Combination of wavelenghts: HPS + MH + CFL

[Jupiter79]

Greetings!

Recently I learned that an MH-light combined with some HPS's will give plants a richer spectrum of wavelenghts, which is supposed to be more stimulating for them.

I currently have a 310w LED-light with mostly red light (660+630nm), some orange (615nm) and a little blue light (460+470nm).

And I have 2 125w CFL's vertically positioned. In the previous grow I used 2x125w 2700K red light cfl's (suitable for flowering phase). But this time I am using a 125w 2700K red light cfl together with a 125w 6400K white/blue light cfl (suitable for growing phase). I only use the cfl's after switching to flowering.

My reasoning was since HPS have mostly light from the red spectrum and an MH is more from the blue spectrum, maybe the two different cfl's will give a similar combination?



So my question is; Will this combination of cfl's have any similar effects to when you combine mh and hps lights?

 

[Jimmycricket]

While I wouldnt say that using both bulbs to get a more full spectrum is bad, I will say that you are definitely better off using twice as much of the spectrum to go along with the stage of growth your plants are in.

Using a 400 watt MH and 400 watt HPS during flower will not be as good as using two 400 watt HPS in flower in the same area. This will hold true for any lights be it CFL, HPS, MH, LED or whatever.

 

[Jupiter79]

I can't say exactly where I read it, but I think it was more meant to be a lower ratio of MH-HPS. One MH and one HPS seems to be not as good in the flowering phase to me too, it was more meant like if you have maybe 4 or 5 HPS's, then if one of them is MH, it will give a better blend of light.


But I am leaning towards switching back to 2 red cfl's, since the LED has some blue wavelenghts in it (about 13%).

Just wanted some more input on this matter.

 

[Jimmycricket]

i have done what you speak of with my T5s.

I would use 3 6400k and 1 2700k in each unit for vegging. I really saw no difference. If anything they grew faster with all just being 6400k.

 

[Jupiter79]

Yea, I changed back to the 2700K. I just had a bad feeling before I even posted the thread, that whitish looking mixture of light didn't look good in there.

But thanks for your help. now I can stop thinking about it

 

[GigaGrew]

I am using a 125w 2700K red light cfl together with a 125w 6400K white/blue light cfl (suitable for growing phase)

= 250w dual spec...end of line

 

[GigaGrew]

fyi if were all following the same principles, then when people add 6500k cfls into their grow, they are mainly after the trich producing UV rays, blue light in flower isn't meant to make bigger flowers, its meant to make more resins on the flowers. better to get a UV light and 2700ks for flowering.

 

[Jupiter79]

fyi if were all following the same principles, then when people add 6500k cfls into their grow, they are mainly after the trich producing UV rays, blue light in flower isn't meant to make bigger flowers, its meant to make more resins on the flowers. better to get a UV light and 2700ks for flowering.

Always nice to get good info like this, tnx. Your name rang a bell somewhere, I recall it was from my ph thread


As with UV, I also heard of the use of infrared light. And if UV light stimulates trich production, does IR light have any similar or other effects?

Is there another reason for which UV light is used other than trich production?

 

[GigaGrew]

UV is pretty much just about bombarding your plant with radiation so that it will produce more resins to protect itself.
UV is also important to tropical strains when the goal is THCv, but that's beyond my education at this time =/

I Believe IR may have connections with reducing flowering time, but alas, its another thing im yet to catch up on.

to be honest, im probably only a few months of article reading ahead of you in answering these kinds of questions. wish we didn't need to sleep, lol =)

 

[Jupiter79]

If IR is reducing flower time than I could use one with my LED-light. It feels like LED-lights have slower flowering time than HPS.

I read somewhere, that LED's are better than HPS in veg. (at least the newer models, like mine) and it really seems like it's true.
But however in the flowering period, capacity drops and it goes much slower and the light range becomes shorter and doesn't spread outwards from the lamp or reflector as far as HPS does. It spreads and reaches just as far as with HPS, but it just becomes weaker and less intense at a shorter distance from the lamp. Again this is not at all a problem in veg, it's even more like the opposite, but in flower?......I don't know.
But the buds get really heavy and can pack on a lot of weight with LED


But I also don't have much experience with HPS (only one grow) and I'm only in to my third grow with LED, so I can't say for sure. In the last LED-grow flowering time was 5 weeks overdue and still only about 30 % amber and still even many transparent ones?
Even this time it's almost 5 weeks into flowering and only white hairs with little bud and calyx formation starting to show just now.
I had some suspicions to why it was so slow, but this time eventhough I corrected most of the mistakes, it seems like it's going to be just as slow anyway.

But as I recall the 400w HPS-grow I did was not that fast either and not much amber after ca. 12 weeks of flowering. Maybe I should start a thread about why my grows have such long flowering times

 

[GigaGrew]

amber isn't necisarily what your after and some strains don't amber well. trichs come in clear, cloudy and amber. clear is underdone and amber is now rotten...cloudy is the sweet spot. if the strain doesn't hit you in the right way then change the strain, not the trich colour

 

[Jupiter79]

amber isn't necisarily what your after and some strains don't amber well. trichs come in clear, cloudy and amber. clear is underdone and amber is now rotten...cloudy is the sweet spot. if the strain doesn't hit you in the right way then change the strain, not the trich colour

I have found from looking at other strains I got to try from elsewhere as well, that many actually have a lot of cloudy trichs and at most maybe 50% amber. And I suspected that cloudy ones maybe aren't that bad too
Because I was told before that it should be mostly amber, but now from what I have read and researched online, and even based on what you're saying, I am aiming at 30-40% amber. But I want the rest of the trichs to be all cloudy.

So then the dilemma would be why there are so many clear transparent ones still after several weeks of overdue flowering.

 

[Jimmycricket]

I have found from looking at other strains I got to try from elsewhere as well, that many actually have a lot of cloudy trichs and at most maybe 50% amber. And I suspected that cloudy ones maybe aren't that bad too
Because I was told before that it should be mostly amber, but now from what I have read and researched online, and even based on what you're saying, I am aiming at 30-40% amber. But I want the rest of the trichs to be all cloudy.

So then the dilemma would be why there are so many clear transparent ones still after several weeks of overdue flowering.

The plant is probably growing new shoots, the new shoots will have new trichs which will of course start off clear.