Best color temp for veg?

Doer

Well-Known Member
I run low pressure sodium for veg.
Now that's a thought.

Low-pressure sodium lamps—producing up to 180 lumens per watt—have the highest efficacy of all commercially available lighting sources. A low-pressure sodium lamp is shown in the image below.


Low-pressure sodium lamps operate much like a fluorescent lamp and require ballast. The lamps are also physically large—about 4-feet long for the 180-watt size
 

PSUAGRO.

Well-Known Member
Now that's a thought.

Low-pressure sodium lamps—producing up to 180 lumens per watt—have the highest efficacy of all commercially available lighting sources. A low-pressure sodium lamp is shown in the image below.


Low-pressure sodium lamps operate much like a fluorescent lamp and require ballast. The lamps are also physically large—about 4-feet long for the 180-watt size
good luck using that as your primary light source :mrgreen:..............someone in here wanted too, never happened?

still interested to see what would come of it ..........
 

Doer

Well-Known Member
Just some facts as we go along. Negative CRI?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

Numerically, the highest possible CRI is 100, for a Black body (incandescent lamps are effectively blackbodies), dropping to negative values for some light sources. Low-pressure sodium lighting has negative CRI; fluorescent lights range from about 50 for the basic types, up to about 90 for the best tri-phosphor type. Typical LEDs have about 80+ CRI, while some manufacturers claim that their LEDs have achieved up to 98 CRI.[6]
 

Doer

Well-Known Member
This is a strange thought puzzle to me.

If 100 CRI is all colors appear just like outdoors.
And LPS can be slightly negative
Then -100 CRI makes you see no color, all gray?
Or do colors swap to opposite and/or blur to the same, like in color blind?

What is the other end of the scale? What is -100 CRI?
 
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heckler73

Well-Known Member
This is a strange thought puzzle to me.

If 100 CRI is all colors appear just like outdoors.
And LPS can be slightly negative
Then -100 CRI makes you see no color, all gray?
Or do colors swap to opposite and/or blur to the same, like in color blind?

What is the other end of the scale? What is -100 CRI?
I don't understand the point of CRI WRT horticulture, unless one is worried about display of flowers or photography.
Case in point, if CRI meant anything, then incandescent bulbs are the best for growing. They are genuine BBRs.
It's all about the Fermi energy levels, man...:eyesmoke:

As for negative CRI, let's try reverse engineering the equations to see what is happening.

CRI eqns.jpg
So, if CRI = -100, that implies (on average) each Ri is -100.
Following through the math one finds each d(U,V,W) to be ~ 25.1

What does that mean?
It means when compared to a reference illuminating source, the colour of the swatch is muddy or quasi-monochromatic. I'm sure my Blurple/Rellow MC has a crappy CRI, too. (Actually, after I put in the new 5x5MC with one green LED, it looks more natural. 1 green to 49 "Blurples" :lol: )

It appears to be a long-winded calculation of residuals, in the end.
 

Doer

Well-Known Member
@heckler73. Math wizz!!

CRI in Horticulture is only loosely coupled to efficiency, but we see from the charts there is a
penalty to pay, there, for highest CRI.
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
Case in point, if CRI meant anything, then incandescent bulbs are the best for growing.
Well that point would be true if CRI meant everything, or something so significant the rest becomes irrelevant, not just anything.

I don't understand the point of CRI WRT horticulture, unless one is worried about display of flowers or photography..
And even then CRI alone means very little without spectral distribution and ctt. CRI 98 still isn't going to produce great light and realistic colors for photography if the temp is too low for example.

It doesn't relate directly to photosynthesis efficiency but given the right light photomorphogenesis is affected and lights like the LEP as well as greenhouses turning off light (to soak up day light only for a short time) show interesting benefits. Involves plant shape, root growth, chloroplast transport, leaf arrangement, stomata openings, and many other factors that indirectly do contribute to efficiency. It's an accepted fact amongst experts that using a tuned spectrum can lead to much better plants and more product than daylight, but at the same time plants evolved under sun light and don't utilize all of their genetic potential - of which some can lead to a net higher production and/or quality - under anything else.

Not CRI specifically, old and probably posted before:
"Results from this study show that light quality and quantity affect cannabinoid synthesis in the growing plant. The effects were evident on the concentration of the principal cannabinoid component (A9-THC) of this strain..."
http://www.beckleyfoundation.org/bib/doc/crl/Cannabis_the_plant/Mahlberg_1983.pdf (remove file name to browse more docs...)
 
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nomofatum

Well-Known Member
6500k crushes 5000k in my experience. Depends on what you are going for though. 6000-7000k will give dense shorter bushes. 3500k will result in taller lankyer/less bushy plants. For bigger plants 5000k may be a good choice, for a fast, dense, and extremely healthy canopy 6500k is very hard to beat.
 
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