Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Leds dont carry any infrared radiation, in difference to any other light source (that i know of, maybe fireflies?)I heard before about the temperature that must be kept in order for LED to work properly. It was something about not being too cold, but i don't know which temp it's fine and why is that important. Maybe you could explain why LED's need hotter temps.
Also, this is important because i understand that while some strains do well in warmer climate, others must be grow in lighter temps.
So i assume if some choose LED as lights source, they must also choose a strain that is recommended to be grow in a warmer environment.
On the other hand, if HPS is used, some need to choose a strain that need cooler environment.
Correct me if i'm wrong and please explain the LED temp thing. Why they need higher temps?
Thanks
So plants have allways evolved with some heat on their leaves. Without that heat 2 problems arise: insufficient transpiration; drinking slower, and slower metabolism in comparison to the amount of light your giving the plants. For transpiration you can use VPD to calculate what temps and rh will push the plant correctly to drink thru their roots and uptake nutrients. This means youll have to be able to control the environment better than your standard hps grow.
Metabolism: at higher light levels the plant needs a high metabolism. Metabolism is favored by heat, a little bit like the body raises temps (fever) when it needs to work harder to fight of an infection. While sun and other lights always supply some heat radiation leds dont. So increasing light levels without increasing heat can make the plant too sluggish to be able to take the extra light.
This having to control the environment, both temps and rh and both up and down, is not always easy, it requires machines really, dehuey/heater/AC. Some setups where tents and watts just seem to match up nicely seem to work with no probs, so e other setups, especially in open space with air venting in fron the outside, seems to have a bit more problems.
What to do? Keep temps up a bit, 80-84F for full flower intensity. And keep rh in line more or less with VPD. If this is hard the old timer trick is to drop in an incandescent light bulb to go with the leds. But be careful, too much incandescent watts and youll end up seeing a lot of stretch. Better use a dimmer or even a few smaller bulbs, where you use as many as the current situation needs for a healthy looking plant stance: when the plant transpires well youll see praying leaves and generally less droopy plant. Especially careful with incandescent when you have your leds dimmed: dont use a high ratio of incandescent to leds.
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