Effects of differing wavelengths of light on cana growth.

[Randalizer]

but I am on the side of MH being a great asset to the growing cycle during veg. Bushy, stocky, strong plants which seem to mature faster, and develop better once flipped to 12/12.

I'm kinda in shock right now. I just potted up some Jedi to 3 gallon pots (they now stay in the veg tent for a week, after potting up, before going to the flower room), and I have never seen such heavy, stocky, healthy growth. Not since I've grown outdoors!

I'm blaming the MH but my compost has finally come into it's own (I'll make a note in my 2nd diary soonish), and there have been other minor tweaks over the past few weeks.

In any case I am gobstrucked! Pictures in my diary tomorrow.

Perhaps the best thing is to have a full spectrum of sorts in the flowering room.. or

Of course but we want to know which wavelengths, when (what phase of growth) and how much (intensity). I may be adding reptile lights to my movers to boost the UVB in my flower room. Not for a few months though.

You can get spinning movers with multiple lamps of differing wavelengths. But that gets damn pricey real quick like.

We'd do HPS for the first 2 hours and the last 2 hours... then 8 hours with MH. Or ... some variation of that.

This could easily be done with a laptop and an LED bank of lights. If they were intense enough.

Hey Rev. Make a post here and link your topic on your experiences with the early matureing plant you have.

Edited June 3, 2009 by Randalizer

[Randalizer]

From an evolutionary stand point, canna's stretchy growth for 1) may be due to that emf range (infra red to yellow) being able to better penetrated foliage. when a canna plant senses these wavelengths, it knows to stretch so that it can get to the light. And perhaps it get stocky from blue light as that is what it sees when the plants sees blue sky? This telling it not to stretch so much, perhaps because open sky has more wind that may snap branches?

Here is an example how this information could be used. Say you are a SCROG grower. At the beginning of your veg cycle it would seem you would want a lot of runners and stretch. So HPS veg time. Once you have branches all stretched out where you want them along your screen and growing tips just about an inch or so above the screen, switch over to MH and keep your veg cycle for a while. Hit HPS again for 12/12 for about 5-6 weeks depending on strain, then hit them with MH again for the remaining 12/12 time frame.

[Randalizer]

Doing some research, found this nugget from OT1 here. This bit here is a bit edited for brevity.

The actual psychoactive complexity any plant is capable of producing is down to the genetics of the plant you are growing.

For any plant to express its maximum potential is down environmental factors. The complexity of the nutrients it gets has a bearing on that.

The most important thing though is the light,

Of course I'm wondering how many old skool folk here are laughing, amused by our discoveries here.

Edited June 3, 2009 by Randalizer

[Indicanights]

This is really interesting stuff for those of us that have sets of MH and HPS bulbs.

I have had my babies vegging under a 600w MH for 2 weeks up to yesterday, I added another 600w MH last night.

I have 5 x BlueRyder Autos about 5 weeks away from harvest - was thinking maybe give them another 3 weeks veg schedule alongside my DP Power Plants and then switch everything to 12/12 with HPS bulbs.

I am now wondering if I should stick an HPS over the autos sooner so I have both MH & HPS (at opposite ends of the tent). Obviously the 'bleed' over from one end of the tent to the other between the 2 bulbs won't be huge, but having both wavelengths bouncing about is an interesting thought.

[Indicanights]

In fact now I have thought about it after reading Randalizer's thoughts on MH (veg) >HPS (stretch) >MH (last 2 weeks) I am definitely going to switch the bulb tonight and throw in my currently unused 250W enviro (blue) to give them a helping hand.

When I switch to 12/12 in a couple of weeks I will swap the bulbs over so the autos finish with some MH and the Power Plants can start their stretch under HPS.

Can't believe I never thought of that before

[Randalizer]

cool beans. If you look in my 2nd diary it talks about how I use 3 X 600W (2 X 600W HPS and 1 X 600w MH) in me flower room. All HIDs are on linear rails and each sit over one 1 meter by 2 meter trays. as the plants get older they move closer to the MH tray (in the center, loads of bleed light) and spend their last two weeks under the MH lamp.

Edited June 3, 2009 by Randalizer

[ReverendRFB]

Gladly Rand,

Well.. I had always had my suspicions about the difference in plant responsiveness to light - MH lamps being more close to the spectrum they'd receive while outside than HPS lamps... therefore in theory growing better. But I even went further into my thinking to wonder.. Perhaps the MH imitates the Spring and Fall sunlight.. where as the HPS will represent the summer months June-August better? Come to find out.. the real change is Early in the day and late in the afternoon. This makes sense to me... and I thank Rand for the info he offered up which helped explain that.

In my own little Terrarium, I have gone from vegging and flowering everything under one HPS light... to having a T5 flouro setup for Mum's and starts, a MH vegging area for the adolescents and teens.... and then a Flowering zone under HPS for the mature and ready adults. Since the addition of the individual area's of growth.. I've been able to observe some startling discoveries. My first discovery is that they all grow much faster now, and I have more ready - more often.. to go into flower... then I really have room for. (I now have that problem of being forced to throw out perfectly good, rooted, female clones - because they just don't have the room to grow up!) --- Whats more noticeable is that the growth is much more squatty.. and (although I can't verify this) I would swear that I am getting a few more budsites along the stems and branches of the plants. This could be a lot of factors also.. but perhaps its because its decreasing the internode length on the branches, allowing for more of them to occupy the same space? The other really, interesting thing about this, is that I'm noticing really fast maturation. I was thrilled to have a White Widow to smoke after 70 days of waiting, and when I grew the sister plant.. I expected another 70 day wait.. but here at 48 days.. it was more than ready for the chop. Take a look at it here and see for yourself. I cut a bud off before chopping her down (because I didn't believe it could really be done) but sure enough.. I was glued to the floor and she was! So.. all other factors being the same and the light being the most notable difference..... this has to be the reason... right? Maybe? If this is true... then I just cut 22 days off the cycle.. which is great! All the other plants I have in my flower room that have come from the MH veg-zone .. are developing really fast, flowering exposively, and really exceeding my expectations. The nice thing about this is.. I'm able to compare notes and pictures from crops only a few months ago to see the difference.. and its astounding. UK420 is of course the most valuable asset to all of this, allowing for such research to be developed, and cultivated.

Its a constant state of being. The learning is grown through study of observation. There is always more to discover.

Thanks for listening to my rambling.

Looking forward to more developments and information.

-Rev

[Randalizer]

Maybe we should sub-title this topic, "Old men ramble".

[groovelick]

now this may seem wierd.. HPS is red so the spectrum looks more red shifted which indicates the light source is moving away so plant steches out to get closer to it... and blue means the light source is comming closer so kinda squats down.... or maybe this smoke is better than i thought

[Randalizer]

[potsmoker93]

Granted this may be strain specific. In fact I would be a bit surprised if it wasn't. . It would be nice to compare notes and find out what strains do well under what lights. Or has this been done in the strain talk forums?

I've also been

Nice one, currentlty testing lumitek, or will be in a week 400w's x 2 in vegging under MH 7200k sumaster pro's, also have 4 x lumatek 400w with 2 MH and 2 HPS, reckon my vegging like last time way back under MH will produce once again bushy plants instead of stretchy, almost dissapointing plants under HPS.

No doubt about it, MH for vegging gives bushy plants, or did with several strains under it, top draw.

[onlyorganic]

interesting reading guys 00

[Randalizer]

Nice one, currentlty testing lumitek,

heya potsmoker93

Very cool. We have a stuck topic on e-ballasts (click) here. If you could post observations on your ballast's performance there, it would help massively. But yea it is also cool to get a brief mention of what ballasts you are using.

Here we want to focus on how your plants react under certain lights, certain wavelengths if you would, more than the ballasts involved.

A lot of us here do use e-ballasts. One reason why is the better ones have a very consistent output over their operating life span. This is helpful in many ways, but for me the best part is that it removes one potential variable when one is conducting tests on said plants.

[chickenlipsr4]

Yeah I have been pondering this recently and this time I am doing plants under blue 250w CFL, then 400w MH (7200K) til end of veg and have just switched to flower and added in another 400w of HPS. We shall see how things turn out. Two Nep Jams I am doing are cloned so hopefully if there is any change in potency or structure I will be able to tell.

I did stumble across this at an online growshop I occasionally use and it's got me thinking.

"Finally a digital bulb that has been designed to work with digital ballasts!

IF YOU ARE OPERATING ELECTRONIC BALLASTS-THIS LAMP IS ESSENTIAL TO HAVE!!!

Sunpulse are the first lamps designed for use with electronic ballasts; digital lams for digital ballasts.

No more plugging in old style analogue lamps and hoping for the best.

These digital lamps allow your digital ballast to achieve it's full potential.

SunPulse Pulse Start Metal Halide Grow lamps are specially formulated for plants and other living things. These lamps are available in Kelvin ratings of 3k, 4k, 6.4k, 10k, 14k & 20k.

AVAILABLE IN 2 SIZES ONLY AT PRESENT - 400 and 600 Watts, just click on the dropdown box below.

4K = Full Spectrum - SEEDLING / CUTTING

6.4k - Day Light - MAJORITY OF VEG

4K - Full Spectrum - LAST WEEK OF VEG

3K - Red Orange - MOST OF FLOWERING

10K - Uva Blue - FINAL WEEK

* Designed to work with certified electronic and digital electronic ballasts

* Even lamp life approx (20,000 hrs) with little color shift or loss of FT-CD output"

I posted about it a few weeks ago and was hoping somebody with more funds to throw at a grow than I would have had a go cos that's a lot of £70 bulbs for one grow.

[Randalizer]

SunPulse is a Life Light Systems company. Life Light makes very high end, very expensive gear. Ballasts, lamps and spinners/movers. I've always wanted to try out one of their 6 arm spinners but I'm afraid any gains wouldn't be worth the cost, except in the ergonomic application of multiple lamps with differing outputs for experimental purposes.

I like how Life Light tries to sell a complete package of lights. I think my cheap-o fluro tubes work well enough for mums and cuttings. And again, if LEDs were intense enough, it would be better to use a bank of LEDs with a laptop controller.

Oh but a 6 arm spinner doing a SCROG! :wink:

Edited June 4, 2009 by Randalizer