tell the difference in terpenes expression.

i should send a flower sample to a lab and then do a grow without it to see if there is really a difference.

it is a strong chelator and i cut back on nutrient levels using it.maybe by 20%.

that Golden Goat looks great by the way!

 

[greyfader]

just want to add that fulvic acid molecules are much smaller than humic acid molecules and pass through cell walls easily.

fulvics are also available at any pH whereas humics require alkaline pH.

 

[Charles Dankens]

here is the paper from Nirit Bernstein showing the negative effects of humic acid on cannabinoids. it is the only one i could find showing negative effects but she is a very respected scientist.

Frontiers | Impact of N, P, K, and Humic Acid Supplementation on the Chemical Profile of Medical Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L)

Mineral nutrition is a major factor affecting plant growth and function. Increasing evidence supports the involvement of macro and micronutrients in secondar...

www.frontiersin.org

Mr Fulvic is the retail version of AGT50. here is a reference to a study but for some reason i can't find the actual paper. i have never seen it either.

"To truly understand the effect Mr. Fulvic could have on cannabis plants the team conducted two controlled studies. One of these studies compared a crop of cannabis plants that were watered with their regular nutrient regimen and one that was watered with Mr. Fulvic. In this study, by the third week in vegetative growth, the plants showed distinct advantages in growth rate, height, size, number of leaves, leaf size, and water consumption. By the ninth week, the cannabis crop being fed Mr. Fulvic was 20% taller than the control group with a substantially higher number of flowering sites. These plants also showed more robust flower growth in the lower canopies and significantly better roots. By week twelve each crop showed nearly equal THC content but the plants watered with Mr. Fulvic tested with 11.8% more terpenes along with 20.9% higher yield."

taken from; https://www.ganjapreneur.com/mr-fulvic-gardening-additive/


View attachment 18906451

i've been using mr fulvic at 1ml per gallon in a continuous liquid feed scheme and i think i can tell the difference in terpenes expression.

i should send a flower sample to a lab and then do a grow without it to see if there is really a difference.

it is a strong chelator and i cut back on nutrient levels using it.maybe by 20%.

that Golden Goat looks great by the way!

Thanks for info, I'll have to test out Mr. Fulvic. I often use ful power in a foliar concoction in veg.


The article that you linked is the one I was thinking of. Pretty sure in materials and methods it states that humates were supplied with every feeding event. It's not surprising that it wasn't an ideal regimen.

Thanks for compliment on Golden Goat. That plant is producing chunky buds with decent frost. I vegged it in a 3 gal Rain Science pot and potted into a 5 gal right before flip. I'm not sure of exact flip date but it's around week 6. No more than 2 weeks to go.

 

[Hiddenjems]

i don't understand- so my 1000w hps/mh, hung from my ceiling which is 12+ feet high will give more light to the plant, then if i hang em at 2 feet as was the norm when growing with mh/hps??

does that work with led's??

It does not work with one light. With a large array high up every light has overlap from 49 other lights. This would be a typical setup I’m talking about. Some are higher.

 

[zachrockbadenof]

It does not work with one light. With a large array high up every light has overlap from 49 other lights. This would be a typical setup I’m talking about. Some are higher.

that's fair enough, but lights high

It does not work with one light. With a large array high up every light has overlap from 49 other lights. This would be a typical setup I’m talking about. Some are higher.

understand one light does not work...BUT... in a situation with say 50 lights, hung 20-30feet above the plants, how much of the usable light is being used?? - i would think a shitload is being lost... keep in mind , i'm just a tiny grower with a 5x5ft tent, presently under a mars fce8000, prev using 2x315cmh's , always seeking more info to grow better...thanks

 

[greyfader]

It does not work with one light. With a large array high up every light has overlap from 49 other lights. This would be a typical setup I’m talking about. Some are higher.

where did you get this pic of my basement?

 

[zachrockbadenof]

where did you get this pic of my basement?

can i come over and play in your basement?

 

[greyfader]

that's fair enough, but lights high

understand one light does not work...BUT... in a situation with say 50 lights, hung 20-30feet above the plants, how much of the usable light is being used?? - i would think a shitload is being lost... keep in mind , i'm just a tiny grower with a 5x5ft tent, presently under a mars fce8000, prev using 2x315cmh's , always seeking more info to grow better...thanks

you're right, it is not efficient. i blew up the pic of "my basement" and although you can't see aisles they have to be there.

looking at the upright structures they are tying the nets to, and assuming they are about 5' in width, you can see that the distance between them is also approx 4-5'.

2 rows and an aisle, 2 rows and an aisle, throughout the room. depending on how wide the aisles are along the walls, we can see that approx 25-33% of the floor is aisle space.

in a 10k sq ft room at least 2500 sq ft of floor is illuminated. That represents wasted energy.

in the pic the fans are mounted 2 light rows away from the wall so if they did a symmetrical fan arrangement that means there are 2 rows of lights we can't see in the photo. that makes 8 rows of lights. we can see that each row has about 10 lights because they probably took the pic at one end of the room and we can see 9 lights.

all this means there are 80 lights in the room and had they brought the lights down focused on each row they could have used 60 lights or less to get the same coverage.

assuming that they are 1k-watt lights and are being run for 12 hours each day and electric is 10 cents per kilowatt hour, 20 extra lights cost them 24 dollars a day or approx 720 dollars a month or 8,760 dollars per year plus bulb replacements because they are hps. also, ballasts burn out and have to be replaced. and you must factor in the cost of cooling the extra lights. both the initial cost of installation plus the electricity they consume. i estimate the total cost of running the extra lights this way at approx 15,000 dollars per year.

but it works because the light is not dissipated much going through air and most of the light reaches the floor or plants. light continues traveling until it is absorbed or dissipated by an object.

it is poor design work and an old-fashioned way of doing it.

 

[JKD]

The inverse-square law doesn’t state that light gets lost, but that it gets less intense over distance (because it spreads out). At canopy level all the overlap adds up to the target PPFD. Very uniform, and how suppliers like Gavita, Cycloptics, E-pap etc designed photometric light plans for large grows.

 

[JKD]

Maybe try looking at the HIDs on a warehouse ceiling as individual diodes on a huge LED panel.

 

[bigherb]

that's what i always thought... i try to keep my lights be it hps/mh or leds as close as possible without doing damage... my thought is even if i added a shitload more light at a 12foot height , i don't think the light will make it down to the plants - this was always my thought-

It’s something I’ve been pondering

I see many facility grows that have lights what looks like much distance like 10 + feet above plants . The plants seems dialed in Happy and Healthy

Then I see Tent grows with plants touching the lights . Height in my tent has been a struggle but my thoughts are to keep as much distance as possible

Soo where is the sweet spot for both . It’s not a fair comparison a tent with 6ft + ceiling to a No Height Restriction facility

1luvbigherb

 

[JKD]

Height trades intensity with uniformity.
IMO, in a tent, a higher powered light higher up is a way to achieve both where minimising electrical expense might be less of a priority.

 

[zachrockbadenof]

Height trades intensity with uniformity.
IMO, in a tent, a higher powered light higher up is a way to achieve both where minimising electrical expense might be less of a priority.

but don't u want the intensity??? my growing buddy who taught me, always said u want the lamp as close to the tops as possible... fans blowing/etc, just get em as close as possible...