Red & Blue Vs White 3000K on Kitchen Herbs

I was trying to grow some herbs under cheep Epistar Red/Blue light and a white 3000k light
On left Low efficiency total 10 watts 6 Epistar (2 Red and 4 Blue aka Purple monsters)
On Right is Philips High efficiency 140Lumen/Watt L235-3080AHLCBBAC0 Warm White, 3000K 1500 lumens @ 10watts

On Apogee PAR meter Philips Strip on Right is about 30% more powerful than the left.

Same soil and watering schedule. Added a few more herb cups on 4th day. I was not able to water them for last 10 days due to some personal emergency. I plan to taste the peppermint from blue/red and white3000k after 2-3 days.

Setup

Day 1 Day 21


I have attached a time lapse video of 21 days. Sorry could not upload video anonymously so I had to put it in a zip file. An old phone with IP Webcamera app to remotely take pics once everyday.
I was expecting to see some good growth on right but results do not make sense to me.
1) Right has more 30% PAR and is white.
Why these herbs are leaning towards the Left Red/Blue...?
2) There are 2 big peppermints. The one of left seems to be growing faster. Overall growth on left seems comparable to right if not better with exception of far right Parsley.
3) There are 5 cups on front. Middle and far left and far right are Parsley. Although far right Parsley seems to have best growth out of the 3 Parsley seedlings, 3000K has stretched far right Parsley seedlings to death. I think 4000K would have worked better

Any idea what is going on. Why are they leaning left.

Edit: out of the 6 Epistar @ 10 watts, 2 are Red and 4 are Blue

Maybe the increased levels of red in the red/blue make the plant lean that way since larger amounts of red would indicate a direct path to sunlight.

Leafy greens vs flowering cannabis.

There has been a lot of studies using leaf greens and they are notably differnt in their tolerances and preferences compared to high light plants. And can grown rather successfully with a single monochrome color. Illumitex used lettuce when they "beat" a 1000hps by 15%...allegedly, I've never seen actual proof of any kind.

As where flowering annuals, specially high light requiring ones like cannabis, have much high and complex needs/wants.

Thanks for the experiment.

robincnn said:

Any idea what is going on. Why are they leaning left.

Click to expand...

Plants tend to lean toward the lamp with the most blue.

heckler73 said:

https://archive.org/details/biorxiv-10.1101-003103

Click to expand...

Wow, crazy!

churchhaze said:

Plants tend to lean toward the lamp with the most blue.

Click to expand...

Phototropism must be related to blue light. Makes sense now. Thanks

heckler73 said:

There's a bias in that study that bothered me, though. 12hr RB(160 μmols)+12 hr dark != 12hr R(100 μmols) + 12hr B(60 μmols). We know there is a "dark chemistry" associated with photosynthesis, so the conclusions may be premature.

They should have done a RB 24hr trial at 80μmols (or even 160) for a finer comparison. I suppose that's a hole which can be filled by someone else.

Also, I have another study which shows RBW > RB (synched & continuous) on lettuce, so there are some serious caveats to consider before running with the ball.

Also, Lettuce is not Cannabis, BUT...

Click to expand...

I see that in alternating blue/red the plants were moving a lot. Probably moving towards blue when they are on and then moving differently with when red on.
Growth was faster with alternating red blue alternating. Not sure if this will work with cannabis as well.