The far red thread
- Thread starter Rahz
- Start date
captainmorgan
Well-Known Member
I've used 730 nm for extended periods during the dark part of the light schedule to induce stretch in a strain that was too compact, seemed to work great.
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
@Randomblame
I actually liked the ratio of light that I used. The plants responded well to the added Red/FR. Seemed to keep the leaves perky and pumping out the chlorophyll.
That being said, if I could chose a spectrum all over again, I would def choose 3000k 90 CRI for flower. I've always been suspicious about the enhanced red from high CRI chips, but the efficiency nazi's scared me back in the day and I chose 3500K 80 CRI for my flower spectrum.
I did notice about a week faster maturation time running the red lights during lights on.
Lol, I've chosen the same 3500°k/CD bins for the same reason like you and I regretted it after seeing that my first impulse to choose CRI90 was correct. Even though they are less efficient in visible and measurable light, spectral efficiency seems to have a greater impact than was known a year ago.
However, the CRI90 have made a significant leap in efficiency, which is perhaps one of the reasons that they now deliver similar or better results than CRI80.
If I were to build one today, I would strictly go CRI90 and extra IR only after light off!
Heil Tweetler
Well-Known Member
I accidentally let my 730 rig run after light out for 3-4 hours x 2 nights. The stretch was crazy but amazingly the buds filled out fantastically.
Also re 14/10. I just finished up a run where i let this strain go about 5 weeks out of 11 @ 13.5/10.5. I'm not 100% the lighting was the cause but these were the most massive flowers ive grown. Several tops very similar to this one
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Randomblame
Well-Known Member
Yepp but not only..
More stretch can be useful because it allows for more light to be used from lower leaf layers. This can also increase pbotosyntesis. And I think the red/far-red ratio of the CRI90 spectrum brings the emerson effect into the game.
You can well see that 2 identical 250w lamps, one CRI80 and one CRI90, have about 100μmols difference in PAR readings.
Nevertheless, the lower intensity brings the better result.
I am more or less sure that this is also due to the emerson effect and not only from the higher amounts of deep- and far-red photons...
Hybridway
Well-Known Member
I noticed allot of what you guys are talking about when I bought my first Amare. That's why I bought more. Increased photosynthetic action.
2, 630's to 1, 730. 6, 65K's to increase blue for full cycle as well as get light deeper into the plants & not have to get extra green using 4k base cobs & 1, 470 to fill the gap & create full spectrum to further increase photosynthetic absorbtion.
Much of the benifits of a natural enhanced full spectrum were ignored by many here. But as time goes on, they are starting to catch up & see for themselves.
I like what I see from my plants.
2, 630's to 1, 730. 6, 65K's to increase blue for full cycle as well as get light deeper into the plants & not have to get extra green using 4k base cobs & 1, 470 to fill the gap & create full spectrum to further increase photosynthetic absorbtion.
Much of the benifits of a natural enhanced full spectrum were ignored by many here. But as time goes on, they are starting to catch up & see for themselves.
I like what I see from my plants.
Abiqua
Well-Known Member
MrTwist1
Well-Known Member
Gosh don't start that again - people weren't ignoring it at all, they were just trying to ignore your incessant shilling of a particular product. You've come so far, let's not go back there eh!
Hybridway
Well-Known Member
Believe me, I'm not trying to go there. You know as well as I & everyone who was commenting at the time, many said it was a bs mktg tactic. What you may have thought was shilling was just me saying it wasn't so, defending the truth so other growers could know too.
I mean, it's basically common sense based on what we already knew about Chlorophyll peaks n everything else.
The info has been out for a long time. Nothing new. Just more confirmed through growers public testing & sharing.
MrTwist1
Well-Known Member
I have always been interested in the idea of blending light, and I have never said it was a bullshit marketing tactic. Let's just leave it there eh.
Changing the subject - Did u guys see @Growmau5 made some dope little far red boards to sell? I don't think he's mentioned it on his channel, but maybe Instagram. I think I saw it on the roundtable or some other Youtube show.
caretak3r
Well-Known Member
saw them @ rapidled... really simple way to add the far red, has a build in driver, requires a 12v plug
http://www.rapidled.com/far-red-initiator-puck/
MrTwist1
Well-Known Member
Really it could not be more simple - now there's no excuse!
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
One puk should have ~6,5-7 watts so should be enough for a 5x 5' tent.(assuming a XP-E 730nm needs 2,25v@700mA) and yepp, it will do the trick..
MrTwist1
Well-Known Member
Different folks will give different answers... but something between 5-30mins at lights out is what most people are getting early flower results with.
wietefras
Well-Known Member
They usually say that a dose of 4000umol/day/m2 is the saturation point for EOD application of far red. So divide that by the umol/s for your leds and by m2 and you will know for how many seconds to run the light to reach that 4000umol.
The more FR the more stretch you will get of course. From some tests on other plants they saw 30% extra internode length at 2000umol and 60% extra internode lenght at 4000umol (compared to a control group which got no additional FR at EOD).
The problem with that puck would be light distribution though. How do you get that light spread evenly over 5'x5' from one central light source? You'd have to hang that puck well above your regular lights and then they would be blocking part of that FR light.
I'd say it's much better to add those four FR leds to your fixture. At least that will give a much better spread and when you use wide beam leds you can simply add them to the regular led fixture.
The more FR the more stretch you will get of course. From some tests on other plants they saw 30% extra internode length at 2000umol and 60% extra internode lenght at 4000umol (compared to a control group which got no additional FR at EOD).
The problem with that puck would be light distribution though. How do you get that light spread evenly over 5'x5' from one central light source? You'd have to hang that puck well above your regular lights and then they would be blocking part of that FR light.
I'd say it's much better to add those four FR leds to your fixture. At least that will give a much better spread and when you use wide beam leds you can simply add them to the regular led fixture.
PSUAGRO.
Well-Known Member
The gromau puck is a simple, affordable solution for the masses...............Is it the best way to implement FR? NO. spread out is better of course== which would increase the BOM
not many ^CHEAP^ Pfr options , halogen floods, incandescent bulbs............lol. Amazon has some e27 730nm led bulbs(powerpar) , doubt the spd accuracy .
top bin O$ram is for growers who want the "best" fr emitter
, ledengin where pretty good back in the day on the indagro pontoons......started the whole led "flower initiator"/cannabis thing(splifferous?), maybe
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Icemud420
Well-Known Member
Far red light is associated with stretch, but a 3:1 ratio is still 3x as much red:far red as the sun which is around 1.2:1 ratio. Plants use Far Red for positioning to not only sense other plants proximity but also under canopy where shade avoidance syndrome can occur. You probably didn't see stretch because it wasn't enough far red... In a previous grow I used the Budmaster Emerson for 1 hour during mid day (80w of far red vs about 500w of mixed spectrum) and saw a huge increase in stretch, so I stopped using the far red during the daylight period..
Using it on this last grow only for 15 minutes did not increase my stretch, so its probably a matter of total amount of far red light during a day period, similar to how we judge plant lighting like DLI... broken down into PPFD per hour.
There definitely is proven research though that shows that the lower the ratio of Red to Far Red, the more stretch will result, so maybe you have a good amount of far red, but not to much where it influences the shade avoidance effect.
