What would you all think about a 5x5 or 6x6 room used for flowering, with a 600watt hps, and a 1000watt hps in it. Using the 600watt for the first 4 hours, then switching to the 1000watt for the next 5 hours, then switch back to the 600 for the remaining 3 hours. More or less acting like the sun rising and setting. Wondering if it would result in any significant weight reduction? I think it would actually raise the gram/kwh ratio. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Hey Don, And welcome back, the road to recovery after back surgery is a long one. You have my best wishes. During the summer months I use 1 600 watter over a 4 x 5 ft area, mind you I do perpetual grow and have my light on a rail in order to move from one side of the 4 x 5 to the other depending on which is nearing the end of flowering. During the winter months I change over to a 1000 watter, mainly for heat but I do yield 1-2 oz's more. 14 in the summer and 16 in the winter. So personally I don't think it will do much. I believe it may just be a matter of energy in equals weight out. But if I'm wrong it won't be the first time. Good luck and let me know how it turns out. Again glad to see ya back.
Hey,,, I think avoiding that temp increase during the day is a benfit of growing indoor .. I'm thinking the plants don't enjoy it.
Sounds like a pretty grand notion. It may be a little involved with all the scheduling, but doable no doubt. I for one would like to here your results confirming or disputing the whole linear, watts in = grams out equation, if you do decide to tackle the project. Best of luck either way.
asuming that the plants veiw the 1000 watts as full midday summer and 600 watt as morning sun... I don't think the 1000 watts comes close to midday sun.I sound better to just use the 1000 watts. Also switching those lights on and off take alot of power.
I'm sure he could get away with it (in terms of heat) as long as the ventilation system is adequate. I'm just thinking that the extra light could be left on (as long as the space could handle it) to add the extra lumens outright, instead of using them in a supplemental routine.
Hey D nice to see ya. Thank you for the love. Interesting to hear that the 400watts makes that much of a difference. Does the 1000 do anything for potency over a 600? Why don't you use the 1000 in the summer? Power consumption? Nuttman2, I think that is a good point. You would also exhaust less (or use less AC depending on your situation), using less power there too. We do have to remember that grams per kwh equations must include all power consuming devices, not just lighting power. good point. Also, I realize that 1000 watts is nowhere near midday sun lumens, I was just thinking about it on "scale" of sorts. I was just pondering the notion that a grower using 1000watts for the full 12hrs may be able to save on power usage, and not really see enough (if any) decrease in production. Bringing the grams per kwh up making the grow more efficient. Ricard0, I do not plan on doing it. It was just a high thought and I felt I needed to share. I don't really see it being too complicated, coul be as easy as syncing 2 timers. Was trying to debate with myself and it was not working. I was purely thinking of a grams per kwh increase. It is doable no doubt. But would it work like my mind seems to think it will.
Oh, ok. I guess i was thinking of a two room (veg & bloom) setup for some reason. Ya, i don't think you'd have too much trouble. For me, all those timers were adding up in my head (unless you got a nice multi-light timer). They eat up both plugs of an outlet for me, so i built my own huge Heavy Duty Plug-Strip to accommodate more than two. I was hoping you would do it. I'm all for someone else blazing the trail. Ha ha....... yeah.
As long as your plants are dialed in the 1000 will always produce a larger and healthier plant and IMO have a more potent effect. My largest buds have all been under a 1000. The 1000 just produces more heat then I care to handle and maintain stealth however the 600 is manageable during those warm summer months. But yes the 600 is noticeably cheaper then the 1000 according to my electric bill.
But.... What I am truely wondering is, with the use of 1000watts for almost half of the time during the day, would the plants even notice it much in comparison to 1000 during all daylight hours. I understand that 1000 is the way to go, but with 600's being more efficient and (like you said, D) putting off less heat, it would increase the total g/kwh during a 12hr light period (some math I did) with the 600 and 1000 set up like explained you get about 146L/W With just a 1000 set up like normal you get about 140L/W I don't know. I don't know. Good Christmas Sativa keeps me babbling and the wheels turning.
Just wondering but how did you come up with 146,,, or is that some really good christmas sativa, lol. Merry Xmas, bro
Mybe my math is rusty? I figure that an average 1000watt is about 140000lumens I figure that an average 600watt is about 92000lumens (or maybe that number is as high as i am. then I just crunched the times with the lumens and wattages to get that figure. Maybe just really high. Does that number seem wrong to you, D? Merry Christmas. HEy I am JEw. LOL. Just playing. I am not jewish. But around here, you cant say that, you have to say happy holidays, because we are veryextra extra diversified in our cultures in our area. Hell, I'm a minority here it feels like.
Ahh, now I get how you came to that conclusion but I'm not sure if that is a fair comparison. I say that because we use kw/g as a constant, one light source during an entire grow. When we should be saying l/g. Anyway when comparing the l/kw with the 600 and 1000 the 600 wins easily and makes the lumen per kwatt higher in your 12 hour example. But isn't it the total lumens that is important to the grow? If so your 12 hour example is 96000 lumens less then what 1 constant 1000 would produce. But I hope like hell you are on to something becuz that would save me 800 watts over a 12 hour period. Actually I have 2 600's and 1 1000 ballast mounted in my room and I could easily do this. I could even put a 600 on each side of the 1000 and have it mimic sunrise/set. hmmm
Most plants shut-down at noon. (Turn off.) Sativa is "Light" because it is avoiding noon-light. (Which is why you need more light to make it grow adequately. It is genetically, 1/8 cactus, in essence. Thin leaves, light color, rigid stem, requires less water.) For the life of me, I can't grasp why so-many people still grow canopy-style crops. (Though, this explains why 1000w is a common solution for this inefficient growing, that is unnatural itself.) In nature, plants do 80% of the growing, at the crack of dawn, until 10AM. Then the sun rises up, the leaves shut-off and curl for protection, and they perspire like mad, to try and stay cool. Except for Sativa, which closes-up, as it has retained most water in the deep stem, well shaded from the noon sun and hot air. Well insulated by the rigid hollow striations surrounding the trunk. When the sun sets, with the angle low again, this penetrates the other half of the plant, down to the stem. This orange/yellow light, which is cooler, angled, and has a decaying volume, triggers night-mode, when it gets low enough. The plant reverses, using oxygen now, and giving off CO2. Sugar made throughout the day, and the heat trapped in the soil, will be used to boost the next growth period. (This is why 24/0 fails once the plant has used all the seed-energy, and is not being fed enough water, the sugar crystallizes, and chokes the plant.) Come morning, with the light low, this triggers the wake-up call, and the plant rapidly begins to absorb CO2, and burns most of that stored sugar in the growth of new cells. (This is partly why you see such great gains from CO2, related to faster life-cycles.) Within the first few hours of dawn, with light reaching nearly 80% of each leaves top surface, the CO2 drops from over 800ppm to 150ppm. The internal sugar levels of the plant are also reduced through growth, and humidity/absorption which has covered the leaves in the night. (The cool plant leaves cause condensation, as the warmer high humidity air hits them. These low-clouds of light-fog/mist, is what helps build turgor pressure, and dilutes any crystallized sugars in the plant. Along with the warming photons causing heating chemical reactions that make the plant "Flow" into life.) You can see this on any stop-motion camera. At first light, the leaves bend towards the light, chasing the sun, perky. Followed by flipping up, and curling down or in at noon. Followed by bending towards the setting sun, as the bushy plant seems to thin-out, exposing light through the branches, onto the leaves on the other side. So, I guess the answer to your question is yes, and no. Yes, it would better simulate nature "Volume" and "Intensity" of light. No, it will not simulate "Nature" as a whole, better, just cycling through light. The higher level light, which would be simulating noon, if strong enough, would cause more damage to the plant, than the sun actually would. (It is not sun-strong, which would throw the plant into "Shut-down" mode, but is hot enough to singe your entire canvas, and wilt or crisp it, for no reason. It is not worth the cost, if you don't have your stray IR photons under control. EG, No vented light shroud. Using an open-light with AC in the air is useless. That is like blowing on an electric burner. You just dry-out the air, and make it easier for IR photons to reach the leaves. AC is a giant dehumidifier. Without moisture, AC does not function.) You would gain more, if you used those two lights, and placed one in the sun-rise and one in the sun-set position. not on the horizon, but around a 45-degree angle, both pointing in towards the center, but not overlapping the center of the canvas. (Where the lights overlap, they are 2x as strong.) The lights should be in a cooled shroud, or hood, that is not open to the chamber air/humidity. Yes, you will loose 10-20% from the glass-shroud, but you will gain 10-20% from having a cooler light. Higher heat = more resistance = less light. You can also move the light 20% closer, to have that loss reduced. (Light decays fast, but now you can bring it up to 10" near the plants for a gain of 200%, where you would normally be 3feet away from the canvas. Not to mention, you now penetrate the inner leaves, under the canvas, which were in shade before.) It also helps if you use Mylar pot-covers, to reflect any ground-light back up into the canvas. (Vertical mylar on the walls just lights the floor more, it has no real impact on a "Noon-style" canvas setup light. But it will now, with the 45-degree setup. You would have to angle the mylar to form a ramp, or reverse reflector, to direct it from a noon-style canvas setup, back into the plants.) Just my 2cents... (Doubt me... research it... trust no-one without a Ph.D. in horticulture. No, I don't have one. I am simply from a strong science and farming state. Two of them, now.) Good luck... NOTE: The sun spends only 1/4 of the light period around 90 degrees, in a near vertical position. For 1/2 or 2/4 of light period, it is closer to a 65 degree angle. The remaining 1/4 of the light period, is below 25 degrees. (In winter/fall/spring it never reaches 90 degrees, ever, in any location of the globe.) Photons need to be absorbed by the leaf. If you shoot through the shortest path, you loose potential. Top/down is the shortest path through a leaf. That is what IR and UV likes. At an angle, IR and UV can not penetrate into the leaf, but visible light can. P.S. I love your attic box... Hope your back is better. This may shorten your grow-cycle, but if I were to suggest any savings... Using the same time-frame, say 12/12, with both 600w lights at opposite corners of your grow-field, pointed towards the center... Cycle one on, staying on for two hours before both are on for 8 hours, followed by the opposite side remaining on for the last two hours. (Which may simulate a sun-rise/set, with the gain of stronger near-noon light. Getting the advantage of deeper canvas penetration, staying away from the overly developed top-canvas and buds. The softer and full-cover from the distant light, will be welcomed more. You cover more plant surface-area.) EDIT: I guess that would not save, if you are only using a 600w or a 1000w. I originally thought you said "And", not "Or"... I guess you would have to use two 500w. (So when both are on, you are at the 1000w limit. Except now you have better coverage than one single point light.) EDIT: If you hae the time, you can read this, but most you already know... GoogleBooks, "Mechanisms in Plant Development By Ottoline Leyser, Stephen Day"
That is an interesting question. I don't think your yeilds would be as good of course, but I don't think the drop would be to horrendous. As to wether you would increase your g/kw, I wouldn't know, but it doesn't sound unreasonable.
Wow, took it a bit further than I was looking to debate. I was not exactly trying to BE nature in my theory. I was more saying that light intensity is less during sunrise and sunset than it is during midday sun. Again I am not doing this but was just introducing a newer idea in how to yield more with the power used, but still have that 1000watt intensity at a certain point in the day so that potency is not compromised in comparison to someone using a 1000watt bulb only. I am going to have to do some homework I see. But I would not go so far to say not to trust anyone without a degree in plant sciences. I learned from an old man that I am positive had no formal training, and I would doubt that even 2% here have any backround in horticulture and grow some pretty sucessful crops. I have grown sucessful crops, and I have no horticultural training, everything here (besides the basics) have come from teaching myself through trial and error, reading, experimentation, trial and error and reading some more. We have come a long way since Miracle Grow, Tube Fluorescents and the ways of the old man, to a world of CO2, organics, and HID's. A question... When you rEEfEr to canopy growing, what do you mean? If you mean growing large plants then what would one do about the light angles in a dense forest of budsicles being grown in true sea of green fashion? Let me get this straight.... What you are saying is that one could use a 1000watt bulb for 4 hours at an angle to the plant, then go so far as to put a 400watt or a 250watt bulb above the plants (being that you say they are not using it anyway, so just to keep them awake) and then go back to the 1000 watt for the last 4 hours of the day and direct the light to the other side of the plant and it would be more efficient than the method I originally pondered? Could this be true? No sarcasm. D. I wish you would try it. Just to see what it can do, then maybe you can go year round with it that way instead of switching back to the fulltime 600 for summer. If you do try it, let me know.
I LST my plants, and I tie them so they are getting the most light they can from the top, not at an angle. If you are growing your plants straight then I could see the logic in mounting you main light at an angle, kind of, but I don't see it being a good idea for lsting or scrog.
Don, you do have a Ph.D., if you are that far involved in horticulture. It is not on paper, or from a brick-building, but from field-work. (I would still trust no-one. LOL.) Canopy growing is when you place a light at 90-degrees to the horizon, vertically above the plant. Thus, causing an umbrella canopy, as opposed to a ball-grow. A ball-grow is what you see in nature. The leaves are all around, heavy on the sun-rise and sun-set, and there is no canopy top. The shape becomes more round, and less flat. The 1000w bulbs are used to combat/fight the canopy, and are the only good way to penetrate it. (Photons taking the short path, allows them to reach the lower layers easily.) In a canopy grow, the plants under the light have 90% intensity on the canvas. The plants 2' away have 80%, while the plants 4' away have only 60%, 6' away is down to 30% intensity. If your plants are spaced 1 foot apart, they only have a canopy of 1' square, each. This is the reason for the need to penetrate. (Plants in nature don't grow that way. That is old-school, and unfortunately, still the way 90% of growers grow.) I use a vertical grow, which is also not 100% natural, but it does occur in nature. Also known as bank-growing, where plants grow fuller on a banked wall or hill. The purpose of leaves, is for surface area. The largest full-light you can get from a canopy is 1' square. The largest surface you can get from a vertical grow is... how tall are your plants? (Pure vertical is not good, if you don't control the leaves. They will angle towards the light, but you have to force them vertical also, for a vertical canvas.) For instance, your plants are 3 feet tall, 6 inches is bud, 6 inches is canvas, 1 foot is sub-canvas, and 1 foot is dead-stalk. The buds don't need light, only if they are actually going to be used to produce seed. However, they still contribute to growth. These are above the canvas, except the popcorn buds which are below. The canvas shadows the lower leaves that feed the lower buds, and promotes popcorn bud. (Because you are not penetrating the canvas of overlapped leaves.) So, the solution, for best possible results, would be the two lights, placed closer to the plants. This requires a non-round floor-space, since light decays and spreads as it gets further from the bulb, in a circle. (Technically, you want a round, not square floor for a single light.) You should also "V" your plants under the light, or "/\" your plants, if you use a 45-degree setup at the edges. (Using reflectors.) Plants can handle 45-degree light better than my vertical light, but you still need it on both sides growing that way. (I use vertical, because it only uses one light, like a canvas grow.)
I see. I need to do some homework. Helps me to understand why those vertical dome grows with the single light dangling in the center of a continious wall of plants are as efficient as they are. Thank you for spitting your knowledge on this subject.
I have been wondering about the same sort of the thing, and I read an interesting article about a month ago. Maybe it will help you. You shouldn't have any trouble understanding it. http://www.onlinepot.org/medical/marijuanaopticsfinal.htm (sorry you have to scroll to the bottom it's the "marijuana optics" section)