I know what dli is I just am on the beginner side of things, you get optimal conditions. Then try to give mmore light for more yield IE supplement co2, feeding higher than 900ppfd.. Idk what else..
Where I think Im at is I have a optimal and well spaced tent doing well but the 600-900ppfd isnt the only thing. Its something about maybe extra reds Id hear people debating one light doesnt produce enough of.
Anyway, my other half of garden the lights dont give full coverage wall to wall only the center. 65w isnt enough so cant judge a light meant for veg.
But the 130w I dont think has wall to wall 600ppfd min. Crap idk what Im talking about but the yield is what woke me up. 3.25oz per clone vs 7oz. It needs to be 2.5oz or else it wont finish on time/properly. Too many airy buds.
So the space makes a big difference. I know I could of upgraded lights in 2x4 but its not worth it, its too hard to yield a decent amount in. Even then I could just yield more in bigger tent if to consider strain.
DLI I thought would be more relevant for an auto as 12/12 impacts dli. Im not at the level where Im looking for a stronger light as much as sufficient.
Also whatever causes my mars hydro buds to be 2-3x the size and more saucy. What stands out is epistar diodes vs samsung.
Im not sure i understand quote where youre trying to take this but i sympathise much with the feeling of there being "something out there" which is just a little out of ones grasp. I work with someone who has excellent experience and good results in growing by just looking at the plants. But his methods can be sooooo unnerving to somone thinking more in a analytical way. My buddys approach to judging over or underlit is that you look at the cannopy and just see if they look over or under lit. To me thats badabing bada bong bada bang - just cant work that way. But he always sees things that i dont see but sometimes sees things that arent actually things. Does things that make no sense to me - hell trash clones from a pheno run allready in veg when he dont like the look of the growth for a week. While im in the camp that we should always wait and see, to never apply our "filter" until we got more info. And to value more the actual information we get from experiments rather than just yields. We argue to no end sometimes over stuff. Ive oushed thru a fair few improvements and he happily admits that everything ive pushed thru has always ended up being good for the grow. But maybe thats just because i wont fight as hard for things im not super convinced of. In any case, there are a few things ive learnt from him, or at least theyve given me enough to have a working hypothesis -
- Nice stick: you need a good healthy trunk or stick to be able to support nutrient uptake aswell as supporting a branch system full of heavy buds. This his take. My take is that we need to validate this: in the long run try should try to get info on yield of each individual plant (we just chop them in pieces by branch and they all to dry together and we get total per tray at the moment) and try to relate trunk diameter to yield of the plant in the future. For him this would be a hassle at harvest, for me the info on this would be important to guide our efforts
- Cannopy depth and compactness: a certain grow situation (plant/light/nutes/root system) will only have enough "flower power" for a certain amount of growth, both in height and in yield and in buds density. If your cannopy is too big, too deep or if youve allowed too much stretch in transition your lowers will be fluffier and your tops will be smaller. Lolipopping, pruning of lower budsites will determine how this power is concentrated or spread too thin. Having your plant double or tripple in size during stretch also means youre spending this power on growth that isnt buds. One way of managing this is to not give full power in stretch, in order for them not to run away from you, while being able to give fantastic amount of light when stretch is over in order to get the plant to use this energy (some of which comes from saving up in veg) when its time to make buds.
This is also why i dont really take to talk about how much penetration a light has: the buds on lowers seems more related to how weve spread the flower energy than to any light related factors. The only factor i consider here is green content in spectrum; it seems to create density below but on the other hand less quality bud and not as big buds on top.
- veg time and age of flowering budsites: the time in veg seems to have some influence on yield independently of plant size when they go into flower and how deep your cannopy is. We always flower plants more or less the same size. Some of our best runs seems to have been runs where the run was passed over and pushed back - left on a low light veg tray for an extra month or two, trying to keep their height managed. Its like the extra time creates reserves or maybe build more roots or something, giving them more flower energy once in flower. Also, what your trying to flower seems to influence yield - weve had some very good results when we striped every leaf except for growth tips and every budsite when they go into flower. That way everything that was flowered was brand new growth, every leaf and budsite was grown in flower. This could have to do with new growth being just better. Or that the leaves and budsites were created by the same spectrum as in veg, thus being optimized. Not sure, but our 3k 80cri control tray (same as our veg) often seems to do quite well in yield even though its older diodes and and not highest efficiency.
This, flowering new growth, seems to have been beneficial but im not sure how one would manage this in a tent with height restrictions.
Of my own conclusions: a well designed flower spectrum really have the capacity of changing yield and generally how happy we are with total results: what it looks like during flower and what we finally yield. But if you achieve this spectrum on the cost of intensity youre not going to change your results. You must have good intensity at tops (600 is too low in my opinion) to stay in the game. But small adjustments can have a big impact: we had two sides for a long time, one basic white spectrum one with a red heavy flower specific for a long time. They kept on being very equal, impossible to say which was best. So i pushed thru some adjustments: narrowing the the width of the strip light of the flower leaning light from from 1.5 m to 1.3m- concentrating light by about 15% and making more of it land on cannopy instead of walls. This made all the difference, now our read heavy light wins nads down. You can do something similar simply by overspecing your light watts a bit, making sure you can always go a bit higher in light if you need it.
On all these working hypothesis i dont really have any direct suggestions on your grow: dont expect i can give you a direct A to B road map, but it does give you something to look into to and try. I dont want you to change everything over and then not get better results. Just look into these things while growing, watch and draw conclusions but be wary of being to sure of them. Test and retest. Be wary of conclusions between two different runs since every run is its own universe. The best info comes from trying to have two different sides to the same run.
On your epistar/samsung conclusions: i dont know your exact light levels and spectrum but i can pretty much guarantee you that if the epis and sammies give same intensity and spectrum youll get the same results. Look for other things than brand and being forum led nerd favorites. Things you can look for is the shape of your light emitters: board or strip. You can look at hanging height and how much light you lose to walls. Brand/model will mostly affect efficiency which doesnt matter one bit for yield - it only determines how many watts you have to spend in order to achieve good growing conditions. Intensity at cannopy and spectrum is what will determine the light specific factors that create yield. If youre getting lower yield with your lower efficiency lights its likely cause youre using to little watts to create the same conditions as with your higher end lights. G/w is not a relevant term anymore to me, most of us arent on a super hard amp limitation so you can definitely get good results with lower efficiency lights, its just that you need a few more watts.
Edit wow, im aware i can be wordy but this one takes the cake its beyond tldr lol. But sometimes writing stuff out helps me gather my own thoughts and conclusions. Apologies if it dont make sense.
