This is my first real attempt at forming a lesson plan so bear with me while I try to divulge this information as best I can. Hopefully this will help someone.
Ok So I figured an easy way to help shed some light on lumens and spectrum (pardon the pun) in regards to healthy plant growth would be to base a study on what we know works.
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The Sun:
As we all know plants grow and bloom in natural sunlight as well as indoor lighting. However if you believe in the theory of evolution you must assume that plants were conceived under the sun and are built to do everything they need to do off of the sun and its specific light spectrum. Some of which we normally re-create in the lighting of plants and some that we dont.
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Facts on the sun: (derived from calculations)
Through the inverse square law (Yes its real)
Lumens divided by (distance squared) equals lumens per square foot putting distance into account.
In the case of the sun I ran the calculations. We know the sun delivers 10,000 lumens per square foot on earth roughly 120w of light. We also know the sun is 92,950,000 miles away which is 490,776,000,000 feet away. This means that the sun produces 115,476,705,882,353 watts and 9,815,520,000,000,000 lumens respectively (yes i know big numbers eh? Go figure)
Anyways: 9,815,520,000,000,000 / 981,552,000,000 = 10,000 lumens per square foot (nifty huh?)
So we know how much light is required. Lets take a look at the suns spectrum.
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Photospheric Composition of the Sun:(Wikipedia.com)
Hydrogen | 73.46 %
Helium | 24.85 %
Oxygen | 0.77 %
Carbon | 0.29 %
Iron | 0.16 %
Sulphur | 0.12 %
Neon | 0.12 %
Nitrogen | 0.09 %
Silicon | 0.07 %
Magnesium | 0.05 %
As we can see the main elements in the sun are hydrogen and helium making up 98.31% of the sun. Different elements produce different spectrums of light. The diagram below illustrates the suns spectrum as well as hydrogen and helium (the other elements are just part of the diagram)
(Bohrs)
As you can see the light produced by Hydrogen and Helium are as follows:
(in nanometers)
Hydrogen: 656nm, 486nm, 434nm, & 410nm
Helium: 667nm, 587nm, 501nm, 492nm, 471nm, 447nm, 402nm
I took the liberty of overlapping hydrogen and helium here:
Now stop here. I have an image of a PAR(Photosynthetic Active Radiation) spectrum. Compare the two and use the origional diagram for reference if you need to.
When compared to the H(hydrogen) + He(helium) spectrums:
Red: (667nm,656nm)
Yellow: (587nm)
Blue: (501nm,492nm,486nm,471nm,447nm,434nm,410nm,& 402nm)
All of the color temperatures occur in peak instances of the PAR diagram. So we know plants are tuned to utilize the specific spectrums that the sun produces via its major contents.
Kelvin is a temperature scale that is the same as celsius but it uses absolute zero as zero. 0 kelvin = -273.15 celsius. It is also a color temperature reading that the lighting industry uses to rate their bulbs however to find where your bulbs match you will have to match the colors over as best you can. Some manufacturers give you a spectrograph on the packaging but I think I'm going to have to make a spectroscope and find out for myself.
(Coming Soon)
---------------------------------------
Section 2:
Comparison common light sources, their spectrums, and correlation to PAR activity.
Ok So I figured an easy way to help shed some light on lumens and spectrum (pardon the pun) in regards to healthy plant growth would be to base a study on what we know works.
------------------------------------
The Sun:
As we all know plants grow and bloom in natural sunlight as well as indoor lighting. However if you believe in the theory of evolution you must assume that plants were conceived under the sun and are built to do everything they need to do off of the sun and its specific light spectrum. Some of which we normally re-create in the lighting of plants and some that we dont.
----------------------------------------------
Facts on the sun: (derived from calculations)
Through the inverse square law (Yes its real)
Lumens divided by (distance squared) equals lumens per square foot putting distance into account.
In the case of the sun I ran the calculations. We know the sun delivers 10,000 lumens per square foot on earth roughly 120w of light. We also know the sun is 92,950,000 miles away which is 490,776,000,000 feet away. This means that the sun produces 115,476,705,882,353 watts and 9,815,520,000,000,000 lumens respectively (yes i know big numbers eh? Go figure)
Anyways: 9,815,520,000,000,000 / 981,552,000,000 = 10,000 lumens per square foot (nifty huh?)
So we know how much light is required. Lets take a look at the suns spectrum.
--------------------------------------------
Photospheric Composition of the Sun:(Wikipedia.com)
Hydrogen | 73.46 %
Helium | 24.85 %
Oxygen | 0.77 %
Carbon | 0.29 %
Iron | 0.16 %
Sulphur | 0.12 %
Neon | 0.12 %
Nitrogen | 0.09 %
Silicon | 0.07 %
Magnesium | 0.05 %
As we can see the main elements in the sun are hydrogen and helium making up 98.31% of the sun. Different elements produce different spectrums of light. The diagram below illustrates the suns spectrum as well as hydrogen and helium (the other elements are just part of the diagram)
(Bohrs)
As you can see the light produced by Hydrogen and Helium are as follows:
(in nanometers)
Hydrogen: 656nm, 486nm, 434nm, & 410nm
Helium: 667nm, 587nm, 501nm, 492nm, 471nm, 447nm, 402nm
I took the liberty of overlapping hydrogen and helium here:
Now stop here. I have an image of a PAR(Photosynthetic Active Radiation) spectrum. Compare the two and use the origional diagram for reference if you need to.
When compared to the H(hydrogen) + He(helium) spectrums:
Red: (667nm,656nm)
Yellow: (587nm)
Blue: (501nm,492nm,486nm,471nm,447nm,434nm,410nm,& 402nm)
All of the color temperatures occur in peak instances of the PAR diagram. So we know plants are tuned to utilize the specific spectrums that the sun produces via its major contents.
Kelvin is a temperature scale that is the same as celsius but it uses absolute zero as zero. 0 kelvin = -273.15 celsius. It is also a color temperature reading that the lighting industry uses to rate their bulbs however to find where your bulbs match you will have to match the colors over as best you can. Some manufacturers give you a spectrograph on the packaging but I think I'm going to have to make a spectroscope and find out for myself.
(Coming Soon)
---------------------------------------
Section 2:
Comparison common light sources, their spectrums, and correlation to PAR activity.
