The far red thread

[Purpsmagurps]

3000k with deep red qb got nodes as fuck still.....

 

[Randomblame]

Yea, once one understand how it works there are many ways to take advantage of it.
Bananas are a serious problem when they have fertile pollen, luckily I've not seen much more than usual to date. However, this time I have had a BlueDream that goes completely out of control. She grew like crazy and produced lots of bananas already in the 2nd week with 13.5 / 10.5 and I had to separate her from the others. Only 2 weeks later one could see seeds ripening. I've set her back to 12/12 in my small 3ft² veg area. If I had to guess, I would say that at least 200-300 seeds was hidden in the +2 zips she has delivered. But because they were all matured I could easily shake the most of them out. I've roasted them in the toaster and mixed with my breakfast cereals they still fulfill a purpose, lol!

 

[nachooo]

Yea, once one understand how it works there are many ways to take advantage of it.
Bananas are a serious problem when they have fertile pollen, luckily I've not seen much more than usual to date. However, this time I have had a BlueDream that goes completely out of control. She grew like crazy and produced lots of bananas already in the 2nd week with 13.5 / 10.5 and I had to separate her from the others. Only 2 weeks later one could see seeds ripening. I've set her back to 12/12 in my small 3ft² veg area. If I had to guess, I would say that at least 200-300 seeds was hidden in the +2 zips she has delivered. But because they were all matured I could easily shake the most of them out. I've roasted them in the toaster and mixed with my breakfast cereals they still fulfill a purpose, lol!

When I accidentally created seeds, as I am on the vaporizer consumption route now and I have give up tobacco and combustión (in Spain we use to mix buds and tobacco) , I do not mind to leave the sedes apart from the vaporization chamber...they become perfectly toasted and you wont notice they are inside when inhaling and after the sesión when I reclaim the AVB, I pick a seed or two and eat them cause are delicious after the vaporization treatment

 

[Randomblame]

Yea, I've tried to quit smoking and use different typs of vapes but I still like to smoke the same bud/tobacco mix from time to time. Maybe some day I will quit it completely...
It really seems to be a european habit because no matter if in Spain, Netherland, Scandinavia or Poland.. everywhere they smoke the same huge spliffs with bud/tobacco mix, lol. I believe, you can still pull finished ones out of the vending machines in coffee shops, lol! I'm planning a visit to Amsterdam with train and bicycle this year(only 240km), maybe around the cup in november which is the best time to visit Adam IMO. So I will know if they are still there or not.
Can't wait for the fast food orgy.. I could die for their fried cheese rolls, poffertjes and the likes, yummy!

 

[KonopCh]

If someone need to read about SAS/SAR ---> https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c5a1/20dff653f8dfef6aa3a0b9db310784e37c7c.pdf

All I can say for now, 15 minutes was too much and I already saw around 5cm stretch in one day! But they're in "stretch mode", 40 days old, so this must keep in mind. Anyway I will lower light to 10 minutes only.

So, after 14-15 days on 5 minutes, they're still stretching like a crazy. Pre-flower stretch should be finish by now, I don't know why they're still growing... It's okay because they're 75% indica, but anyway... Nice toy, that FR.

 

[Randomblame]

Hmmm! What strain is it, bro? If it's a hybrid strain it could be pheno dependent. I once had a blueberry pheno stretching like crazy(one of five). The remaining four were more consistent, remained much smaller and finished also much earlier.
Just like if a Flo seed had inadvertently found the way into a Blueberry bag, lol!
Do you use far red or deepred also during the day?
Last run I had a Bluedream that did exactly the same thing and additionally produced lots of bananas.

 

[SuperSimon]

Hi fell9ws.
Thread is cool)
I'm using a 10 pcs strip prolight opto cherry red 730 nm diodes for a 3x2
PK2N 3LEE SD
By datasheet they are 300 mv at 350ma and 560 at 700a
I'll run them 5 mins before lights out and 15 after.at mw 16 700.please correct me how much time I must run them for reach the 3000-4000umols
I ain't see any stretch with my plant but i want it.
14/10 ,flowering 1 week.
Also I add a 3 of 840nm+ and 3 400nm on a 1 strip.maybe that's the reason why I don't have any stretch, I read few pages before bout uv stop stretching.
Also I grow under Cri97 Seoul Sunlike cobs with far red and uv in spectra.

Some photos added.
Keep it real with RIU)

 

[Randomblame]

If you want it working as flower initiator you need to use only far red when lights out. Any combination would reduce the effect. If you only want more stretch you can use it with lights on. Maybe 1 or 2h/day should have a visible effect.

And to calculate 3000-4000μMols we need to know the total amount of far red/cherry red diodes. Far red/730nm has typ. a QER of 6μMol/j. With 1,9v at 350mA it would be 0,665w per diode, 300mW out of 0,665w means 45% efficiency, that means you'll get ~1,8μMol/s from each LED every second when you use a 350mA driver.
If you use 8 diodes at 350mA you would get ~14,4μMol/s, thats multiplicated with 300sec. means 4320μMol in just 5 minutes. With 16 diodes you would need only 2,5min.

 

[SuperSimon]

Great answer man.
so my fixture is 7 (5000k),3 (4000k)24 watt Cobs CRI97 SEOUL SUNLIKE SAWS1566A on elg240c700
3pcs 10watt in a middle row 4000k Cri97 Seoul Sunlike cobs SAWS1056A
3pcs 10watt 4000k Cri95 PROLIGHT OPTO cobs on elg150c500
On same driver I run also a 3 strips by six diodes with 5uv-a, 10 royal blue, and 3 840nm(read somewhere about photosyntes F)
all they PROLIGHT OPTO
And a 40 pcs divided to 4 strips by 10 pcs of 660nm monos( PK2N-4LME-HSD PROLIGHT I'll run them on maybe half power on a elg150c1050)data says they are 410mw at 350ma,710mw at 700ma, 1000mw at 1050ma.
And a 2pcs of 370nm on 700ma gives me a 750mw each.
This fixture looks enough far red I think till daylight works for stretch.
Thanx.sorry for my English

 

[SuperSimon]

Tha fixture.

 

[Randomblame]

Great answer man.
so my fixture is 7 (5000k),3 (4000k)24 watt Cobs CRI97 SEOUL SUNLIKE SAWS1566A on elg240c700
3pcs 10watt in a middle row 4000k Cri97 Seoul Sunlike cobs SAWS1056A
3pcs 10watt 4000k Cri95 PROLIGHT OPTO cobs on elg150c500
On same driver I run also a 3 strips by six diodes with 5uv-a, 10 royal blue, and 3 840nm(read somewhere about photosyntes F)
all they PROLIGHT OPTO
And a 40 pcs divided to 4 strips by 10 pcs of 660nm monos( PK2N-4LME-HSD PROLIGHT I'll run them on maybe half power on a elg150c1050)data says they are 410mw at 350ma,710mw at 700ma, 1000mw at 1050ma.
And a 2pcs of 370nm on 700ma gives me a 750mw each.
This fixture looks enough far red I think till daylight works for stretch.
Thanx.sorry for my English

Hmm! I see not a single diode in far-red/730nm in your discribtion. Your CRI97 COB's contain already a lot of far-red, so during the day it should be enough. But your spectrum has a lot of blue (5k COB's) and UVA wavelength in its spectrum which works against and cause less stretch. The best way would be to switch them(5k COB's and the UVA diodes) off while stretching (1-3 BW) and switch them back on when internodes are long enough to suit your needs.

The other thing is you have not a single far-red/730nm diode which you could use separately.
For a far-red based flower trigger(siutable for your area) you need ~4-6 well distributed far-red diodes in 730nm on it's own 5w driver. An you need a separate timer to switch it on and off.
I'm using 6 Cree XP-E/730nm/601bin(275mW/@350mA), a cheap 300mA e3ay driver and a Sonoff timer.
840 and 930nm is called infra red and does nothing to plants except that it warms up the leaves and the environment. I would remove them because they increase only the leaf temps which means you either need better ventilation or have to dimm the light down to get the leaf temps where you want it(~27-28°C).
Only far red/730nm is known therefor that can switch phytochrome far-red from its inactive to its active state in just a few seconds.(or was it vice versa?)
This means a plant getting far-red wavelength at the end of the day will immediately switch into "night/recovery mode". Without far-red this takes up to 2h!
This 2h can be used in different ways. You can for instance extend the day length by up to 2 hours(14/10h) without fear the plants switch back to the vegetative state. The other possibility would be to leave it at 12/12h and thus shorten the maturation because they get almost 2 extra night/recovery hours every day.
Plants use the energy stored during the day to carry out different processes during the night. With far-red/730nm EOD(end of day) treatment, they can do this for 2 hours longer which in the end results in them maturing about a week faster.

A flower trigger is usually used for up to 10-20minutes per day(5+5 mins - 10+10mins). It is switched on 5 mins before lights out and its switched off 5mins later. You can vary the timings to your needs. More far-red when main light is off means you will see more stretch and this way you can influence the stretch within a certain range. With 2+2 minutes you probably do not see much stretching, with 10+10 minutes you could probably double the final height.

So all you need is a few far-red/730nm diodes(Prolight has good ones too, no need to use expensive Cree/Osram's), a small 300mA/1,50$ driver(the white ones for 3-5x 1w diodes) and a 5$ Sonoff timer, maybe ~10-20 bucks or so.. These cheap drivers run anyway only a few minutes per day and that's why I did not have to replace a single one because of a defect to date.

 

[KonopCh]

A flower trigger is usually used for up to 10-20minutes per day(5+5 mins - 10+10mins). It is switched on 5 mins before lights out and its switched off 5mins later. You can vary the timings to your needs. More far-red when main light is off means you will see more stretch and this way you can influence the stretch within a certain range. With 2+2 minutes you probably do not see much stretching, with 10+10 minutes you could probably double the final height.

You need to turn on FR when main light is on? Because I set it 1-2 (mechanical timer, I doubt it's need to be right on time) minutes after main lights go out.

 

[SuperSimon]

Thanx a lot bro.My 5000k have almost linear spectra with same peaks at blue and red wavelengths. And this is my mainlight so I cannot switch then off.((( Here's my far red strip.she is on front row behind 660 monos.i repeat I run far red 5 mins before and 20 after lights out .as a flower trigger they work! Try to add more 10 mins after lights out. sorry for brainbubble

 

[Randomblame]

Okay, no problem... maybe you need just a few minutes more during lights off to see an effect.

@KonopCh
EOD treatment can be done in different ways. Most of us use it for a few minutes before and after lights switched off, others only when lights are off. Both seems to work. The important thing is that they get the far red dose at the end of the day.

 

[KonopCh]

That I was thinking, yes. But better be safe than sorry, so I asked.
Thank you!

 

[InTheValley]

I use the puck for 15minutes lights out, and all day during lights on. I like stretch with my genetics personally.

 

[b42]

Hey @Randomblame, first of all, thanks for being so patient with all the LED noobs like me!
And since this is my first post on RIU, also many thanks to everyone else for helping out fellow growers.

I got 8 of these "OSRAM Oslon SSL 120 Far Red Plug&Light Star running at 700 mA (Meanwell LPC-35-700). My box is about 0.6 square meters, how long would you recommend running them for EOD? I've been trying 8 minutes (experienced some stretch) but after reading through the last posts, I am afraid that's too much, probably...
Could you do the math for me? I would like to understand how to calculate the μMols and how they relate to the area...

 

[Aolelon]

Hey @Randomblame, first of all, thanks for being so patient with all the LED noobs like me!
And since this is my first post on RIU, also many thanks to everyone else for helping out fellow growers.

I got 8 of these "OSRAM Oslon SSL 120 Far Red Plug&Light Star running at 700 mA (Meanwell LPC-35-700). My box is about 0.6 square meters, how long would you recommend running them for EOD? I've been trying 8 minutes (experienced some stretch) but after reading through the last posts, I am afraid that's too much, probably...
Could you do the math for me? I would like to understand how to calculate the μMols and how they relate to the area...

Assuming you're running them around 2v each. that would give you 11.2w. I don't know how efficient they are off the top of my head, but I am guessing they are around 45% or better. so 11.2 x .45 = 5.04 par watts.
5.04 x 5.5 QER for far red = 27.72 PPF 27.72 / .6 sq meters = 46.2 - 20% wall losses = 36.96 ppfd. 4000 Umol / 36.96 = 108 seconds or around 1.8 minutes.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Assuming you're running them around 2v each. that would give you 11.2w. I don't know how efficient they are off the top of my head, but I am guessing they are around 45% or better. so 11.2 x .45 = 5.04 par watts.
5.04 x 5.5 QER for far red = 27.72 PPF 27.72 / .6 sq meters = 46.2 - 20% wall losses = 36.96 ppfd. 4000 Umol / 36.96 = 108 seconds or around 1.8 minutes.

I got similar numbers running the calculations, id go for somewhere between 1 and 2 mins.

 

[b42]

Holy sh*t! No wonder they stretch like that. Thanks a lot for your answer @Aolelon , that cleared things up fast for me.

Edit: I would like to rate your post, but seems I have to wait a bit longer...