squ1rrely
Well-Known Member
The following thread is out of Skunk Magazine Volume 5, Issue 2
By Ed Rosenthal-verbatim
Plant lighting methods have evolved over the years, leaving residues and neo-improvements along the way. The first lights that I grew with-and the only ones available at the time-were fluorescents. I set up banks of eight 8' lights on a 4' x 8' plywood board that was suspended from the ceiling. The tubes, cool white for vegatative growth and warm whit for flowering, produced rather skimpy buds from the Colombian seeds I germinated. Part of the problem, I immediately recognized, was that the plants were light deprived because they were recieving an input of only 18 watts per square foot. Then I learned about very high output (VHO) flourescents. They weren't as efficient as the lower watt fluorescents but they emitted two and a half times the light of standard fluorescent. The quality of the buds immediately improved as I selected for high quality plants and the plants received more light.
Within a few years, most growers replaced these tubes with metal halide and high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps. These produce a very bright light emitted from a central source. They revolutionized growing because they gave the plants just what they needed to grow big buds-intense light. HPS lamps also produce enough light in the orange and red spectrums, which promote flower growth.
However, many growers continued to use fluorescents. Dorm and small closet growers lit up with shop lights. People who couldn't afford the stiff outlay for an HPS could always find inexpensive or free fluorescents.
Then came a new innovation. Compact fluorescent lamps, or CFL, breathed new life into fluorescent growing. These small lamps emit high intensity light from a small lamp. They are available in high wattages, such as 40 and 50 watts, so plants can be given light from a high eletrical input. Plants grown using these lamps produce bigger and higher quality buds than was previously possible under fluorescents.
LED lamps, which happen to be electronic lights, will soon create a similar change. An electric current causes a series of reactions resulting in photons of a specific wavelength being emitted. The wavelength is determined by the composition of the diode. These lights don't give off as much light as HPS lamp, but all the light they produce is in a norrow spectrum. Using LEDs that emit various spectrums can produce a very targeted light that is strong in the spectrums plants use the most, and less intense or even absent in othere.
There are a number of LED units available commercially, and I have seen gardens grown under them. The consensus is that LEDs can produce excellent results whtn the plants are growing vegetatively, but flowers grown under these units, at least the ones that I have seen, tend to be neither large nor dense. My supposition would be that this is because the targeted light spectrums aren't supplying some other needed spectrums. In other words, it's not the light they are providing that is limiting bud development;it's the light they are not providing. Some companies are experimenting with using white LEDs to cover unspecified spectrums and a mix of targeted frequencies such as red and blue.
Such technical problems with LED lights will eventually be overcome by research within a few years and then LEDs will become the lights of choice. They are easy to work with, save electricity, don't produce much heat and last much longer than other lamps.
Meanwhile there are a few ways that you can enhance your garden with LEDs. Most of photosynthesis occurs in the red and blue spectrums. However, looking at a typical HPS spectrum chart you can see that the lamps emit most of their light in the yellow spectrum. Plants don't use much yellow, so most of the energy used to produce it is wasted. One advantage to using HPS lamps is that they do supply all the light spectrums that plants require, so plants thrive when they are used as a sole source of light.
You can supplement light from HPS lamps with LEDs.As I mentioned earlier, only a small protion of HPS light falls in the red or blue range that's used in photosynthesis. Adding red and blue light will enhance photosynthesis, and therefore yield. This is a theory that I developed while working with a product researcher at one of the LED companies.
I am about to test this theory now using LEDs of three different spectrums which are considered peak spectrums for photosynthetic action. Each 1000-watt lamp will be given an additional 40 watts of combined red spectrums. I estimate this approximately doubles the amount of red light the plants receive. I think that the plants with enhanced red will be considerably larger than their sisters under unenhanced HPS.
FLOWERING IN LESS DARKNESS
In Experiments At The Cutting Edge, Part 1 (http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=120378 ), I discussed critical dark periods that induce flowering. When a plant repeatedly receives an uninterrupted dark period of that length, flowering is induced. The plant measures darkness as the absence of red light. To stop a plant from flowering, simply interrupt the dark period with red light, such as the light from an incandescent bulb, halfway through the dark period and the plant will continue to grow vegetatively.
When the red light ends it takes the plant about two hours to change over from the inactive form (which doesn't promote flowering) to the active form. This can be sped up considerably with infrared light. You cannot see infrared light but you can feel it as heat. Incandescent bulbs emit about 10% of their energy as visible light. The other 90% is emitted as infrared light. When the light hits a solid object, the energy is converted into heat.
When infrared light comes in contact with the inactive form ot the flowering hormone, the hormone is immediately converted to the active form. The infrared light doesn't have to remain in contact with the platns long-just a few moments will do.
Photoperiodism is a localized effect. If you had a plant with two branches and one of the branches was given flowering light regime while the other was given continuous light, the first branch would flower but the second would continue to grow vegetatively. Because the effect is localized, all parts of the plant must be reached with the infrared light. Think of applying infrared light as you would think of spraying water on the plant. The entire plant and all its vegetation must be dripping with water when you are done. It is in this manner that you have to spray the plant with invisible light. The spraying should take place each evening after dusk or after the lights have been turned off.
THE EFFECTS OF INFRARED LIGHT ON OUTDOOR GARDENS
(WARNING: THESE METHODS ARE BEING TESTED NOW. THE RESULTS WILL BE AVAILABLE LATER THIS YEAR.)
In an earlier article called "Project Haiku" (SKUNK 4.3), I described how to force plants to flower early by covering them each day using an opaque curtain. They were harvested eight weeks after forcing began.
Infrared light can substitute for the curtain tossing. In Northerern California, where Project Haiku took place, June 22 is the longest day and shortest night of the year; the garden received 14 3/4 hours of light and 9 1/4 hours of darkness. The short dark period prevents flowering. Chemically, the inactive flowering hormone is taking its time, 2 hours worth, to convert to the active form. The plants are under teh influence of the flowering hormone for only 7 1/4 hours, so the plant continues to grow vegetatively.
When the plants are "sprayed" with infrared light, the hormones convert over th the active form. If this is done daily at dusk, it gives the plant another 2 hrs under the influence of the active hormone each day. This is a long enough period for them to be induced to grow buds and start flowering. So if a garden was forcd in May it will ripen in July. A June forced garden, such as PH, is harvested in August.
The main problem with using infrared light is that it sometimes induces stem stretching. However, there is a solution: spray the plant with blue light. Blue light has been used for decades in a few commercial nurseries to keep plants compact and to prevent stretching. Plants photoperiodism is not affected by the blue spectrum. After the plants are sprayed with infrared light, a spray of blue light keeps the stems short and stocky.
INFRARED LIGHT ON INDOOR GARDENS
(WARNING: FINAL RESULTS FROM THESE EXPERIMENTS HAVE NOT YET BEEN REPORTED)
The typical indoor flowering room spends 12 hours a day, half its time, in darkness. The positive side of this is that the dark period forces the plant to flower. The negative side is that while the plants are in darkness they don't photosynthesize.
A few growers have figured out their plants' critical flowering time and increased the lit period by up to an hour and a half. Instead of spending 50% of their time in darkness, they spend only 44%. More importantly, they luxuriate under the lights for another 6% of the time. That's an increase of more than 12% of the lighted period. A corresponding increase in yield should follow.
Using an infrared light spray followed by the blue light cuts down the need for as long a dark period as plants are normally given. Imagine if you could reduce the dark period by 2 hours, more than 16% of the lighted period.
If both techniques were used, the lighted period would total up to 15 1/2 hours, 3 1/2 more hours each day for creating sugars and energy for growth. The final result: Bigger buds and more of them.
Enjoy
By Ed Rosenthal-verbatim
Plant lighting methods have evolved over the years, leaving residues and neo-improvements along the way. The first lights that I grew with-and the only ones available at the time-were fluorescents. I set up banks of eight 8' lights on a 4' x 8' plywood board that was suspended from the ceiling. The tubes, cool white for vegatative growth and warm whit for flowering, produced rather skimpy buds from the Colombian seeds I germinated. Part of the problem, I immediately recognized, was that the plants were light deprived because they were recieving an input of only 18 watts per square foot. Then I learned about very high output (VHO) flourescents. They weren't as efficient as the lower watt fluorescents but they emitted two and a half times the light of standard fluorescent. The quality of the buds immediately improved as I selected for high quality plants and the plants received more light.
Within a few years, most growers replaced these tubes with metal halide and high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps. These produce a very bright light emitted from a central source. They revolutionized growing because they gave the plants just what they needed to grow big buds-intense light. HPS lamps also produce enough light in the orange and red spectrums, which promote flower growth.
However, many growers continued to use fluorescents. Dorm and small closet growers lit up with shop lights. People who couldn't afford the stiff outlay for an HPS could always find inexpensive or free fluorescents.
Then came a new innovation. Compact fluorescent lamps, or CFL, breathed new life into fluorescent growing. These small lamps emit high intensity light from a small lamp. They are available in high wattages, such as 40 and 50 watts, so plants can be given light from a high eletrical input. Plants grown using these lamps produce bigger and higher quality buds than was previously possible under fluorescents.
LED lamps, which happen to be electronic lights, will soon create a similar change. An electric current causes a series of reactions resulting in photons of a specific wavelength being emitted. The wavelength is determined by the composition of the diode. These lights don't give off as much light as HPS lamp, but all the light they produce is in a norrow spectrum. Using LEDs that emit various spectrums can produce a very targeted light that is strong in the spectrums plants use the most, and less intense or even absent in othere.
There are a number of LED units available commercially, and I have seen gardens grown under them. The consensus is that LEDs can produce excellent results whtn the plants are growing vegetatively, but flowers grown under these units, at least the ones that I have seen, tend to be neither large nor dense. My supposition would be that this is because the targeted light spectrums aren't supplying some other needed spectrums. In other words, it's not the light they are providing that is limiting bud development;it's the light they are not providing. Some companies are experimenting with using white LEDs to cover unspecified spectrums and a mix of targeted frequencies such as red and blue.
Such technical problems with LED lights will eventually be overcome by research within a few years and then LEDs will become the lights of choice. They are easy to work with, save electricity, don't produce much heat and last much longer than other lamps.
Meanwhile there are a few ways that you can enhance your garden with LEDs. Most of photosynthesis occurs in the red and blue spectrums. However, looking at a typical HPS spectrum chart you can see that the lamps emit most of their light in the yellow spectrum. Plants don't use much yellow, so most of the energy used to produce it is wasted. One advantage to using HPS lamps is that they do supply all the light spectrums that plants require, so plants thrive when they are used as a sole source of light.
You can supplement light from HPS lamps with LEDs.As I mentioned earlier, only a small protion of HPS light falls in the red or blue range that's used in photosynthesis. Adding red and blue light will enhance photosynthesis, and therefore yield. This is a theory that I developed while working with a product researcher at one of the LED companies.
I am about to test this theory now using LEDs of three different spectrums which are considered peak spectrums for photosynthetic action. Each 1000-watt lamp will be given an additional 40 watts of combined red spectrums. I estimate this approximately doubles the amount of red light the plants receive. I think that the plants with enhanced red will be considerably larger than their sisters under unenhanced HPS.
FLOWERING IN LESS DARKNESS
In Experiments At The Cutting Edge, Part 1 (http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=120378 ), I discussed critical dark periods that induce flowering. When a plant repeatedly receives an uninterrupted dark period of that length, flowering is induced. The plant measures darkness as the absence of red light. To stop a plant from flowering, simply interrupt the dark period with red light, such as the light from an incandescent bulb, halfway through the dark period and the plant will continue to grow vegetatively.
When the red light ends it takes the plant about two hours to change over from the inactive form (which doesn't promote flowering) to the active form. This can be sped up considerably with infrared light. You cannot see infrared light but you can feel it as heat. Incandescent bulbs emit about 10% of their energy as visible light. The other 90% is emitted as infrared light. When the light hits a solid object, the energy is converted into heat.
When infrared light comes in contact with the inactive form ot the flowering hormone, the hormone is immediately converted to the active form. The infrared light doesn't have to remain in contact with the platns long-just a few moments will do.
Photoperiodism is a localized effect. If you had a plant with two branches and one of the branches was given flowering light regime while the other was given continuous light, the first branch would flower but the second would continue to grow vegetatively. Because the effect is localized, all parts of the plant must be reached with the infrared light. Think of applying infrared light as you would think of spraying water on the plant. The entire plant and all its vegetation must be dripping with water when you are done. It is in this manner that you have to spray the plant with invisible light. The spraying should take place each evening after dusk or after the lights have been turned off.
THE EFFECTS OF INFRARED LIGHT ON OUTDOOR GARDENS
(WARNING: THESE METHODS ARE BEING TESTED NOW. THE RESULTS WILL BE AVAILABLE LATER THIS YEAR.)
In an earlier article called "Project Haiku" (SKUNK 4.3), I described how to force plants to flower early by covering them each day using an opaque curtain. They were harvested eight weeks after forcing began.
Infrared light can substitute for the curtain tossing. In Northerern California, where Project Haiku took place, June 22 is the longest day and shortest night of the year; the garden received 14 3/4 hours of light and 9 1/4 hours of darkness. The short dark period prevents flowering. Chemically, the inactive flowering hormone is taking its time, 2 hours worth, to convert to the active form. The plants are under teh influence of the flowering hormone for only 7 1/4 hours, so the plant continues to grow vegetatively.
When the plants are "sprayed" with infrared light, the hormones convert over th the active form. If this is done daily at dusk, it gives the plant another 2 hrs under the influence of the active hormone each day. This is a long enough period for them to be induced to grow buds and start flowering. So if a garden was forcd in May it will ripen in July. A June forced garden, such as PH, is harvested in August.
The main problem with using infrared light is that it sometimes induces stem stretching. However, there is a solution: spray the plant with blue light. Blue light has been used for decades in a few commercial nurseries to keep plants compact and to prevent stretching. Plants photoperiodism is not affected by the blue spectrum. After the plants are sprayed with infrared light, a spray of blue light keeps the stems short and stocky.
INFRARED LIGHT ON INDOOR GARDENS
(WARNING: FINAL RESULTS FROM THESE EXPERIMENTS HAVE NOT YET BEEN REPORTED)
The typical indoor flowering room spends 12 hours a day, half its time, in darkness. The positive side of this is that the dark period forces the plant to flower. The negative side is that while the plants are in darkness they don't photosynthesize.
A few growers have figured out their plants' critical flowering time and increased the lit period by up to an hour and a half. Instead of spending 50% of their time in darkness, they spend only 44%. More importantly, they luxuriate under the lights for another 6% of the time. That's an increase of more than 12% of the lighted period. A corresponding increase in yield should follow.
Using an infrared light spray followed by the blue light cuts down the need for as long a dark period as plants are normally given. Imagine if you could reduce the dark period by 2 hours, more than 16% of the lighted period.
If both techniques were used, the lighted period would total up to 15 1/2 hours, 3 1/2 more hours each day for creating sugars and energy for growth. The final result: Bigger buds and more of them.
Enjoy
