Color Spectrum and Lumens

Just so can double check my understanding of what I've learned about lighting so far - debat of Flourescent vs MH vs HPS aside ... I'm wanting to get to the super basic of Red, Blue, and Lumens.

Basically for my understanding for my indoor germination and seedling production station I want to use a mix of blue and red light - Red being around 3000 Kelvin and Blue around 6500 Kelving; both having high Lumens output correct?

Blue is for the foliage and Red is for the fruits - generally put - correct?

Also the weaker the Lumens means the closer the light has to be to the plant correct?

Sorry again for all the newb questions.

Gerry

GMDGEEK said:

Just so can double check my understanding of what I've learned about lighting so far - debat of Flourescent vs MH vs HPS aside ... I'm wanting to get to the super basic of Red, Blue, and Lumens.

Basically for my understanding for my indoor germination and seedling production station I want to use a mix of blue and red light - blue being around 3000 Kelvin and Red around 6500 Kelving; both having high Lumens output correct?

Blue is for the foliage and Red is for the fruits - generally put - correct?

Also the weaker the Lumens means the closer the light has to be to the plant correct?

Sorry again for all the newb questions.

Gerry

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I believe you have your red and blue color temps switched. Blue is ~6500K and Red ~2700K.

Edit: And many people have different views on what color temps to use. Some will say that for just getting your plants started to put outside, you should just use 6500K lights while others say to use a mixture. I myself, started out with only 6500K bulbs and saw good growth. I included a couple of 2700K bulbs and didn't see much improvement. So I have now switched out the 2700K bulbs for more 6500K bulbs for a total of 6.

The blue end of the spectrum is for vegitative growth, the red end for fruiting and flowering. I personally use 4, 4ft T8 bulbs. 2 6500K and 2 5000K. My plants are only inside under lights for about 2.5 months so I'm not needing any of the warmer K lights as my plants will not be big enough to be fruiting or flowering before going outside. Now if you're looking to strictly grow inside and never move them outside then yes you will need the warmer end of the spectrum at some point to produce flowers/fruit

GM, if you want to make the trek from dallas to Austin on Sunday, we are having a grower get together at my place! Let me know

Thanks for the invite Cory - already made plans this weekend but please let me know if y'all do another. And yes my bad, I had the Blue and Red backwards - I've read so much the past two weeks I'm getting all my notes in a row. I edited the post to correct this. Baby steps ... Baby Steps.

Still curious about Lumens strength.

Thanks for the feed back everyone.
Gerry

cory_huck said:

GM, if you want to make the trek from dallas to Austin on Sunday, we are having a grower get together at my place! Let me know

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F U CORY!! I am so jealous....hope you guys have an awesome time.

GMDGEEK said:

Thanks for the invite Cory - already made plans this weekend but please let me know if y'all do another. And yes my bad, I had the Blue and Red backwards - I've read so much the past two weeks I'm getting all my notes in a row. I edited the post to correct this. Baby steps ... Baby Steps.

Still curious about Lumens strength.

Thanks for the feed back everyone.
Gerry

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The saying goes, 3000 lumens a square foot is *minimal* for good indoor plant growth...now that being said, I believe that is if you are growing to maturity indoors. If you are just growing for a few months until plant out, I've known plenty of people to get by with less.

The sun puts out around 10,000 lumens a square foot in the full sunlight. So going above this number I'd think might be unsafe for the plants lol. Needless to say anywhere inbetween 3000 and 10000 lumens is the normal.

When I first started getting into this, I read a lot about using red spectrum for fruiting and the blue spectrum for vegetative growth. I've found this to be untrue to a certain extent. Chile plants Veg and bloom simultaneously. That is the reason that people have found it to grow, flower and fruit all under 6500k. If this were marijuana things would be diffferent. (That is where a lot of growing information comes from and chile plants do not use the light spectrum the same way.)

I have found information stating that the plant does use more of one spectrum of light vs another for different things such as vegging, flowering and fruiting but don't need a dominance of one to do any of them. (such as vegging under 6500k and then fruiting under 2700k) a fuller spectrum is better for chiles. (a combination of both) Now take this with a grain of salt because it is what I've read and have not been growing long enough to experiment with all of these different conditions. I'm sure some here have. People are probably going to rip what I've said apart and some will probably agree completely.

I do know that getting your nutrients down is important for getting flowers to take and bud. If there is a deficiency then flowers could just drop off and never set fruit. As well as maintaining the proper temperatures.

Your best bet is to find out where your plant originated from and trying to mimic their living conditions i.e.; humidity levels, average temps, soil conditions, growing season length. Because that is all we are really trying to do when we set up an indoor grow. (that and always experimenting and improving like the mad scientist's that we are)

Good luck!

Yes he explained it well. The lower the K so 1900/HPS is easy to achieve more lumens per watt then blue light say 5500/MH.

coheed196 said:

The blue end of the spectrum is for vegitative growth, the red end for fruiting and flowering. I personally use 4, 4ft T8 bulbs. 2 6500K and 2 5000K. My plants are only inside under lights for about 2.5 months so I'm not needing any of the warmer K lights as my plants will not be big enough to be fruiting or flowering before going outside. Now if you're looking to strictly grow inside and never move them outside then yes you will need the warmer end of the spectrum at some point to produce flowers/fruit

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I don't know if my experience is typical, but I have plants (annuums - cayenne and early jalapeno) that are trying to bloom at 38 days since hooking. I'm using 4x 4' 6500K T8 cri84 2350 lumens for 8 sq. ft. of table top, so a little less than 1200 lumens/ft. sq. (Up until two weeks ago I was using 4 5000K T8)
Don't know if that helps or not. Here is the link that always gets added to these threads : )

http://www.thcfarmer...rum-info-37783/

As said above to grow you need at least 3,000 lumens per square foot, not even close to the 10,000 lumens per square foot that the sun produces on a sunny day.

The nutritional value of fruit grown under low lumens, or t8 for that matter, will not be the same as fruit under full light. Yeild will be effected in particular.

I've been playing with LEDs for a few years and this is what I've found that has to do with Peppers(that is all I grow).

Under mostly blue LEDs(any mix higher in blue than 6 red to 1 blue of the same Lumen) my plants grow taller with less segments and branching.
Under mostly red LEDs (anything higher than an 8 to 1 mix of red to blue) they stay shorter but have more segments of leaves that are bigger and the plants branch a whole lot earlier and heavier.

Under either all red(in several wave lengths) or all Blue(several wave lengths) I got poor growth.

I read a study that says different Wave Lengths actually turn on and off different genes in plants.

With LEDs I needed less Lumens total to get the same or better growth out of my plants than with any fluoro I've used of about the same Lumens over the years.

Some varieties of peppers like more or less high end red.
manzanos for example like a lot more high red where other peppers seem to like lower red or don't care.

I assume it has to do with what type of light the plant had adapted to in nature.Different altitudes and locations (forest,coastal areas,deserts etc.) get more of different light mixes.
Plants over the years probably adapted to conditions in nature and a lot of peppers aren't domesticated enough to have adapted to a different mix of light yet that it isn't geared towards growing under.

With fluoros a mix of K worked better than using all high or low K bulbs at any specific time.
Fluoros mixed between 5000K and 6500K worked best in as high a lumens as I could get in general.

Red to Blue= 45 red to 9 blue









Wide one is Bonnet Bell and the other is Red Dominica.Both were seeds in early Jan.
LED should be farther away so the LEDs could cross beams but I don't have the room.
Notice the Red Dominica is taller,It's under a Blue LED.
The one top branch is growing over to the red/mixed wave lengths(more wavelengths and Lumens in the center).
The Bonnet bell gets reflected light off the glass and is more centered under the pannel.
It grew more evenly...

Nice looking plants. I think LED are safe and effective. They are all about grower convenience, which can be a win.

smokemaster said:

I've been playing with LEDs for a few years and this is what I've found that has to do with Peppers(that is all I grow). Under mostly blue LEDs(any mix higher in blue than 6 red to 1 blue of the same Lumen) my plants grow taller with less segments and branching. Under mostly red LEDs (anything higher than an 8 to 1 mix of red to blue) they stay shorter but have more segments of leaves that are bigger and the plants branch a whole lot earlier and heavier. Under either all red(in several wave lengths) or all Blue(several wave lengths) I got poor growth. I read a study that says different Wave Lengths actually turn on and off different genes in plants. With LEDs I needed less Lumens total to get the same or better growth out of my plants than with any fluoro I've used of about the same Lumens over the years. Some varieties of peppers like more or less high end red. manzanos for example like a lot more high red where other peppers seem to like lower red or don't care. I assume it has to do with what type of light the plant had adapted to in nature.Different altitudes and locations (forest,coastal areas,deserts etc.) get more of different light mixes. Plants over the years probably adapted to conditions in nature and a lot of peppers aren't domesticated enough to have adapted to a different mix of light yet that it isn't geared towards growing under. With fluoros a mix of K worked better than using all high or low K bulbs at any specific time. Fluoros mixed between 5000K and 6500K worked best in as high a lumens as I could get in general. Red to Blue= 45 red to 9 blue

Wide one is Bonnet Bell and the other is Red Dominica.Both were seeds in early Jan. LED should be farther away so the LEDs could cross beams but I don't have the room. Notice the Red Dominica is taller,It's under a Blue LED. The one top branch is growing over to the red/mixed wave lengths(more wavelengths and Lumens in the center). The Bonnet bell gets reflected light off the glass and is more centered under the pannel. It grew more evenly...

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Never really now different exposure of the light spectrum can make alot of different, this is intresting. So if one, want to grow taller use blue one more, if one want to grow bushier use red one more. So if one use 4 CFL @6500K with 20watt each (1150Lumen X 4 = 4600Lumens) and 1 CFL @2300K with 23watt (1250Lumens) does it have the same effect as the LED do?

just something to think about as far as light spectrum goes. I have 3 T8 fixtures and each one always has one bulb each different ends of the spectrum. 6500k and 3500k. During my seedling stages the plants always leaned toward the 6500 k bulb inside the fixture. As they got bigger and were ready for me to swap the lights for my Metal Halide it was hard to tell if they were still wanting the blue spectrum as the angles were no longer as harsh, but out of approx 80 different strains/sources all of the plants were seeking out the 6500, in early stages.

One of these days I'll have to use all LEDs of the same Lumen output.
Right now it's hard to tell why plants seem to lean towards one colour or another.
It could be that a string of LEDs is brighter,a different wave length or whatever.
Hard to say as far as the early stage of plant growth goes.

When I noticed the thing about different Pepper varieties liking different wave lengths more than others was when I was playing with panels that were all the same wave length of red and blue.

When I used only Fluoros I found that 6000-6700K and 3500k mixed seemed to work best for me in the highest lumen I could find.
For a CRI the 6000-6700k bulbs were 91-93.I don't remember what it was for the 3500k.
I think mixing as many K as you can find is best in the highest lumens you can find.

I don't like T8's.
I found it hard to find as many k and lumen variations as T12 and mine get a lot hotter than my T12's did.
It's part of the reason I got into LEDs.
I grow a few plants indoors and had poor bud set at times because the room stays at 80-85degrees.
Soon as winter came I get great bud and pod set.
Never had a heat problem with T12's.
It could be the shop light ballasts ,I don't know.
They are T8 light fixtures that the T8's are in.T12's were in T12 fixtures.
T 8's seem to burn out faster for me too.

Would you guys entertain the idea of using induction bulbs for growing?? been reading a lot of stuff about these online.

What I've read they are close or the same as 1-3watt LEDS in power consumption.80 Lumens +/- per watt.
Depends on whose data/advertising you are reading...for either product.

Most induction bulbs I've seen seem to be geared to the blue end of the spectrum.

Some put out a lot of UV in wave lengths that can fry your retina - I've seen warnings about putting some of them in a glass fixture or whatever to protect you from the UV light. (Read about the same thing about some LEDs too)

Most of the ones I see for garages etc are 5000K and up.

They need a ballast $$?
Bulbs I've seen are $40 (300watt ,24,000 LM) and up.
Same supposed life span as LEDs - 50,000 - 100,000 hours.

What little I've read they seem to be available in the spectrum plants use.

Here is some info on them.
Data might be old and is definitely slanted in the induction bulbs favor...

Says they pretty much come in the same K as Fluoros - 3500K to 6500K though I've seen them advertised in UV ranges to burn chips with.

http://knol.google.com/k/how-induction-lamps-work#

I don't like that they run on mercury.
Not everyone is going to re cycle bulbs....
Nobody is going to collect the mercury from a broken bulb to re cycle it.

If you want to read this article after May1,2012 you better copy it.It says it's going away after that.