It depends what you mean by better. If you want to have the most even PPFD coverage as you can (say having a full canopy), having the lights higher will do that. If you're only concerned about the PPFD in one small section (say growing one seedling), then you can have it lower and dimmed.
If you don’t have it yet, download the Photone app so you check PPFD. That is unless you own a light meter.
Get a decent PAR meter. Then you can measure and adjust accordingly.
I thought you hated leds because they cause PM? Great thing about leds is you can dim them down an run them closer an get same results as hanging a hid high. plus saving 30% on power use.
I don't think they cause pm but the plants are more susceptible to pm under LEDs in my experience.
All the big legal opps here in maine are changing out to bar leds an shelfing, Tossing a couple dozen hids in a warehouse with 10 ft ceiling is so OLD school. you cant give away hids lights here. Its not called growing economically its called growing smart here. I grew with Hids for 30 yrs went to leds couple yrs ago yield up 30% cost to grow down 30% market loves the flower Pm comes from poor room condition's not led lights. If you were growing with more than a couple lights you would take cost to grow an yield a bit more serious.
Any difference in potency one way or the other?
I haven't seen any change in potency just more weight with at least a 30% decline in power usage I use to run 2000 watts of hps in a 5x 10 now I run 1400 max, Most of the day iam running 1000-1200 by dimming an lowering the lights. Instead of yielding 3-4 lb with hps Iam hitting 5 easy with leds.
What is your experience that makes you believe this? Could it be that you’ve been blindly keeping humidity lower during flower due to faster air exchange needed to deal with the heat from hid? Then when you try led and need less air exchange to maintain temp the humidity is in an undesirable range? Not trying to poke at you or anything just genuinely trying to understand your experience.
I haven’t noticed a yield jump like that, I generally yield a little bit more with HPS than led if we’re talking gram per umol, gram per watt obviously goes up a lot when using decent leds though. And they’re just a dream to work with in general imho, environment is easier to deal with, and now I have rooms of both I gotta say that orange glow everywhere is kinda annoying.
I don't "blindly" do anything my friend.
Okay that’s good to know, now we can get into the specifics of it, in your experience what makes cannabis grown under HPS less susceptible to pm? Or cannabis grown under led more susceptible? It can only be something to do with emr if you can match everything else from LED to HPS
I like doing this too as it provides a more even pattern of light across the canopy but I do often cry about the photons that are absorbed as heat on reflective surfaces, low hung lights do negate that somewhat
My gram per watt skyrocketed when i changed to leds. I run 700 watt 8 bar leds Iam not fighting the heat anymore an the lights pay for them self in 2 yrs just by not having to replace bulbs every few months. An anyone saying you need all kinds of heat to run leds because they dont put any out has never run them. I grow in a out building in maine I dont use any heat until lights out just like when i was running 1k hps.
Yeah gpw goes up but like I said in my experience I yield slightly more per square foot under HPS at the sacrifice of a few things. I do believe CMH to be the perfect balance between HPS and LED
If you're not doing better numbers under the LEDs, you're not doing LEDs properly
