Question about artificial lighting for plants

[HoneyBadgerDC]

First of all I am not growing anything and don’t intend to but I used to years ago and am curious about something.

Jan 1st pot will be legal in California, even little old ladies who are concerned about their electrical bills are asking questions about lighting.

My question is this. If a person planted out doors in the winter and had to add a few hours of artificial light to fool the plants into thinking It was summer could they add just enough light to fool the plants even though it was doing little for the plants? Could different types of light be used for this? I often end up being a free handyman for little projects and I would like to have a bit more knowledge on this so I could give some worthwhile advice. Where I live the shortest days are about 10.5 hours, so they would be looking at about 3.5 hours supplemental in the middle of winter. I am hoping that about 25% of recommended growing wattage will be enough to fool the plants.

[kayaker]

Outdoor grows are a pia, IMHO. Go greenhouse or deal with the vagaries of weather, insects, predation, rippers, etc. Additionally, the lights you’d be using aren’t set up to be used outdoors.

I’d like to see what GQ answers you get, however.

[Chronos]

My first thought is that you can fool an organism, but you can’t fool the laws of thermodynamics. When you’ve got something like an animal determining its activity cycle by the amount of light, sure, you can change the activity cycle by changing the light. But a plant isn’t deciding to grow more because there’s more light: The light is the energy source that’s enabling it to grow. It’d be like trying to fool a bucket into thinking it’s full.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@Chronos

My first thought is that you can fool an organism, but you can’t fool the laws of thermodynamics. When you’ve got something like an animal determining its activity cycle by the amount of light, sure, you can change the activity cycle by changing the light. But a plant isn’t deciding to grow more because there’s more light: The light is the energy source that’s enabling it to grow. It’d be like trying to fool a bucket into thinking it’s full.

It would still have the 10 hours of sunny California natural light in the middle of winter to grow, just not the 14 for faster growth

[kayaker]

@Chronos

My first thought is that you can fool an organism, but you can’t fool the laws of thermodynamics. When you’ve got something like an animal determining its activity cycle by the amount of light, sure, you can change the activity cycle by changing the light. But a plant isn’t deciding to grow more because there’s more light: The light is the energy source that’s enabling it to grow. It’d be like trying to fool a bucket into thinking it’s full.

With cannabis day length determines what hormones the plant produces. With long days the plant experiences vegetative growth, increasing leaf mass/height. Short days triggers flowering, which is important because the flowers (buds) are why we grow her.

Another concern with outdoor growing is “light pollution”. During flowering, changes in day length (say from street lights) is said to increase the rate of hermaphrodite occurrence.

[Razncain]

@HoneyBadgerDC

My question is this. If a person planted out doors in the winter and had to add a few hours of artificial light to fool the plants into thinking It was summer could they add just enough light to fool the plants even though it was doing little for the plants? Could different types of light be used for this?

Yes, to both questions, of course you can, if I understand what you’re trying to do. Adding the additional light to its light cycle will prevent it from budding, extending out its vegetative stage, and it doesn’t take much light at all to achieve this. I’ve been told even a flash in the night during it’s night cycle will also prevent it from budding out and extending the vegetative stage, although I haven’t experimented with this. Some indoor growers related why they couldn’t get their plants to bud, it was because they were going in the grow room turning on the light, however brief, to check on them at night.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@kayaker

With cannabis day length determines what hormones the plant produces. With long days the plant experiences vegetative growth, increasing leaf mass/height. Short days triggers flowering, which is important because the flowers (buds) are why we grow her.

Another concern with outdoor growing is “light pollution”. During flowering, changes in day length (say from street lights) is said to increase the rate of hermaphrodite occurrence.

Good information, so things like yard lights, street lights etc could all have negative affects on this.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@razncain

Yes, to both questions, of course you can, if I understand what you’re trying to do. Adding the additional light to its light cycle will prevent it from budding, extending out its vegetative stage, and it doesn’t take much light at all to achieve this. I’ve been told even a flash in the night during it’s night cycle will also prevent it from budding out and extending the vegetative stage, although I haven’t experimented with this. Some indoor growers related why they couldn’t get their plants to bud, it was because they were going in the grow room turning on the light, however brief, to check on them at night.

That’s interesting, I didn’t realize how sensitive they were

[kayaker]

@HoneyBadgerDC

Good information, so things like yard lights, street lights etc could all have negative affects on this.

Yes. To me, “outdoor grows” are guerrilla sites you hike to, diverting local waterways for irrigation purposes. Backyard grows aren’t a thing, ideally.

ETA: another thing about outdoor growing is that stray pollen can fertilize your plants, leading to seedy weed (shudder).

[Razncain]

@HoneyBadgerDC

Good information, so things like yard lights, street lights etc could all have negative affects on this.

It sure does. Have you decided what strain yet? I’d still start them out indoors, even past germination stage because you’re going to find all sorts of critters love the tender growing shoots. Wait a few weeks to let the main stem harden, even better a month before going outside should have you off to a good start. You might consider another’s advice about a greenhouse, 6mm clear plastic that you can get just about anywhere: Lowes, Home Depot, Wal-mart, etc. Saves a lot of grief, and can be made on the cheap even if you have to replace the plastic every 6-8 years. Some generally guarantee it to 4 years.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@razncain

It sure does. Have you decided what strain yet? I’d still start them out indoors, even past germination stage because you’re going to find all sorts of critters love the tender growing shoots. Wait a few weeks to let the main stem harden, even better a month before going outside should have you off to a good start. You might consider another’s advice about a greenhouse, 6mm clear plastic that you can get just about anywhere: Lowes, Home Depot, Wal-mart, etc. Saves a lot of grief, and can be made on the cheap even if you have to replace the plastic every 6-8 years. Some generally guarantee it to 4 years.

I am not growing any myself but I have been getting a lot of requests for green houses, lighting and water systems. I use to grow it 30 years ago in my garage. I am thinking of educating myself a bit on the subject and setting up small grow stations for the locals. I think the price will be so cheap in a few months growing won’t be worth the trouble.

[Razncain]

I see. I only played with it a bit too, about the same time you did, but started taking an interest in it again a few years ago when it became legal in CO.

Well, if it is anything like CO, you’re right, the price will drop. Wholesale prices are $1,100 lb less than when it was first legalized a few years ago. And bigger commericial growers are buying up all of the others smaller ones, many are getting out of the buisness altogether realizing the profit margins and hassles are not worth it.

Several major problems have to do with the federal government. Although, it’s still considered illegal by them, and it doesn’t look like they are going to step in, but other problems with these two forms are: 8300 and 280E. 8300 has to do with cash transactions, and 280E having to do with not being allowed to deduct business deductions from any of your expenses, unlike all other businesses do. The latter seriously cuts into the profit margins. The former makes it a bit dangerous always carrying around that much cash. Many small business MJ grow rooms realize they can’t compete with the black market which doesn’t have these restrictions and all of the red tape to contend with.

I wouldn’t be too discouraged about doing the greehouses for homeowners though. At least in my county in CO, a lot of seniors have greenhouses in their backyards now supplementing their fixed incomes. Most are not interested in building it themselves, and need quite a bit of help.

With lighting, it used to be Metal Halide for the vegative stage, and Sodium Vapor for flowering were the most efficient means. It seems LED’s are what growers are going over too now although I have no experience with those, I think that’s where the market is going for supplemental lighting or sole lighting for indoor grows.

If you were to go with a greenhouse, which I think is the best way to go, there’s a great simple way to regulate temperature that you can set, that generally has to do with certain kinds of waxes that you can find on e-bay or Amazon. Here are some of these type vents.

I used to grow in hydroponics myself indoors, but used pea gravel when I did it. I think there are many other viable options than it, all I know is it made a believer out of me, when my yield from one single plant in hydro, was easily 5X+ that in the soil which I contributed mostly to more oxygen getting to the roots. There are so many ways to grow in hydroponics, I haven’t figured out which is optimum, many are quite good.

Best of luck.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

@razncain

I see. I only played with it a bit too, about the same time you did, but started taking an interest in it again a few years ago when it became legal in CO.

Well, if it is anything like CO, you’re right, the price will drop. Wholesale prices are $1,100 lb less than when it was first legalized a few years ago. And bigger commericial growers are buying up all of the others smaller ones, many are getting out of the buisness altogether realizing the profit margins and hassles are not worth it.

Several major problems have to do with the federal government. Although, it’s still considered illegal by them, and it doesn’t look like they are going to step in, but other problems with these two forms are: 8300 and 280E. 8300 has to do with cash transactions, and 280E having to do with not being allowed to deduct business deductions from any of your expenses, unlike all other businesses do. The latter seriously cuts into the profit margins. The former makes it a bit dangerous always carrying around that much cash. Many small business MJ grow rooms realize they can’t compete with the black market which doesn’t have these restrictions and all of the red tape to contend with.

I wouldn’t be too discouraged about doing the greehouses for homeowners though. At least in my county in CO, a lot of seniors have greenhouses in their backyards now supplementing their fixed incomes. Most are not interested in building it themselves, and need quite a bit of help.

With lighting, it used to be Metal Halide for the vegative stage, and Sodium Vapor for flowering were the most efficient means. It seems LED’s are what growers are going over too now although I have no experience with those, I think that’s where the market is going for supplemental lighting or sole lighting for indoor grows.

If you were to go with a greenhouse, which I think is the best way to go, there’s a great simple way to regulate temperature that you can set, that generally has to do with certain kinds of waxes that you can find on e-bay or Amazon. Here are some of these type vents.

I used to grow in hydroponics myself indoors, but used pea gravel when I did it. I think there are many other viable options than it, all I know is it made a believer out of me, when my yield from one single plant in hydro, was easily 5X+ that in the soil which I contributed mostly to more oxygen getting to the roots. There are so many ways to grow in hydroponics, I haven’t figured out which is optimum, many are quite good.

Best of luck.

Good post! I enjoy a connection with any kind of growing, pot is especially attractive because people like to take a more scientific approach to it than they do tomatoes for instance so it gives someone like myself a chance to use some mechanical creativity. I figured if I had 20 or 30 of them going that I was servicing I might get pretty knowledgeable about small backyard growing operations.

[DesertDog]

@razncain

I’d still start them out indoors, even past germination stage because you’re going to find all sorts of critters love the tender growing shoots.

Some decades ago when my brother was in college, he proudly showed me his set-up he’d installed in a closet in his apartment. There were about six tiny plants, three or four inches high. When I looked closely, one leaf on one plant was pretty well gone on one side up to the central rib.

“Sampling early?”
“No, I opened up the door the other day and there was this tiny, green grasshopper going munch-munch-munch. I grew so enraged I flicked him off and squashed him into oblivion.”
“Well, presumably, he died happy. ‘Hey, man, I’m fly-y-y-ing’”

So even indoors is not safe sometimes.

[kayaker]

@HoneyBadgerDC

I think the price will be so cheap in a few months growing won’t be worth the trouble.

Bah! It’s more about quality strains than $$. (To me)

[Razncain]

Some experienced with the economic aspects think it could go to $50 a lb. Don’t know enough about it to qualify that answer, but it doesn’t take much thought to realize with CA now on board, and now our neighbor to the north doing the same, the price is sure not going to be going up.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

I think it will go to about $100.00 per ounce within a couple of years. Huge stores of it are already starting to pile up and it is not even legal yet. If you go by a hydroponics store they will tell you that they are selling loads of equipment to those who say they are going to grow commercial. My prediction is that home users will enjoy the hobby of growing and save a few bucks and sell of their excess on the black market or even give it away to friends.