Wacko Wizard
New Member
I want to grow some mangoes under lights and need a bit of advice...
The trees (which I am over-wintering in my garage because it does not drop below 17oC) will be grown on 110 x 110 cm (3.6 x 3.6 ft) pallets. The trees range from 1-2.5ft, already. There are 36 trees/per pallet. Once the stems are at least pencil thick, they will be grafted. Once grafted trees outgrow the pallet, they will be removed to outside to harden-off, so crowding will hopefully not be too much of an issue, but I will need too penetration.
The aim of the grow is to pack on as much vegetative growth in a couple of months, without flowering (sounds odd, I know)!
The points I need advice with are...
1) I've read that vegetative growth requires much less Actual watts/ft than would be required for budding weed. The forum sticky suggests 22.75w/ft minimum. The lights I was considering were Mars 2 900s which have epileds but I read somewhere that 50w/ft is recommended for these (for general weed growing) since they don't put out as much as osrams etc. This comes out at 650wActual per pallet. As these are only for veg growth, I was hoping that around 325wActual would be sufficient. The Mars900 puts out353wActual. 22.75w/ft for the pallet would be 295.75wActual. Does this sound legit?
2) I wanted to have a small amount of other spectra (green etc) in the light, but the mars just has blue, red, white and IR. Are the white LEDs there to provide the other spectra?
3) These will not be a tent. As long as the focus of the light is optimised to cover just the pallet will I harness sufficient light or will there be big reflective losses?
many thanks
WW
The trees (which I am over-wintering in my garage because it does not drop below 17oC) will be grown on 110 x 110 cm (3.6 x 3.6 ft) pallets. The trees range from 1-2.5ft, already. There are 36 trees/per pallet. Once the stems are at least pencil thick, they will be grafted. Once grafted trees outgrow the pallet, they will be removed to outside to harden-off, so crowding will hopefully not be too much of an issue, but I will need too penetration.
The aim of the grow is to pack on as much vegetative growth in a couple of months, without flowering (sounds odd, I know)!
The points I need advice with are...
1) I've read that vegetative growth requires much less Actual watts/ft than would be required for budding weed. The forum sticky suggests 22.75w/ft minimum. The lights I was considering were Mars 2 900s which have epileds but I read somewhere that 50w/ft is recommended for these (for general weed growing) since they don't put out as much as osrams etc. This comes out at 650wActual per pallet. As these are only for veg growth, I was hoping that around 325wActual would be sufficient. The Mars900 puts out353wActual. 22.75w/ft for the pallet would be 295.75wActual. Does this sound legit?
2) I wanted to have a small amount of other spectra (green etc) in the light, but the mars just has blue, red, white and IR. Are the white LEDs there to provide the other spectra?
3) These will not be a tent. As long as the focus of the light is optimised to cover just the pallet will I harness sufficient light or will there be big reflective losses?
many thanks
WW
