A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

LED ligths not for growing ______

Ok found this on youtube and thought it was priceless ...

This guy is a pot grower, your typical blue / red LED spectrum grow light pot head, who finally gets it ... "LEDS are not for growing pot."

He explains why in his video obviously ... but it's like I said before you can not use a LED as a primary source of light without radiant lights and a full spectrum. None of this blue red stuff those of us who know LED grow lights see.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/s3XH-_2GhaM

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by AJ Grottke on March 15, 2011 at 2:40pm

I couldn't watch the video cause my internet is running a bit slow, but i did always think it was strange that people actually believed that 2 specific colors, down the the nm, could provide efficient plant growth. I have noticed plants grow much better with balanced spectrum. We are try to emulate the sun, which is the best grow light available, and 2 colors is not gonna cut it for a replacement.

Permalink Reply by jrtroubleshooter on March 15, 2011 at 5:37pm

BR wow that's your source? Not to dis you but I would not put all eggs in a you tube basket. i am still trying to research LED and have visited a couple of company's I still think LED are the furture kinda like flourestens are now in home lighting. Look at a few of the other ganga sites and see that there is a LED revolution going on the lights that your you tube buddy is talking about are a coule of generations old. I am hoping to get some side by side growings going and hear that Philps is about to come out with a system. I think this is the company that I going to try http://www.gothamhydroponics.com/grow-lights/gotham-hydro-led-grow-...

Permalink Reply by Burton on March 15, 2011 at 6:11pm

Look up SolarOasis Patent and read through it ... think the number is 6921182

It covers the use of specific wavelengths. Also this company does not sell the lights as a "primary" light source but a "supplementary" light source to be used in a lighthouse to help extend the winter season (3-5 months) and promote more growth during the warmer months.

They are the ones who have been doing the research into the use of radiant heat + LED's as an alternative method to grow food without sunlight.

I too was looking at Gotham but there is a key problem with the way they are measuring the PAR rating, as you should know by know LUX rating is useless for LED's. In order to properly measure PAR you need to get 10nm filters for the device, meaning it will only allow in a 10nm range at a time say from 380nm to 390nm etc. Then you measure the PAR value.

Once you have all the values your work is not over because now you have to compensate for the PAR device itself using a method the creator of the Quantom Light Reading device has specified in his patent / research. Once this is done you can then plot the graph out of your LED's true light spectrum. . .

This guy tests many LED products because the equipment and mainly the software is very expensive. SolarOasis sent him a unit to test http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/fourteen/aquapro5.htm

SolarOasis has also done its own test with the method above and published its real spectrum to the public, so far the only company I know of to have done the spectrum analysis in this fashion. http://www.led-grow-master.com/Spectral.html more detail about the process is also found on the page somewhere ... lets see ... ah here http://www.led-grow-master.com/LEDGardenerJul3.html top half of page http://www.led-grow-master.com/LED_Based_Plant_Growing.html

SolarOasis continues to do tests on a production scale model, http://www.led-grow-master.com/Alfred.html under their head scientist and even have several greenhouses stocked with lights for testing ...

Oh and here is some nice perspective for ya http://www.led-grow-master.com/NotableClients.html showing the clients using the light systems in greenhouses, notice the amount under research, and commercial >./p>

There is so much information on the solaroasis and LGM site I cannot cover it all here but needless to say they seem to know whats going on ... They hold the first patent for LED grow lights, with 7 more patents pending for LED lighting solutions. Often when they release what others would call "opinions" they also post scientific research papers to back up the claim, and often with links.

Permalink Reply by jrtroubleshooter on March 15, 2011 at 7:35pm

well now you have 2 sources I suggest some more research and maybe visiting some loctions using the lights. I was maybe going to get by Morrisville State College Morrisville, New York and check out there stuff and maybe could talk to them about their stuff. Beware that just because a maufacture says they have sent a product to .... does not meant that is was successful..I am currently at UVI and there is a ton unsucessful products sitting around decaying in the bushs that did not work....
.I have not seen the SolarOasis products before but will investigate more seems like most of your links were from 2008, that is a long time ago in LEDs.

Permalink Reply by Burton on March 15, 2011 at 8:13pm

SolarOasis has been producing LED lights for growing plants since 1997 ... They also provided lights to the BIO DOME experiment which were tested, though I am not willing to spend the money to read the complete findings so I settle with the abstract. Apparently they also partnered with a company NASA has asked to find the best solution for growing food in space.

As far as a "long time ago" in terms of LED's they are the only ones I have found who has the amount of literature and white papers supported by scientist testing the product in production facilities. If you can find another light people are using in a commercial application greenhouse I would be very interested to research it as well. Just because most of what I posted was in 2008 doesn't mean its still not years ahead of the competition who have only been in business for a couple of years with no scientific data.

Several of the links above are from Dr. A.J. who has been doing research in production grade greenhouses with the lights and has written several papers highlighting the benefits of having the lights. And I know that SO provides lights to researchers at cost or free of charge as long as they have access to the data so they can better improve their product, I have not found other companies willing to do this; again if you know of one let me know because I have not built my system yet so there is still time to change.

If I had more money to throw around I would go out and buy each light (smallest one for each led set / frequency set used) and test them myself in a scientific way using the suggested growing methods on each page.

Also be wary of any manufacture claiming to use "Cree" LED's in the 660 spectrum, because from what I can tell Cree doesn't go beyond 630nm ... I sent them an email and I am still waiting on an reply, so I could be wrong about this. But I have been looking for many manufactures of 660nm, 612/605nm, 470nm, 400nm, and 730nm for a while to see if it would be possible to make my own LED array ... Cree was the first manufacture I tried to find because it was "hyped" so much I thought it must be the goto end-all LED ... but I never could find a 660nm Cree LED. BTW the Gotham claims to be using such an LED on its systems. I will report back when I get the email back from Cree to see if my suspicions are right.

The solarOasis page has a "whitepaper" section where it lays out what is really known about lighting and plant growth and what is not and cannot be known currently. They will flat out tell you no man made light will ever produce the same results that the sun can, and they explain why.

On a side note I can't wait to hear about your trip to the University to see what they think about the product. :)

Permalink Reply by Burton on March 15, 2011 at 9:05pm

Just sent out a email to about 15 of the companies / organizations / etc stated under the research column about the SolarOasis systems they have acquired and any test results they could possibly provide.

I doubt I will get much back however ... I avoided any place actually selling the product to remove bias. I will post the results here when they come in

Permalink Reply by Vlad Jovanovic on August 15, 2011 at 11:32am

1- This guy seems to have a beef with not knowing if the company he ordered from is being shady and sending him a lesser product as he has no way of testing the lights? Maybe valid as we don't know who he is ordering from, (or maybe just paranoid. Pot smokers have known to be a bit that way sometimes). You really should get your lights from a trusted supplier who will refund your money in full if you are not happy with the results. There are ALOT of shady people in the business of selling LED's these days, and many more people have been burned by paying for cheap knock offs. But we shouldn't dis the whole of LED technology based on these experiences.

2- He says "at least when you buy high output lighting (HID) you can SEE the super bright light that you paid for"...well that's just great! IF your plants happen to have eyes (and human eyes at that)... Lumens and Lux mean almost NOTHING to a plant. Plants respond most efficiently to light that is beyond what humans can perceive so it does not necessarily matter how bright your light is. As a matter of fact, 80% or more of the light emitted by either the sun or from HID lights, goes unused by plants for photosynthesis. It is that portion of light that we humans see with our eyes and can register as being bright.

3- Some of my Dutch friends are rather impressed with the new generation of top of the line LED grow lights. Of course they come with top of the line prices too. I have yet to hear that they fully live up to the all marketing hype, but they are having great success nonetheless. Even with marijuana plants...

Although it can be daunting at times, It will be interesting to watch as this technology evolves.

Permalink Reply by Rick Op on February 3, 2012 at 2:09pm

Yeah, a blanket statement of "LEDs alone are not enough to grow xyz" will eventually be just as wrong as "Aquaponics alone is not enough to grow..."