Research and results with far red leds (730nm)

Hi all, first of all sorry about my english, I want to share with you the results of my research using 730 nm leds. Feel free to comment

Grow surface 1 square meter
Leds used 300 real watts and 20 watts of far reds:
2 old evoled bars (the old good ones, old Cree leds)
1 evoled bar (the last ones they produced, they give a lot problems, but mine is running ok, in my opinion this bar has too much cool white for flowering)
1 custom bar with red oslon and white and blue crees
about 75 real watts each bar

Some bars have been used more than 2 years...

The bars are 80 cm long, so although they are old leds, The light is well spread over the canopy, and even the corners are well illuminated.

Personal experience, growing with leds since 2007, hps since 1989...(those old pear shaped bulbs)

Strains used:
Personal strains used since 20 years ago.
4 80% indica plants (Central asia strain and Congolese hibrid)
1 100% sativa plants (Reunion island and unknow local sativa hibrid)

Usual flowering time with HPS at 12/12 the first ones: 7 weeks, the second ones 10 weeks (this ones are flowering usually at 11:30/12:30 but can be flower at 12/12
Not Holland or USA genetics in both...
Good yielders but not like comercial strains

Hidroponic: Pasive, coco and perlite in Airpots of about 8 litres volume.Nutes: Dyna-gro: Foliage Pro and Bloom with a little add of Canna Pk 13-14

Temperature: HOTTT!! about 28 C room ambient temperature (at night) without leds on even using the night to grow and some DIY ice coolers (empty airpot with a big ice bottle and a computer fan at the top). Easy at it drops temperatures about 2 degrees during the hottest hours.

Usual results using HPS 400 watts in same enviroment 1gr/watt aprox and in summer 0,6gr/watt or almost imposible to grow due to hot temps in the location.

In order to research the efects of 730 nm in flowering, initially I have been using incandescent blacklights (Thanks to information in The PAD Rauber manual, and others). But they are not very consistent in their spectrum (blue light leaks) and unusable in summer.

So I recicled two old and long aluminium bars and I added 6 3Watts 730nm epiled leds each one at 700 ma so about 20 watts very well distributed over the canopy.

I started to used the 730 nm in veg all day, but only 15 minutes after lights are off (just to replicate nature). Plants grew very well at this point. I noticed all the leaves were always looking up..I have seen this before with good levels of light..but not as pronounced..Think that this is good. I know far red can be avoided in veg..but it exist in nature... and..the emerson effect issue also..so I gave it a try

I started flowering and stop to use the 730nm in daytime and used it only 15 mintes after lights are off.

First week I used (11:30/12:30) which should be about (11:30/14:30) considering the effect of the far reds

Good response, they show flowers in 4-5 days quicker than usual.

At the start of second week I started to add every day 15 minutes more of light
until I get this light regime in a few days (13:45/10:15) which should be about (13:45/12:15)
I was little worried about the giving the sativas this regime..but..
Flowering continued more and more each day, nice developing buds ..
At the finishing of the streching phase.. about 3 and a half weeks on flowering I added the 20 watts of 730nm all time (except night) and of course I used them the first 15 minutes of every night.

At the 7 week of flowering I started to change the light until (13/11) which is (13/13)..doing it 15 minutes per day..for a smooth transition

I am flushing now.. Indica will be cut in 5 days..about 9 weeks of flowering time!!!
Sativa will be cut in 12 days aprox...maybe little more...probably at this pint I will use the last days 12/12 which equals 12/14 to brown that last sativa pistils.

From 7 week of florwering I have been used a 20 watts reptile cfl UVb 10.. a little power I know..and a very used one..but I could not resist to expend some watts on that...

Issues along the way:
Little trip plague, controlled with neem until flowering time..when plant start to bud..the trips always gone..
Hot temps produced some foxytailing in a few colas in some sativas, I fix the issue at time(hot air spots) and the airy buds were nice refilled
Little overfertilization...hot temps contribute to that..but only the final points of leaves were damaged at the end of flowering.

Conclusion:

The 80% indica strain:

Yield...increible yield at first sight..Never see the buds so big in that indica..and well snowed too...Smell is good..considering the high temps..I wonder how will be the smell in winter conditions...much better..but smell is better than usual for summer.
It seems it doesnt want to stop putting flowers..2 weeks more than usual...I expected the contrary in this case, I expected shorter maduration...It acts like a sativa...giving new hairs over the old ones..not only in the top,,in every bud and is more snowy than usual..This strain has lot of snowy little leaves around the flowers..but this time the calyx to leaf ratio is much more bigger, much less leaves, but much more dense flowers...I didnt expected that...I have read that indicas are not well suited for 730 nm treatments...It added two weeks..but yield worths the while in this case...I think about 40% more than usual..much much more..impressed

The sativa strain:

Yield, more than usual..about 20-25%, expected, cause still has almost 2 weeks to go...
Very snowy but not more than usual, but as I said..lets wait 2 week more and see...
Smell, better than usual in summer time. I noticed that 2 of the plants some days younger than others in maduration times...This ones are under the bar with more white light, it seems that some way more red is needed in this fixture..or less white.
the other 2 plants are almost finished..in this case the add of 730nm seems to have shorten the flowering times about 5-7 days

What I found is the sativa flowering time was little shorter than usualand the indica longer..I could never crop this plants at the same time..But I could do it now. I didnt expect this... I expected the contrary. I Love research


THE CONTRAS:

Found only 2 bananas in the indica strain (one plant)(they were with a few polen grains each one)..so..a few seeds.. Dont mind, two almost sterile male flowers is not a problem..but a syntom that I were pushing the limits...

Found 2 bananas also in sativa strain (4 plants)...so the same comment

Expected final crop about 1,3 and up gr watt...never got this in summer.

Well thats all, will try to keep you informed, sorry about my english and the way I explain the things
Will try to post some pics

Best Regards to all from the Pyrenees

no pics? ...ups perdon sin fotillos? ...or litle video?... o un video pequeño tal vez?

gracias de todas formas por compartir

saludos

Would using 14 on and 12 off with 15 minutes of FR after lights out cause less stretch than 12-12 with the 15 minutes?

I'm seeing a huge amount of stretch with 12-12 + 15 minutes, and I'm wondering if that has to do with 14 hour effective night lengths.

They were already too tall, then they just grew another 3 or so inches last night.,,,

If it doesn't stop stretching right now, I'll have to build a wooden foundation for the box to make it taller somehow.....

Would switching to 14-10 with 15 minutes FR help stretch?

salmonetin said:

no pics? ...ups perdon sin fotillos? ...or litle video?... o un video pequeño tal vez?

gracias de todas formas por compartir

saludos

Click to expand...

Maybe tomorrow...

churchhaze said:

Would using 14 on and 12 off with 15 minutes of FR after lights out cause less stretch than 12-12 with the 15 minutes?

I'm seeing a huge amount of stretch with 12-12 + 15 minutes, and I'm wondering if that has to do with 14 hour effective night lengths.

They were already too tall, then they just grew another 3 or so inches last night.,,,

If it doesn't stop stretching right now, I'll have to build a wooden foundation for the box to make it taller somehow.....

Would switching to 14-10 with 15 minutes FR help stretch?

Click to expand...

Hello, I have not enough information to answer your question, this last experiment has surprised me regarding the stretch also. I will esplain myself:
The indica strain stretch a little under hps, but in this case the strech was a little more than usual, just a little but more...not a problem cause it was initially a short plant.
The sativa strain usually stretchs a lot..about 3 times the size in veg....lot of bendings and work in the garden to grow it indoors. But this time I have puned it exactly at the right time..I pruned two times and it seems that I pruned well cause, it did not stretch as always, about 30% less. What is the role of the 730nm in this issue? I dont know... I know that far red induce stretch, And for this reason I did not use it in daylight hours until the stretch phase was over..But I think I finally find the reason..The temperature: During the lights off time (real daylight time) temps are about 28 and when the lights start about 9 pm in real time and I put the ice cooling units..temps go about 27-26 for 3 hours..them back to 28...I think this is the reason for the lack of stretching...Negative difference the first hours of light in relation with night temps...I cant think about other reason..cause 730nm light works in the opposite direction.
In your situation maybe you have a lack of 630-660 reds..or in this spectrum...and the red/far red ratio is to low and produce the stretch..Or maybe you lack in blues...who knows..If I were you I will check also temp difference between the night and first hours of light...

Bye

I changed too many variables at once so I don't know which is causing the issue.

1) I switched to c99 which is sativa dominant. About 1.5 weeks into stretch, it's already over 3 times the height in veg.

2) I had 730nm come in a few times at night as an experiment, which may have woke the plants up, even if only with a little Pfr. I stopped doing this a week in as the stretch was crazy.

3) I am only using vero 29 3000k 80cri, which is low in blue. That could have something to do with it.

4) 12 on, 12 off with 15 minutes 730nm after lights out makes 14 hour effective night length. Does longer effective night length mean more stretch? I've never owned 730nm lights before.

I just had to seriously bend, tie, and put weights on almost every single main branch, but it was already completely filled out! This is the most aggressive "training" I've ever had to do, as they are now all leaning into each other.

I think the 730nm at night probably is probably the culprit, but I'm also considering adding 5000k cobs, and 660nm photo reds. Do you think that would help?

Sorry for hijacking, but I feel like this is the type of information that's very hard to find people who actually have experience with 730nm.

Thank you!!!

churchhaze said:

I changed too many variables at once so I don't know which is causing the issue.

1) I switched to c99 which is sativa dominant. About 1.5 weeks into stretch, it's already over 3 times the height in veg.

2) I had 730nm come in a few times at night as an experiment, which may have woke the plants up, even if only with a little Pfr.

3) I am only using vero 29 3000k 80cri, which is low in blue. That could have something to do with it.

4) 12 on, 12 off with 15 minutes 730nm after lights out makes 14 hour effective night length. Does longer effective night length mean more stretch? I've never owned 730nm lights before.

I just had to seriously bend, tie, and put weights on almost every single main branch, but it was already completely filled out! This is the most aggressive "training" I've ever had to do.

I think the 730nm at night probably is probably the culprit, but I'm also considering adding 5000k cobs, and 660nm photo reds. Do you think that would help?

Sorry for hijacking, but I feel like this is the type of information that's very hard to find people who actually have experience with 730nm.

Thank you!!!

Click to expand...

You are welcomed churchhaze,
1) Wow thats a lot of stretch... and you should have more stretching nights... At this point I would consider pruning..pure sativas usually react well to pruning even in the stretching phase. Anyway I dont know how that strain will react.
2)You need an specific amount of far red...when I used blacklights about 100 watts same grow space, I noticed a lot of strecht.. I think that there was too much far red and infrared joined.. This time I have used only 20 watts, not very much efficient leds (epileds)...they were 1 $ each..I could not resist to buy 12 units... Anyway the amount of far red depends on your 630-660 levels and other considerations like canopy height and overall surface.. Also you must be used them in a rational way....not only a few days on..others off. I used them only 15 minutes in the stretching phase..probably less is needed....just wanted to be sure. And of course almost same level of far red in every point of the canopy...I didnt want to confuse the plants.
3)Probably you are right.
4)Nice question....that I have asked myself too...in theory the two nights have the same real hours...and the r/Fr ratio act as a signal to..lets say..." the real night start" to start hormones production... but when we talk about stretch and Far red light . I think is a different mecanism..related to maximize exposure of leaves and shoots to light in daylight time ... and I think a few watts of far red a few minutes a day...should not provoque too much strecth. Stretch at the start of flowering phase is very much ruled by genetics, and maybe temps.
Adding more blues will help, and more reds maybe but...Consider a nice pruning tech if possible and more important..try to reduce the temps the first two hours of the day...keep them some degrres lower than night temps...If you cant do it by cooling, do it by heating..I mean heat a little the last two hours of night..so the first hours of light will have lower temps..

Hope I have helped you.. I have been fighting with big sativas indoors for a long long time...

Hello again as I said I will try to post some pic..here they are... not very much quality..not color corrected...some with flash , other without..

Far reds...sorry about quality...camera cant do it better..real sight looks more dark reds



Front plants are less mature sativas.. that got some foxytailing and i have to bend this big colas...highest bud at the center is the indica one....main cola..but it was a pruned plan initially...so not real main apical shoot.


the mostly indic bud I mention earlier...diameter..more than a golf ball size..about 40 cms long..



little mostly indica lateral buds about 2 feet away from led bars



Pure sativa bud..not the biggest, about medium size, but was the most mature at this time..still 15 more days until the final cut.


Hope you enjoy th pics.. Can be improved of course..but only 300 watts plus 20 of far reds and in a very hot conditions..
and yes..overfertilization and some trip damage in leaves as I told previously.

Best regards to all

thanks for pics, unas fotillos donde se vean las lamparas y con luz blanca cuando tu puedas y quieras claro

pd ñam ñam rico rico

churchhaze said:

Would using 14 on and 12 off with 15 minutes of FR after lights out cause less stretch than 12-12 with the 15 minutes?

I'm seeing a huge amount of stretch with 12-12 + 15 minutes, and I'm wondering if that has to do with 14 hour effective night lengths.

They were already too tall, then they just grew another 3 or so inches last night.,,,

If it doesn't stop stretching right now, I'll have to build a wooden foundation for the box to make it taller somehow.....

Would switching to 14-10 with 15 minutes FR help stretch?

Click to expand...

You need to give them some pure blue light right after the FR to make them get shorter. In fact, you could run blue light all through the dark period because it has no effect on inhibiting flowering. I don't know if that would increase growth or not, probably some. Admittedly, it would require buying blue LEDs, so not particularly practical.

nachooooo...si ves esto....¿alguna novedad?... o algo mas que decir....

Un Saludo y un abrazo...

I guess my post up there from 2015 was a little dubious. I don't think blue light would help much the way I described, and running it all night would probably have some negative results. Anyway, the reason I searched this old thread out was to show something I found on the subject of end of day far red.

The point I want to discuss is that the article said that using blue incandescents instead of white ones caused excessive elongation, because it has almost no red with the far red like white incandescents do. It seems that using a high far red source is not really desirable due to the elongation. I had tried the EOD far red thing with blacklight incandescents and did indeed find excessive stretching. I didn't find that the plants ripened any faster under 12/12 with the far red either so I just gave up on it. But maybe with white incandescents it would improve flowering without the stretching. By improve I don't mean speed up maturation, since that doesn't actually seem to happen, but maybe larger flowers or increased weight yield.

So because of this, I don't think using pure far red LEDs for EOD would be the best route. Maybe a mixture of 730 nm and 660 in a similar ratio as found in white incandescent light, which is 0.671 red to 1 far red. The blue incandescents they tried had a ratio of 0.004, almost no red (blacklight probably about the same plus some UVA). So to mimic the red/far red ratio of white incandescent you would need 2 red LEDs to 3 far red, in light output, I guess in micromoles. Maybe you could just literally use 2 red LEDs to 3 far red LEDS, I don't know. You would have to do some experimenting and light reading taking to nail it down. Or to make things simple, you could just use a regular incandescent bulb, at least until they stop making them, in which case you could probably use a halogen bulb with similar results. I don't know their exact R/FR ratio.

My point of this post is just to suggest that using pure 730 nm LEDs end of day may not be good unless you want very stretchy plants like Churchhaze up there reported. He insulted me a bunch of times in this forum so I can't say I feel sympathy for him, but others may benefit from this post. The plant used in the table below is squash but probably similar results would be had with weed plants, I definitely got very stretchy plants, as I mentioned earlier. Had to cut the tops off actually.

As you can see from the table, massive difference in stem length between the white and blue incandescent, even though you might expect the blue spectrum in it to prevent stretching at least somewhat. So maybe 730 nm LEDs would be even worse. The full article is here. BTW it also said that there was very little benefit to adding EOD far red to HID lights, only fluorescents. But it would probably help when used with white LED lights, which have very little far red like fluorescents. It may have been that the far red WITH the HIDs all the time had little benefit, rather than EOD far red, can't remember at the moment. People can read the article themselves though. As the table also shows, another effect of EOD far red is leaf petiole elongation. The "praying" effect mentioned by the OP is another EOD far red effect btw.

...me da que muchos compis ya no estan entre nosotros... saludos a nacho dondequiera estes...
...un abrazo y felicidades para estas fiestas que vienen... para los compis...



Saludos

Hi, still alive salmonetin thanks for the best wishes. It has been a very hard year. My final thoughts in that experiment are... best flavour and odour in the final product, specially in the sativa one. I have tasted this strain from a lot of people and a lot of conditions and it never tasted as good as this time...never in 20 years.. even the in best outdoor conditions. Think that far red plays a big role in terpenoid production. Now I am doing an experiment with benzylaminopurine with the same strain, awesome hormone...I will post results in the future if possible.
Happy new year to all

...ese nachoooo....



Saludos

BobCajun said:

I guess my post up there from 2015 was a little dubious. I don't think blue light would help much the way I described, and running it all night would probably have some negative results. Anyway, the reason I searched this old thread out was to show something I found on the subject of end of day far red.

The point I want to discuss is that the article said that using blue incandescents instead of white ones caused excessive elongation, because it has almost no red with the far red like white incandescents do. It seems that using a high far red source is not really desirable due to the elongation. I had tried the EOD far red thing with blacklight incandescents and did indeed find excessive stretching. I didn't find that the plants ripened any faster under 12/12 with the far red either so I just gave up on it. But maybe with white incandescents it would improve flowering without the stretching. By improve I don't mean speed up maturation, since that doesn't actually seem to happen, but maybe larger flowers or increased weight yield.

So because of this, I don't think using pure far red LEDs for EOD would be the best route. Maybe a mixture of 730 nm and 660 in a similar ratio as found in white incandescent light, which is 0.671 red to 1 far red. The blue incandescents they tried had a ratio of 0.004, almost no red (blacklight probably about the same plus some UVA). So to mimic the red/far red ratio of white incandescent you would need 2 red LEDs to 3 far red, in light output, I guess in micromoles. Maybe you could just literally use 2 red LEDs to 3 far red LEDS, I don't know. You would have to do some experimenting and light reading taking to nail it down. Or to make things simple, you could just use a regular incandescent bulb, at least until they stop making them, in which case you could probably use a halogen bulb with similar results. I don't know their exact R/FR ratio.

My point of this post is just to suggest that using pure 730 nm LEDs end of day may not be good unless you want very stretchy plants like Churchhaze up there reported. He insulted me a bunch of times in this forum so I can't say I feel sympathy for him, but others may benefit from this post. The plant used in the table below is squash but probably similar results would be had with weed plants, I definitely got very stretchy plants, as I mentioned earlier. Had to cut the tops off actually.

As you can see from the table, massive difference in stem length between the white and blue incandescent, even though you might expect the blue spectrum in it to prevent stretching at least somewhat. So maybe 730 nm LEDs would be even worse. The full article is here. BTW it also said that there was very little benefit to adding EOD far red to HID lights, only fluorescents. But it would probably help when used with white LED lights, which have very little far red like fluorescents. It may have been that the far red WITH the HIDs all the time had little benefit, rather than EOD far red, can't remember at the moment. People can read the article themselves though. As the table also shows, another effect of EOD far red is leaf petiole elongation. The "praying" effect mentioned by the OP is another EOD far red effect btw.

Click to expand...

I had a similar effect when I was testing the Advanced LED exveg (all blue) leds. I ran 2 of the same strain, one under the all blue spectrum in veg with no other lights, and put the other one under a muli-spectrum LED (RWB) and the plants after a month looked completely different. The all blue spectrum caused some very extreme stretch and internodal distances where the RWB LED kept the plant very compact.

I've also seen this done with other plants and the lack of other spectrums and use of all blue also concluded a large stretch.

Icemud420 said:

I had a similar effect when I was testing the Advanced LED exveg (all blue) leds. I ran 2 of the same strain, one under the all blue spectrum in veg with no other lights, and put the other one under a muli-spectrum LED (RWB) and the plants after a month looked completely different. The all blue spectrum caused some very extreme stretch and internodal distances where the RWB LED kept the plant very compact.

I've also seen this done with other plants and the lack of other spectrums and use of all blue also concluded a large stretch.

Click to expand...

Interesting. So blue alone is not good for Cannabis. Some other plants maybe. I wonder what pure red would produce though. Unfortunately it's a low efficiency LED color. But it seems that some variation of white always works best.

Icemud420 said:

I had a similar effect when I was testing the Advanced LED exveg (all blue) leds. I ran 2 of the same strain, one under the all blue spectrum in veg with no other lights, and put the other one under a muli-spectrum LED (RWB) and the plants after a month looked completely different. The all blue spectrum caused some very extreme stretch and internodal distances where the RWB LED kept the plant very compact.

I've also seen this done with other plants and the lack of other spectrums and use of all blue also concluded a large stretch.

Click to expand...

Nice post its this type of info that helps to advance the development of LED grow lights

Correct me if I am wrong but I seem to remember in one of your journals that the advanced light overall did really well?

Johnnycannaseed1 said:

Nice post its this type of info that helps to advance the development of LED grow lights

Correct me if I am wrong but I seem to remember in one of your journals that the advanced light overall did really well?

Click to expand...

Yea the XTE's they make are actually really nice panels. I still have them but just don't have room to run them right now. The build quality is good and I like the manual dimmers and 2 channels to control spectral blend and dimming. They use osram ssl and cree xte and xpe chips.

Sweet, now I am curious as to what you are running atm that would keep you from using the advanced lights lol?