@PSU: thanks -=o) i've always been scientific minded and pretty analytic by nature... add to that the fact that my first career goal in life was to be a botanist, at the age of 7. in fact, my 5th grade science fair project was on artificial lighting for productive plant growth. my dad helped me by crafting the test boxes and the electrical installation, but i had designed the test that pitted the sun vs a grow n show, a red bulb, and a green bulb. needless to say, i got 1st place at that fair. fast forward to now, where i'm an environmental studies major at a college in portland. i'm passionate about fresh water, sustainable organic farming (i've been called militantly anti-GMO - even a food nazi - and it was my nutrition teacher doing the name calling!), and sustainable energy production. here in the NW, we're all guilty of trading our salmon for our electric bills; and thats not right at all. i love salmon, and i hate huge electric bills. i'm sure that most would agree on at least half of that statement. i understand the clear benefits of indoor horticulture when done right, but it all starts with the correct light choice. pick the spectrum that is tuned to the plants. the plants will make best use of that input electricity by virtue of the lamp not spending additional wattage on spectrum output that the plants don't care for. an thats to say nothing of the wattage waste from the heat output of a 1000w HPS. which leads to AC/more fans/more exhaust/vicious cycle... personally, after looking at the FOOLISHNESS of running grows in the multiples of 10,000 watts (my old grower showed me her four thousand dollar electric bill. i typed it out so that you will know it is not a typo), all i can say is that i love salmon AND cannabis. i want to have my pot, and fresh fish too.
Thank you. Looks great. I'm seriously considering this lamp but I seriously considered LED until I did the research. LED just doesn't match the weight the HID puts out. Induction looks promising. Do you think you'll have more weight with inda-gro vs HPS after harvest?
i hear ya... when i started looking at options to HID lighting, i looked at LEDs first, as they make up the lion's share of that alternative market. it's impossible to look at alternative lighting technology for any application without seeing LED options available. so with a little research you can find out that there are companies that use 1w, 2w, 3w, or 5w diodes; and that differences then continue when it comes to the spectrum mix that they endorse and utilize. afaik, the newest LED solution on the market is the Solar Storm
, which is 800w (using 5w LEDs), and only has UV-B coverage on the sides with the addition of 2 little UV-B reptile lights (as opposed to how the entire Inda-Gro PAR tube emits UV-B. o, and it costs like two thousand dollars... talk about expensive. also, LEDs are still a new technology, particularly when one considers that Nikola Tesla invented Inducted Fluorescent technology in something like 1891. the newness of LED tech can be seen in both the rapid increase in output and wattage in a short time, as well as the consistently high price. personally, if i had the extra loot for one of these solar storm things, i'd choose to save a few hundred and get 2 420-PARs.
on the topic of weight, so far my plants are showing a clear preference for the Inda-Gro lamps in all stages of growth. my PDP is the biggest so far, and she's only been under EFDL... but theres also the fact that the plants are of different strains. once i clean up from this go around, i have a couple experiments lining up. one is to split the Canna Boost hair with a matched set of PDPs, but i will also run a Boost'ed PDP under the 600w HPS. that data matrix will have many answers...
well, im off to get into some gardening... i just got a new Cannatonic and Mendo Purp in today, and i want to go sit with them a little bit. they went right under the 200-PAR when i got them home, and last i saw they were already raising theirs leaves in eager response to the spectrum.
be well everyone!
congrats on your girls