stretching TRUE or FALSE?
- Thread starter grlsk8co
- Start date
Wouldn't touch it with a 10' pole.
*standing by to see the fireworks*
*standing by to see the fireworks*
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Well-Known Member
I think it's more of a matter of opinion. Some plants stretch more than others. I personally think with LEDs they tend to stretch less because they're getting a great amount of light. I've seen more plants stretch in CFL grows because the seedling was just barely getting any light.
hyroot
Well-Known Member
It's all about spectrum not about amount of light. but the higher and wider the spectrum peaks the more light and energy there is for chlorophyll a & b. If you have at least 30% to 40% blue during flower you will see almost no stretching. If you have say like 5% to 10% blue like hps lights you will have a lot of stretching during. you want: flower red /blue 60/40 or 70/30 and during veg the opposite. Veg red/blue 40/60 or 30/70.
A lot of led's have very high red spikes but low blue spikes. So from the spd charts I have been able to see. ( some company's refuse to release spd charts) Ones I've seen like stealth grow or magnum. there will be a little stretching but nothing compared to how much stretching you would have under hps or mh
in summary during flower blue keeps it short and red makes it stretch and the opposite in veg
http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/11/3107.full
stealth grow spd chart over hps and chlorophyll a & b
spectrums plants use, chlorophyll a & b and action spectrum
View attachment 1947917
A lot of led's have very high red spikes but low blue spikes. So from the spd charts I have been able to see. ( some company's refuse to release spd charts) Ones I've seen like stealth grow or magnum. there will be a little stretching but nothing compared to how much stretching you would have under hps or mh
in summary during flower blue keeps it short and red makes it stretch and the opposite in veg
http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/11/3107.full
stealth grow spd chart over hps and chlorophyll a & b
spectrums plants use, chlorophyll a & b and action spectrum
View attachment 1947917
Clonex
Well-Known Member
So my plants under MH/HPS are stretching yeah ?
Clonex
Well-Known Member
I am aware of the Light types and spectrums but thanks anyway ,
I Bloom under hps
I Vegg under MH
My plants do not Stretch,
not ever,
Peace.
hyroot
Well-Known Member
what i stated is not opinion its fact and been proven by scientists at several universities. i even posted a link backing it up.
Have you tried using both lights during both cycles or add other lights for spectrum. if you never seen it grown under any other lights or in a different environment how would you know if your strain is supposed to grow the way it does or not......... Most strains with no stretching, nodes are less than an inch apart.
Im not an led or hid user. I use only T5's with very high par aquarium coral bulbs. i will believe a scientist over some stoner any day.
Clonex
Well-Known Member
No , i have not tried anything as i don't have any stretchy plants ? did you miss that bit lol
Clonex
Well-Known Member
You assume alot,
i have grown outdoor in Portugal,
Indoor with Mecury vapour , Leds , and above stated,
Peace.
grlsk8co
Member
thanks hyroot! Im going to look into the blue and red spectrums a little bit more, what your saying seems to make sense, and also goes along with the common knowledge of vegging with MH (blue) and flowering with HPS (red). If I do see stretching with my LED's what are some practices for defending it?
clonex, so through your experience LED's do produce more stretching than HID's? What can you do to defend against this or minimalize the stretch?
thank you both for your input!
clonex, so through your experience LED's do produce more stretching than HID's? What can you do to defend against this or minimalize the stretch?
thank you both for your input!
Clonex
Well-Known Member
Whatever lights you are using , whatever your flavour , get em close to the canopy, so , with Hid's good cooling and Airflow is required, it's a balance between Light height and coverage. The higher your light , the less you penatrate , the lower your light , lowers the area of coverage, hope this helps......
Endur0xX
Well-Known Member
man LEDs dont grow stretchy plant if you use the light properly... if you try to grow 30 seedlings with 1x90W ... you will have stretchy plants along the edges for sure... All plant I vegged under LEDs so far are growing much shorter/bushier than with the MH, just look at the pictures, those look stretched to you? the third pic is from a tiny clone but ever since it started growing, it barely gained any height. There is no doubt in my mind that LEDs are great vegging lights. Even the Blackstar with mainly red spectrum seem to be doing a great job at vegging.
hyroot
Well-Known Member
to add blue you could add daylight cfl's or t5's with actinic bulbs. To add red, soft white cfl's or t5's with uvl redsuns . personally i would add t5's they have a much better spectrum than led. led do not have any amber(yellow/orange) and green spectrum and plants absorb 20% to 30% of those spectrums between 550nm and 600nm.
i used hid's for 10 years before I switched everything to t5's only. hid's cause way more stretching than led's. . The science and plenty of botanists and horticulturists with phd's and universities will back that up.
Clonex does not know what he's talking about and you can tell that from the contradictions in his posts.
with using led there will be little stretching if any. that all depends on the panel you use and your environment. too much heat can cause stretching and slow the growth of foliage
Daemonn789
Active Member
As a few people mentioned, you can keep the lights closer. This will also help prevent any genetic stretching sometimes. I have 2 LED grows down so far, had 1 stretchy plant out of both grows. I left it in the "dark" spot of not directly under a light for a few days longer than I meant to. Next thing I know, thing is a beast!
Beefbisquit
Well-Known Member
My LED's made my plants super dense, short, and fat. Almost no stretching.
hyroot
Well-Known Member
I'm currently doing light experiments using different amounts of Infrared light. I've dug around online in Oxford Journals and Texas A&M light experiments and the papers on them i found really only talked about the rate of flowering and initiating the flower cycle. It will be a long time and several batches before I come to a final conclusion.
My hypothesis is that it's the Infrared light that makes the buds more dense and by finding the right amount IR light, you can possibly control how dense a bud can be. Of course varying strains will need different amounts of IR light than the next.
I first came up with this theory when I had plants vegging on an 18 hour cycle I dropped 2 bulbs in a t5 6 bulb that have around 35% infrared light. on a 18 hour cycle, less than 15 hours later they started flowering because the IR drives flowering. Not just pistils either. There were little buds too. Then in the flower I was doing a side by side comparison with 1000w HPS, quantum ballast with a Hortilux HPS bulb vs a 432w t5 8 bulb with various Aquarium bulbs with high par spectrum. Per watt and per sq foot. The yield was the same. Of course the quality under the T5 surpassed the 1000w. But what blew me away was how much more dense the ones under the T5 were. i had a friend who did the same strain under an 1000w Ushio and his were more dense than the ones under my Hortilux. I took another look at the spd charts. The Hortilux has 5% IR. Ushio has almost !0% IR. The coral wave bulbs have 35% IR and I had 2 of them in an 8 bulb T5. the ones under the t5 were rock hard. I only feed with guano teas.
Next month I'm trying a comparison between the t5 and a pro grow . not sure which pg though yet. Have to wait for the funds to be there for that.
My hypothesis is that it's the Infrared light that makes the buds more dense and by finding the right amount IR light, you can possibly control how dense a bud can be. Of course varying strains will need different amounts of IR light than the next.
I first came up with this theory when I had plants vegging on an 18 hour cycle I dropped 2 bulbs in a t5 6 bulb that have around 35% infrared light. on a 18 hour cycle, less than 15 hours later they started flowering because the IR drives flowering. Not just pistils either. There were little buds too. Then in the flower I was doing a side by side comparison with 1000w HPS, quantum ballast with a Hortilux HPS bulb vs a 432w t5 8 bulb with various Aquarium bulbs with high par spectrum. Per watt and per sq foot. The yield was the same. Of course the quality under the T5 surpassed the 1000w. But what blew me away was how much more dense the ones under the T5 were. i had a friend who did the same strain under an 1000w Ushio and his were more dense than the ones under my Hortilux. I took another look at the spd charts. The Hortilux has 5% IR. Ushio has almost !0% IR. The coral wave bulbs have 35% IR and I had 2 of them in an 8 bulb T5. the ones under the t5 were rock hard. I only feed with guano teas.
Next month I'm trying a comparison between the t5 and a pro grow . not sure which pg though yet. Have to wait for the funds to be there for that.
puffenuff
Well-Known Member
What's up hyroot? I have a couple Infrared spotlights I bought for this exact reason. I've been toying around with them for the past four or so grows, nothing scientific in nature, but I do find that the flower sites that get more exposure to the IR light are more dense than the other sites. The key I think is finding the right combination of IR ratio to other spectrums and the duration the plants are exposed...whether that's a small or large amount of IR for the entire 12/12 light cycle, or small IR throughout 12/12 with saturated IR peaks at certain time(s) of the day, or some other configuration. Please keep us updated on your experiments, if you were to start up a thread specifically on this topic I think it would become a valuable resource. Good luck bro!
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