Will a brighter LED light improve the frostiness of the bud?

Typically, I try to grow 4 different genetics on each run. All I can do is to try and provide a healthy and consistent climate as possible. The plants have to do the rest. Whatever I grow is grown in the same environmental conditions, but the plants are always variable. So there's no way to gauge whether or not a particular plant does better or worse under a certain type of light.

As far as Sunlight....Sunlight is also variable....And, exactly which Sunlight are we talking about? Is it the Sunlight in Spring? or Summer?...or Winter?....because those spectra all are different here on Earth depending on the season. Plus.....clouds, smoke from fires, etc. Sunlight has to pass through all of it.

I knew tunable lights were going to be the next big thing. I have a really cheap, Chinese version of a tunable spectrum light -Updayday 500 watt bar light. I set it to mimic a CMH spectrum and the plants loved it. They are really great because you can even mimic the ever-changing Sun spectrum throughout the grow -start off with blue-ish (Springtime) light and then end with the more reddish late-Summer/Fall spectrum. The plants probably just like the photons, but the tune-ability of the lights is fun for growers to geek out on....gives us something to play with while the plants are growing!

I am also now an advocate for side-lighting to improve penetration in the lower canopy. Trying to get more penetration from the top can cook the upper canopy.

tstick said:

Typically, I try to grow 4 different genetics on each run. All I can do is to try and provide a healthy and consistent climate as possible. The plants have to do the rest. Whatever I grow is grown in the same environmental conditions, but the plants are always variable. So there's no way to gauge whether or not a particular plant does better or worse under a certain type of light.

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The plant doesn't give a hoot. It just wants the food.

Setting aside unusual situations where the genetics are faulty, the biggest variable is the grower.

Speaking for myself, a few grows back I decided to add hydrogen peroxide to the water in my humidifier to stop algae from growing. The plant wasn't growing as quickly as I'd expected but nothing in particular was wrong. It just wasn't growing like my other grows but there was nothing I could point to as being wrong.

After a month or so, I realized that I was pouring a lot of H2O2 into the humidifier and it hit me that I had been poisoning my plant. Yeh, dumb shit me was being lazy (I didn't want to have to clean the water tank for the humidifier) and I ended up damaging that plant.

Most growers don't step on their metaphorical dick like that but there seem to be enough "misalignments from optimal" in most grows that we're not getting the best return on their efforts. The easiest one to fix is to turn up the dimmer but there's a huge "legacy light levels" mindset anchor holding fast. That is slowly changing but there's so much FUD about light levels that growers are still losing a big percentage of their potential crop, maybe 25%.

tstick said:

As far as Sunlight....Sunlight is also variable....And, exactly which Sunlight are we talking about? Is it the Sunlight in Spring? or Summer?...or Winter?....because those spectra all are different here on Earth depending on the season. Plus.....clouds, smoke from fires, etc. Sunlight has to pass through all of it.

I knew tunable lights were going to be the next big thing. I have a really cheap, Chinese version of a tunable spectrum light -Updayday 500 watt bar light. I set it to mimic a CMH spectrum and the plants loved it. They are really great because you can even mimic the ever-changing Sun spectrum throughout the grow -start off with blue-ish (Springtime) light and then end with the more reddish late-Summer/Fall spectrum. The plants probably just like the photons, but the tune-ability of the lights is fun for growers to geek out on....gives us something to play with while the plants are growing!

I am also now an advocate for side-lighting to improve penetration in the lower canopy. Trying to get more penetration from the top can cook the upper canopy.

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Amen for sub canopy. The head researcher at Fluence, Dr. Hawley, did a good You Tube video on intracanopy lighting. There's a good boost when light is added under that canopy. Ideally, the canopy is at the light saturation point (~1000µmol). Even when the canopy is getting max light, adding light from under the canopy was shown to significantly increase yield.

Migro video where he discusses light penetration and the definition?

Watched the whole thing he doesnt really get into it beyond what we should already know. Like shown the green and red light gets through the leaf better. So reds (maybe greens too?) did penetrate deeper with hps or the like (idk much about them as I only did led.)

Says in thumbnail “you are wrong” and into the video says 80% of people think this is what light penetration means. He doesnt say how thats wrong. Maybe yall can explain if Im missing something but yea. I thought I was going to learn something I mean its a led manufacture talking right?..

Theres more info in this thread already than what was said in that video. He infact just shows how 80% of us see it correctly, they dont produce any par below a leaf or two.. Id hear long ago that the arguement with hps is you get thick buds all the way down the canopy. With led its larfy.

Delps8 said:

Agree about the lights with a tunable spectrum. Current offerings are premium priced but that will change as technology advances and as market pressure puts price pressure on that feature.

In the mean time, you can get a significant boost in PPFD and an increase in red (660nm) percentage//reduction in blue % by adding supplemental 660nm lighting. The R80's will also provide

This table is based on the spectrum chart and the PPFD map for your light, as well as the PPFD map for a pair of Spider GlowR80s (660nm) supplemental lights. I've used chatGPT to do some analysis and, based on the available info, these are the estimated values when the Lumen King is running at 70% power:

Wavelength Range	Color Range	Lumen King 400W @ 70%	Lumen King 400W @ 70% + R80 @ 100%
400–500 nm	Blue	22%	15.5%
500–600 nm	Green-Yellow	28%	19.7%
600–700 nm	Red	45%	61.7%
700–750 nm	Far Red	5%	3.5%

I added a pair of R80's to my Growcraft X3 flower light. It allowed me to reduce the blue percentage, as well as reducing input power by 130 watts, and reducing ambient temperature by ~2°F.

The spectrum for my Growcraft is quite similar to yours though your light, which a "general purpose" LED, has more blue in it.

View attachment 5476235

I uploaded your spectrum chart, the spectrum chart for the Growcraft, and the spectrum chart from a lighting report for the Growcraft. This the spectral percentage estimate.

Wavelength Range (nm)	Color Range	Lumen King Eco Line 400W (Spectrum 1)	Growcraft X3 Flower Light (Spectra 2 & 3)
400–500	Blue	~22%	~18–20%
500–600	Green-Yellow	~28%	~22–24%
600–700	Red	~45%	~50%
700–750	Far Red	~5%	~8%

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Id be somewhat careful basing your grow on those red/green/blue studies. Theres a lot of them but the only real reason theyre around as a 400-500/500-600/600-700nm thingie is due to the amount of research being done with old RGB mono diodes. This approach has been shown to be somewhat misstaken: ive seen it i our own results and its now showing up in studies aswell. Those narrow limits are imposed by scientist and not plant physiology. And they keep on getting research done on them purely in order to build on old results were the realsearch design was based on what was easy and possible with old equipment: theres no reason to think that arding 640/660 or 680 reds will give the same results in yield qnd quality. The reason theres so much of these type of studies is because its easier to build upon older material. Just adding 660 for red, instead of adding a wide red spectrum: either blanketing all the bio reactive wavelengths or even using a more targeted approach is a much better way to get better results. Problem is that only a very few lights (and premium cost) will do this and literally no light add anything above 660 except for a small slither of far red; which has dubious effects if youre making a yield/potency/quality compromise.

Rocket Soul said:

Id be somewhat careful basing your grow on those red/green/blue studies. Theres a lot of them but the only real reason theyre around as a 400-500/500-600/600-700nm thingie is due to the amount of research being done with old RGB mono diodes. This approach has been shown to be somewhat misstaken: ive seen it i our own results and its now showing up in studies aswell. Those narrow limits are imposed by scientist and not plant physiology. And they keep on getting research done on them purely in order to build on old results were the realsearch design was based on what was easy and possible with old equipment: theres no reason to think that arding 640/660 or 680 reds will give the same results in yield qnd quality. The reason theres so much of these type of studies is because its easier to build upon older material. Just adding 660 for red, instead of adding a wide red spectrum: either blanketing all the bio reactive wavelengths or even using a more targeted approach is a much better way to get better results. Problem is that only a very few lights (and premium cost) will do this and literally no light add anything above 660 except for a small slither of far red; which has dubious effects if youre making a yield/potency/quality compromise.

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I've seen your comment about adding 640 to 660 and the synergy that causes. I think grand master has incorporated that approach in one/some of their lights and, of course, there may be others.

In terms of using those ranges, those studies are "old" being 5 or 8 years old but that doesn't change the accuracy of them. Their methods are laid out, they run the experiments, and they report the results. As new equipment is available, it will be incorporated and that new equipment may or may not yield different results. That's the great thing about actual "science"—it's defined.

Of course there are weaknesses—it's a limited, human endeavor. On the other hand, it does provide a basis to made a decision. That alternative is anecdotes.

I realize that the diagrams that many (most) vendors publish are representations and there's also the slop inherent in an AI bot analyzing an image so I take things as indicative and not definitive. But, again, I can either listen to stories or go with something that offers a control, eliminates the variables, and lists and discusses the confounders. If not that, there's really nothing that can be used to make anything like a reasoned decision.

BTW, I asked Mars and Spider for their spectral breakdown. Both companies replied that those numbers were "trade secrets". That reply doesn't withstand even the most cursory scrutiny but it did remind me of a comment that I think you made about a light from one of the major vendors having a significantly different spectrum than what was claimed.

medidedicated said:

Watched the whole thing he doesnt really get into it beyond what we should already know. Like shown the green and red light gets through the leaf better. So reds (maybe greens too?) did penetrate deeper with hps or the like (idk much about them as I only did led.)

Says in thumbnail “you are wrong” and into the video says 80% of people think this is what light penetration means. He doesnt say how thats wrong. Maybe yall can explain if Im missing something but yea. I thought I was going to learn something I mean its a led manufacture talking right?..

Theres more info in this thread already than what was said in that video. He infact just shows how 80% of us see it correctly, they dont produce any par below a leaf or two.. Id hear long ago that the arguement with hps is you get thick buds all the way down the canopy. With led its larfy.

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IIRC, that video came out a little bit after I tried the same test in my tent.

Like so many things in the cannabis world, "penetration" is nowhere defined. It litters the marketing verbiage on vendor sites but it's left undefined. Why? Why not?

Green photons penetrate a leaf more deeply than other colors (IIRC) but I would suspect that not many growers are familiar with that (or care). The issue that Shane brings up is that if you put a meter under a leaf it's DAWA—dark as a whale's ass— under there so "there's no light penetrating the canopy". The ability to "penetrate below the canopy" ≠ "penetrate a leaf" but, again, there's no particular value in a light vendor discussing that because the ambiguity works in their favor. That's my somewhat cynical view of it, anyway.

And the idea of HPS vs LED being different—it's not LED vs HPS, it's that the spectrum is different. If you were to make an LED with the same spectrum as an HPS light, those photons would have the same energy levels (energy in a photon is a function of wavelength), and would function in the same way.

Given that no one is making an LED with an HPS spectrum, that would seem to be a fairly good indication that no one finds that spectrum to be of value.

I think there ARE LED fixtures that can produce an HPS "color"....but without the heat associated with an HPS bulb. But since the HPS color isn't the most efficient for generating plant response, no one wants an LED to produce an HPS color. The irony of that is that the heat from an HPS bulb is what gives it a certain advantage over LEDs, in some cases. Many plants seem to love growing under HPS bulbs, regardless of the color. HPS bulbs provide plenty of photons for plant growth in spite of the "inefficient" color. Some varieties of plants may respond "better" under different colors of light, but how can any of that information be gauged unless you grow the exact same clones time after time under variable light sources? Who really wants the same exact flavor/terpene all the time? I don't.

No light source of ANY type is going to trump genetic predisposition. In other words, if the genetics are good and you provide an ample amount of photons -regardless of the light source, then you'll probably get a satisfying result. If the genetics are so-so, then the most "perfect" spectrum of light isn't going to vastly improve the final results.

I would see on ppfd maps they also have maps of ppfd the further down you go. Showing its light penetration abilities. One of the only things that were new to be he said people are wrong when they say leds that need be placed close have something wrong with them.

That migro said he thinks the opposite is true, that if you have to hang far up high then something wrong with that led. That close hanging height just means its spread out better. Then again he just appears to say its all bullcrap, idk I just didnt learn much from the video was more confusing than helpful. Maybe I took it out of context.

Idk but the lighting rabbit hole is hard to grasp, the breeding rabbit hole Im going further down. Light I just find like one said just giving enough is good enough. Would be cool to see results in clones, I run them all the time so if I just hung up a new spectrum I could see the difference. I already do just running a few different kinds of leds.

That would help take me further down the rabbit hole.

One said most leds the spectrum is light on the IR and red side where its higher in IR for sure in hps I know. As for red idk maybe? I really dont get what Im looking at with spectrums they look the same but thats what one said too (rocket soul.)

That you could see improvements adding more green or one of the uv’s. Or more red etc but you have to balance them out with lets say more white. Its not solid in my head yet Im just limited in time. I focus on whats relevant to my grow right now as theres endless things to read.

Id have to read my own led thread I have to see what was said about the uv’s and possibly reds that I could try. But yea so to say hps spectrum or cmh isnt good or we would see them more.. Hard to say as the DIY guys here have made all kinds of spectrums they dont.

I guess I can see now what migrow is simply saying but idk at same time I have my questions. Like you say its kinda subjective, hes using house plants as examples. We all have a unique canopy even as clones run after run its unique. To know and be able to say how far down it goes is just something to take advantage market wise if thats what you say.

Also he tests the theory with height of light with nothing under it just moving light closer down..

tstick said:

I think there ARE LED fixtures that can produce an HPS "color"....but without the heat associated with an HPS bulb. But since the HPS color isn't the most efficient for generating plant response, no one wants an LED to produce an HPS color.

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Agree—that's key. An LED can be produced to give pretty much anything that we want. 5+ years ago, the only commercially viable LED's were blurple but technology and consumer buying have allowed us to create lights with different spectra and have made them very affordable. My favorite 2' x 4' light, the Spider G4500, is just over $200. Wow. That's cheap. And it puts out a lot of light with a very even PPFD map.

tstick said:

The irony of that is that the heat from an HPS bulb is what gives it a certain advantage over LEDs, in some cases.

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Agreed. In the right environment, that's considered a plus. You get a plant heater + photons in one unit. On the downside, HPS is on the way out, so it might not be a good idea to build a grow around it and, second, you always have that heat. If you separate the heating device from the photon generator it will be more flexible but then you have two devices instead of one. It's almost like there are tradeoffs!

tstick said:

Many plants seem to love growing under HPS bulbs, regardless of the color. HPS bulbs provide plenty of photons for plant growth in spite of the "inefficient" color.

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Yeh, the spectrum isn't as efficient as a white LED but that's, pardon the pun, getting in the weeds.

The main reason HPS isn't as electrically efficient is that it generates a lot of IR/heat. Lots of growers, and I can tell you're one of them, have been getting good results for years, in terms of yield, and are really pleased with the terpenes that HPS generates. Add in the fact that they (you) have developed an environment and growing processes to support it, I can completely understand the idea of "you can take my HPS from my cold dead hands when…". I believe 100% that you don't change a winning game.

tstick said:

Some varieties of plants may respond "better" under different colors of light, but how can any of that information be gauged unless you grow the exact same clones time after time under variable light sources? Who really wants the same exact flavor/terpene all the time? I don't.

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I hear ya!

tstick said:

No light source of ANY type is going to trump genetic predisposition. In other words, if the genetics are good and you provide an ample amount of photons -regardless of the light source, then you'll probably get a satisfying result. If the genetics are so-so, then the most "perfect" spectrum of light isn't going to vastly improve the final results.

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No doubt. I grow from seeds and I've had some batches of seeds that just didn't sprout. Very frustrating. OTOH, my most recent grow was from a pack of seeds that was four years old and it grew like a champ.

medidedicated said:

One said most leds the spectrum is light on the IR and red side where its higher in IR for sure in hps I know. As for red idk maybe? I really dont get what Im looking at with spectrums they look the same but thats what one said too (rocket soul.)

That you could see improvements adding more green or one of the uv’s. Or more red etc but you have to balance them out with lets say more white. Its not solid in my head yet Im just limited in time. I focus on whats relevant to my grow right now as theres endless things to read.

Id have to read my own led thread I have to see what was said about the uv’s and possibly reds that I could try. But yea so to say hps spectrum or cmh isnt good or we would see them more.. Hard to say as the DIY guys here have made all kinds of spectrums they dont.

I guess I can see now what migrow is simply saying but idk at same time I have my questions. Like you say its kinda subjective, hes using house plants as examples. We all have a unique canopy even as clones run after run its unique. To know and be able to say how far down it goes is just something to take advantage market wise if thats what you say.

Also he tests the theory with height of light with nothing under it just moving light closer down..

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I'm not clear on what you wrote.

Shane stuck a PAR meter directly under a leaf and found that there's no usable light (cannabis needs at least about 70µmol to survive). I did the same thing a couple of years back, a few days before he dropped his video, and got the same result.

I tried that because of the Bugbee video that talks about green photons penetrating more deeply into a leaf than red or blue. That's one definition of "penetration". The fact that green penetrated deeper might be interesting but that doesn't mean that you get a better result with more green.

There's also concept that a light penetrates more deeply "into the canopy". That's not defined and its meaning is confusing (hence your posting) so I consider it just marketing BS. No color of light travels further than another color of light and even when a leaf is getting 1000µmol. on the top, there's no usable PAR directly below the leaf so I can't think what "penetration in the canopy" actually means.

Apparently, Shane doesn't put any validity in that claim, either.

I guess that makes sense. I just wasnt getting it at first I was pre occupied. Sometimes coming back to things later clears things up. I dont even know what I was trying to say. Happens often but been better as time goes on. Sometimes I read my own posts from years ago and am like wtf was I trying to say? lol.

Plant training makes a difference, I dont get larf anymore just doing the traditional full size plant method. Just top once. Even if the buds are shaded out.

So if I understand hes actually being honest just saying its BS. I just thought I heard old lights like hps and cmh just “penetrated” deeper and people would say that too in their own grow. Also heard cmh is like the best spectrum and stimulates certain receptors in plant responsible for cannabinoids and terps.

medidedicated said:

So if I understand hes actually being honest just saying its BS.

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Well…yeh.

medidedicated said:

I just thought I heard old lights like hps and cmh just “penetrated” deeper and people would say that too in their own grow. Also heard cmh is like the best spectrum and stimulates certain receptors in plant responsible for cannabinoids and terps.

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You've been doing this longer than I have and even in the four years that I've been growing, I've heard lots of things that people firmly believe to be true but in the case of "penetration" aren't even defined, much less supported by evidence. That's one reason why I look to the pointy headed guys to see what they've come up with—the answers may not be cut and dried but at least it's a good place to begin a discussion.

Il get into this soon I just have too much to do in the grow right now. Find mothers, make s1’s make my own seed bank close the loop so I lower risk of hlvd. Lost my pheno most likely but when I get bored Il mess with uv’s and etc dive deeper into this.

Breeding felt like too much but when it lined up with my grow at the moment and what I need, rest falling into place. Im not even ready to play around yet.

I got some stuff on the P-word, used to be a pet peeve of mine. Its very poorly defined; usually people mean how for down in into the cannopy you get decent sized buds, at least to my understanding. But afaik this has a lot to do with cannopy management and how you prune bud sites and sucker growth. We had a nice big bud growing about 2 foot down with almost no light from a budsite that we accidentally left in the lolipopping process.

Even though there is little light left after passing thru the leaf or down thru the cannopy the light that does remain is spectrum shifted towards far red and green: reds and blues are most easily absorbed by leaves. Theres been a couple of tests on this which i found very enlighting, to see what light the plant absorbed first easiest. Malocan did some tests with several leaves over his spectrometer here:
Take away, monos penetrate a bit better than white midpowers, and he had more far red than green penetrating.

Why is this interesting: in order to under stand the morphological response to green and far red:
Green is an intra cannopy response: produce more fibery and tough tissue, like trunk and stalk. My guess is this is one of the main reasons you see better density with white leds, but imo not as fragrant quality to buds: it puts the plants energy towards more infrastructure-y growth.
Green also reverses the blue response: lower transpiration and cancel out nodelength inhibition.
Far red has many functions but seems to end up as shade avoidance syndrome when its too high: longer nodes, bigger leaves and yield reduction.

medidedicated said:

Il get into this soon I just have too much to do in the grow right now. Find mothers, make s1’s make my own seed bank close the loop so I lower risk of hlvd. Lost my pheno most likely but when I get bored Il mess with uv’s and etc dive deeper into this.

Breeding felt like too much but when it lined up with my grow at the moment and what I need, rest falling into place. Im not even ready to play around yet.

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I would definitely advice to add some uv and "mess around" a bit while breeding: if youre not triggering uv mediated responses in your breeding runs you dont know if youre missing out on phenos which would have more distinct smells under uv/violet.

Rocket Soul said:

I would definitely advice to add some uv and "mess around" a bit while breeding: if youre not triggering uv mediated responses in your breeding runs you dont know if youre missing out on phenos which would have more distinct smells under uv/violet.

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Yea I screenshot the earlier post “uva is low hanging fruit” and remember youve suggested that. It was one of the few things that sticked. Seems like its a smaller rabbit hole than growing organics though? So yea, uva 400/365nm 2:1 is what to look for? When you say outside of grow market where do you mean? Is amazon or where ever I can find it, fine?

Oh yea was going to say, maybe for live rosin or resin folks would like the enhanced smell but Im after yield. Yield is everything its my currensy, I dont get paid if it dont yield as I just dont smoke anymore. Dabs only for over 2 yrs or so and providing my own flower rosin for just over a year now.

We were talking about my comment that Id read people say sungrown produces more hash. So I wanted to see if I could figure out how to increase yield indoors for hash like flower rosin. I dont remember what was said would have to read it again but it wasnt simple.

I think you said what you thought might do it but would have to involve pheno specific and more than uv. Anyway thats what inspired me. I just was under impression I could find a knock out pheno first and try that at that time.

Right now Im learning as much as I can about keeping mothers and making s1’s and running those. To confirm theyre good and then make a bunch to complete the majority of the project. Make a copy of mother in form of seeds. Might not even need to do that since its inbred so much it might not work out.

I might find a keeper that can be selfed better that hasnt been inbred yet, Im growing other strains too. Im just obsessed with the idea of really having “that” pheno as you really dont have it until then.

I guess its like growing, you grow once youre not a grower. You grow a certain amount of times and solved a few problems, now youre a grower. Same with breeding so not really a breeder. A major rule of breeding is not to create something that exists already.