5000K for flowering?

I know that the conventional wisdom has the red end of white for flower as gospel. Anyone care to admit to being an infidel?

I know that many still use MH instead of HPS understanding the loss of output/watt that entails. However, we have an inverted situation here. The blue end of white is more efficient now and a fairly significant amount at that.

Consider that a Vero 18 @ 1050ma is rated at 123lm/w @ 3000K, but the 5000K can be had at 142lm/w. That is a better than 15% bump.

For the Vero 29 also @ 1050ma its 138 lm/w vs 159 lm/w

For the 3070 @ 1925ma its 114 lm/w vs 127 lm/w

So my question is....Is the color temp worth sacrificing the increased efficiency?

getsoutalive said:

I know that the conventional wisdom has the red end of white for flower as gospel. Anyone care to admit to being an infidel?

So my question is....Is the color temp worth sacrificing the increased efficiency?

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I think that the extra red in the spectrum triggers different hormones in accordance with the amount of time that the photoperiod is "on"
in short,
Flowering cannabis needs the red to complete its life cycle "in a timely manner"
If reds weren't needed don't you think that high end LED companies (like Area-51) would leave them out of their builds?
I personally don't even veg under MH.... HPS all the way! And soon, Induction all the way!

One 5000k To Two or Three 3000K would be about right maybe.

The exact reason I like multi lamp/spectra spreading all the K's out for the individual choice of the plant.
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.02 Cheer's

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Review the below two charts. They will show that you should skip the 5000k and look for 5500-6500k or 2400k-3100k. I would recommend you give both during all stages, just give much more blue during veg and much more yellow/red during bloom.

It will flower but the added red will increase yield,I've vegged with 5000k induction then just added some red T5 HO to flower before and Indagro lights are around 4650 k if I remember right and they added the pontoon option with the added red to increase yield. Area 51 has lights with 5700 k that you can veg with then just flip a switch to add 630 nm red for flower.

nomofatum said:

Review the below two charts. They will show that you should skip the 5000k and look for 5500-6500k or 2400k-3100k. I would recommend you give both during all stages, just give much more blue during veg and much more yellow/red during bloom.

View attachment 3322128

Click to expand...

Sorry, but that first chart makes no sense. Where did that come from?

Let me ask the question slightly differently. Lets say I want to build a flower lamp with 10 Vero 18s. Would the 10 @ 3000K yield more or less than 10 @ 5000k? All other things being equal.

3000k "should" yield more, but...
My most beautiful plants/buds were grown with an Indagro lamp.
I'm building a Vero 18 lamp with 4000k cobs. I like shorter, stockier plants.

Less. 3000k seems to be the ticket with the vero line.

5000k works great for vegetative growth.

Tomatoes love 4000k vero's.

So... I came across this light the other day at the hardware store and it was just too good to pass up.



These retail for $199 (Wobble-light Jr), so for $15 I figured the bulb alone was worth the price.

It's an 85w 5500k CFL





While the footprint of the light (the base, not the bulb) will be too much when I'm running a full cycle, when I only have a few plants in the tent there is plenty of room. The idea is to supplement the 1000w Agrosun HPS flowering lamp with some side lighting to help the lower bud spots.

I'm currently vegging with a 420w (wall draw) Helios LED and then switching to my 1000w HPS flowering tent.

So my question...

Would I be better off using this 5500k for veg, or keep it in the flower tent? The plant on the right (unknown bagseed in soil) was topped 2 x and trained to make all the small colas. It has great airflow through the lower sections and I think is exactly what I was hoping for. (These are my first 2 plants to take to flower, so this is all new to me. Illinois legal Med patient starting 1/1/20)



The Green Crack in the DWC on the left however... Thats another animal entirely. This fucker has grown so dense that there's NO WAY light is gonna penetrate to the lower bud sites.This plant was about 3 weeks old when it was gifted to me on January 1st. It had been grown under an incandescent bulb and had not been topped symmetrically.That being the case, it grew all sorts of crazy. Now... After MUCH reading I learned that there are several methods to deal with this. Pruning, thinning, LST and others are available, but this was my FIRST plant ever to flower and I didn't want to go cutting on it until I had more experience. I thought I'd rather have some bud that wasn't quite optimal over a dead plant.



There's a little bit of cal\mag damage on the lower leaves, but the rest of the plant looks extremely healthy.



Because the root system is so vigorous and healthy on this plant I intend to attempt to "Monster Crop" it after harvest. I love to experiment and from everything I've read this Green Crack plant is a great candidate.


I already have 2 rooted clones about 4 weeks in and gen 1.3 is in the bubbler with the intent of running a soil cycle. Hopefully we have a warm spring here in IL and I can move them in and out to the deck for real sun in another3-4 weeks.



I sure do wish I knew the lineage of her neighbor to the right though... This plant has been a blessing to manage.

Here she is on Dec 25th...



Here she is 5 min ago...



Such a fun hobby...