Will my Red LED indicator be seen by the plants as "light"?

[LoveTheMaryJane]

Been growing a few .. and it occurred to me that the temperature indicator in the tent, which controls when the fans come on, etc, is a source of light. Fairly large numerals, about one inch high, easily seen in the dark.

Will this be perceived by the plants as a light leak?

I've heard that green light is ok... but seen no reference to red.

Anyone?
if it IS a problem, then I'll perhaps position it outside the tent - a bit awkward, the way things are set up right now, but do-able

Thanks!

 

[solocup]

Have you grew a cycle threw it with it in there?
IF so and it didn't effect it then why move it.
Some strains are more sensitive to light and red LED is most likely seen depending on a few factors.
I would move it out so I would not bother my thoughts and stress me out.
lol...

hope that answered your question SOLOCUP

 

[solocup]

Perhaps a DIY plastic green cover?

So you can still see it.

 

[Hosebomber]

All light is seen by plants. It depends more on the number of photons being released or the intensity. If it is a slight glow, it won't make a difference.

 

[LoveTheMaryJane]

Thanks for the replies, youse guys...

I have just the thing.. a piece of green dental dam - it'll mask the red nicely, methinks.


Prealbo

 

[What is sober]

I would just cover it up to be safe...some strains are more sensitive than other.

 

[Bumpin Spheda]

If it's truly "red," then no, it won't wake your plants. Plants use blue light to determine their photoperiod (and phototropism). Look into something called "The Martian Method" and you'll see that if the color shown on your plants is over ~500nm you have no reason to be afraid, as proven by your previous grows.

Take care.

 

[Hosebomber]

Bumpin, first and foremost welcome to the site. As for the "Martian Method", feel free to look it up. There was never a truly successful grow using that method and you are missing the fact they still had 11+ hours of "SID" lighting. It is 100% fact that you can grow plants with nothing but 630,660, and/or 730nm light and nothing else whatsoever. There are literally thousands of studies on this. The idea behind the Martian Method was to use ~4 hours of blue light then ~9 hours of red light then ~11 hours of darkness. Allowing the grow to get more than 12 hours of total lighting on their plants. That will work but it will also cause photomorphosis to occur, deforming and stunting your growth while reducing all outputs from the plant.

 

[Bumpin Spheda]

Thanks for the welcome.

I'm not suggesting he use the Martian Method, I'm just saying his red LED will NOT wake the plant. I highly doubt it's Deep Red so it won't be converting nighttime Pr into Pfr, nor will it be emitting blue light. I don't see a chance to wake the plants here.

There are different ways to go about the Martian Method, I would assume, but they all must involve and abide by the plant biology that we know and understand in order for it to work. Afaik, plants have two mechanisms that determine their photoperiod. One is blue light and the other is levels of Pfr to Pr. Pfr is created during the day while Deep Red light is in abundance (during the day). When Infrared is in abundance, and/or at night when this process is performed naturally, albeit slowly, the plant converts Pfr into Pr. Plants use the level of Pfr versus Pr in order to determine "how long" the plant has been asleep. If the night was long Pr should be quite high in concentration which means it needs to flower if it's a long night plant. If Pfr concentration is high that means the plant had a relatively short night and the plant needs to flower if it's a long day plant.

The patented Martian Method that I'm aware of has IR and DR lighting alternate at night at a frequency of ~30 minutes in order to maintain the conversion process between Pfr and Pr (in either direction) constantly taking place. The photomorphosis you spoke of is the deformities in the plant due to elevated IR and shade avoidance symptoms I'm guessing. I don't remember the work-around for this.

 

[Hosebomber]

All reds below 710nm creates Pfr. It takes approximately 2 micro mols of > 720nm lighting over a one minute period of time to convert 1 Pfr molecule into Pr. This will naturally occur after ~30 minutes without the introduction of far red light. Shade avoidance syndrome can be avoided by not introducing any photons above 490nm. However, the flowering function cannot occur with this range of inputs. The continued introduction of reds or deep reds (regardless of the amounts off alternating Far red or IR) will not allow a plant to complete the "Dark cycle" or long night photo-period. From all of the "Martian Method" attempts I have seen or been able to find, none of them ever actually used IR (above 750nm) or successfully completed a harvest of any fruiting/flowering plant. If you have links to studies showing differently I would love to see them.

 

[Bumpin Spheda]

I was sort of arguing whether or not a red LED on an HVAC controller of unknown wavelength and proximity to a plant had enough photometric power to unhinge a cannabis plant's night cycle judgement by out scaling its ability to convert Pfr to Pr as it sleeps, but I think at this point we're more interested in the Martian Method.

If you start a new thread I wouldn't mind discussing it. I'm no expert, but I wouldn't mind learning more about it.