do i have enough light

A little more info would help. Like what wattage are the CFL's and the led bulbs and what area you trying to cover and a pic would help as well

 

I know the wattage on the T5 and yes you are gonna need more light what's your budget? because there are some good lights in alibaba that I could recommend or just diy led with some full spectrum cobs mixed with white cobs I'm about to make some. A matter of fact I'm making one as we speak

 

huh? White light is "full spectrum"
blurple, bands. wavelengths etc , a collection of discrete spectra , decidedly not full spectrum.

 

No it's missing IR and UV I'm making a new light as we speak


I was told by a lighting engineer about it and check out https://chilledgrowlights.com/ he has tool you can use to add red and blue to your white light and it shows you how the curve changes with the colors being added

 

1st thing 1st..
Those translucent buckets will cause you trouble as the lady's roots grow..
Roots hate any light..Roots must be in the dark always!!

 

Definition of White Light
The electromagnetic spectrum is comprised of a variety of types of electromagnetic waves, each with different wavelengths or frequencies. For example, x-rays, gamma rays, infrared radiation and ultraviolet radiation are examples of electromagnetic waves. Only a small portion of the spectrum of wavelengths can be seen by the human eye. This visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is called the visible spectrum. This shows the full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation and highlights the small part of the spectrum that can be called the visible spectrum.

White light is defined as the complete mixture of all of the wavelengths of the visible spectrum. This means that if I have beams of light of all of the colors of the rainbow and focus all of the colors onto a single spot, the combination of all of the colors will result in a beam of white light.

Sources of White Light
White light can be generated by a variety of sources both in space and by artificial sources on earth. For example, the sun and other stars are sources of white light. The sun is the most obvious source of white light in our solar system. As for artificial sources, fluorescent light bulbs and white LEDs produce white light. Other light bulbs, like the incandescent lamp, do not produce white light. They produce light of much longer wavelengths along the yellow to red range.

Spectrum
This illustrates the full electromagnetic spectrum. It highlights just how small the visible spectrum is as compared to the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum. White light is a mixture of all of the visible wavelengths. The full spectrum that forms white light is listed in this table:

Color Wavelength
Violet 380-450 nm
Blue 450-495 nm
Green 495-570 nm
Yellow 570-590 nm
Orange 590-620 nm
Red 620-750 nm




I think this is a point people need to be aware of. The chart you showed (that online tool) simply is a graph of weighted light, you would need to get an actual spectral analyzer to see what you really have and where the gaps are.

Do plants need areas of the electromagnetic spectrum that are outside the visible spectrum? Yes, as you stated, UV a/b range and far red. IR is simply heat last I checked. I just think this is a distinction that people need some clarity on. LED grow light manufacturers have been brutally abusing the term full spectrum for several years now.

Blurple lights are not full spectrum, they are a weak attempt at it, by hitting some 12+ discrete photosynthetic active wavelengths. Combining blurple and white lights to get a better representation of certain wavelengths (namely blue and red) is common, but only white light by definition is a full representation of the visible spectrum.

 

Question are you a lighting engineer? here's the link I was talking about https://chilledgrowlights.com/yield-max-spectrum-simulation-tool this will explain everything and adding red and blue. Remember I make lights and have made 25+ lights I just can't remember the actual total and you forget the plants see different colors than us.

 

That tool is from a lighting engineer that had it tested

 

Well I'm almost done with the light here's what I have done so far



Super bright and no blurple lol.

 

Yes, actual definitions and marketing terms are often quite different. Those "Full spectrum" lights are almost always multiple mono-colored LEDs rather than actual white lights.

 

@canadian1969
How do different color filters affect plant growth?

Answer 1:

Your question is a very good one because plants absorb light at very specific wavelengths to obtain energy. In particular, chlorophyll absorbs blue and red light while allowing green light to be reflected (or transmitted). This is why plants appear to be green to us. If chlorophyll needs red and blue light, what do you think would happen to the plant if you were to place a green filter over your light source so that the plants didn't get any blue or red light? Would the plants be ok if you used a red or blue filter and blocked out the green and blue or red light?




Answer 2:
This is a classic question that many grade school science projects have attempted to answer for many many years. The answer has to do with an understanding of the rainbow (or the full visible light spectrum) and the color of plants' leaves. Leaves appear green because they reflect green, while absorbing all other colors of light. Think of the rainbow, what colors are there other than green? Well, there's red at one end of the spectrum and blue or violet at the other. A rainbow represents all the colors that the sun emits and that get through the Earth's atmosphere. What we perceive as white light is actually amix of all the colors in the rainbow. So all those colors are shining down on a plant's leaves and the plant is absorbing all but the green. Generally you can say that plants absorb primarily red (or red/orange) and blue light.
It's within the chloroplasts that all this light absorbing happens. The chloroplasts take the energy harnessed in these light rays and use it to make sugars for the plant to use in building more plant material = photosynthesis. Within the chloroplasts, the molecules that actually do the absorbing are called photopigments (freckles are examples of pigments in humans). A plant has a mix of different types of photopigments so that it can absorb light at different colors. A plant can have one photopigment devoted to absorbing deep blue, another devoted to absorbing yellow,
another for orange, and another for red. When full spectrum light, like sunlight shines on a plant all the photopigments are activated and absorb their "specialty" color. A plant's chloroplasts get all the actions of the photopigments coordinated so that they're all working to harness most of the sun's light rays and make plant food. If there is only one color of light shining on a plant, then only a certain group of photopigments are
active. The plant won't be able to make as much sugar or plant food as when there is full spectrum light shining on it and it may suffer generally. Not only will the plant not have enough light to make lots of food, but the plant uses these different color lights to signal all sorts of other internal processes. If, for example, only blue light was shining on the plant, then all the red-light triggered processes would not occur. Eventually the plant may die because of this lack of full spectrum light and certain processes not happening. It would be like in your body if suddenly your liver couldn't function anymore. Eventually you would die. So, plants need full spectrum (all the colors of the rainbow) light to live productively.

Here's a question for you, since now you know why a plant's leaves are green when the plant is alive and healthy, what is happening in the autumn, when the leaves turn yellow, red and orange just before falling off?



Answer 3:
This is a question my college students often ask. You know that "white light" like what you get from a bulb is made of different colors, right? If not, prove it to yourself using a prism. A good picture of the light spectrum is available at: http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/056spy/spectrum2.html. Filters only allow one color (or set of colors) pass through them. If you use a green filter, what color light goes through? (Test it yourself with a filter and light source.)
We see things as a certain color because when white light shines on an object, some colors (wavelengths) of light are absorbed. Others bounce back off the surface into our eye. Imagine you are throwing small foam balls at a wall. Some are absorbed into the wall; you never see them. Others bounce back and hit you in the eye. With light, you only see the light that bounces back and "hits you in the eye". If the wall looks blue, which colors (wavelengths) are bouncing back off the wall? All of the other colors are being absorbed. If a plant is green, what colors are being absorbed? What color is bouncing off?
Now imagine that you are throwing little balls of energy at a plant. Only the ones that stick are used by the plant. The energy balls that bounce off do the plant no good. The plant actually gets its energy from light. It can't use light that "bounces off", only light that it absorbs. So which colors of light actually provide energy to the plant? Which color bounces off without providing energy?
Now you are ready to answer your own question, which filters will allow a plant to get the least energy and grow the slowest? Hint: What color light bounces uselessly off the plant?
Among the colors that "stick", which have the highest energy (shortest wavelength)? Check the site I listed above or look in a physics book or encyclopedia. Which will give more energy for plant growth, low energy light, or high energy light?
If you decide to test your hypotheses with colored lightbulbs or plastic wrap, have an adult help you set up your experiment safely.
info sourced here UCSB Science Line also checkout this BIOLOGICAL ACTION SPECTRA

 

Answers that are rather oversimplified and geared toward grade school level science. Plants are green because they reflect a little more green light than other colors. This is a spectral reflectivity chart of a marijuana leaf - the slight hump at 550 nm is why its green. It also shows that 90% of the green light falling on it is being absorbed. Our eyes are strongly biased towards 550 nm light, so it really does not take much reflected green light to make it look green. In strong white light (above 400 PPFD), its been shown that green is actually a more efficient driver of photosynthesis than red light.

 

That was my point just copied and pasted it to show @canadian1969 what the plant really see and the white cobs are not full spectrum they are made for human lighting

 

Those answers (and many textbooks) wrongly imply that plants do not use green light at all - and that simply is not the case. While plants do not "see" green light with the sensitivity bias of our eyes, they do see it quite clearly.

 

I known about green spectrum from NASA lol

 

Ok, I'm just a bit confused then - why post info that implies green is essentially useless?

 

Did you click on the other links like this one http://photobiology.info/Gorton.html I put at the bottom of my other post?