The far red thread

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
So my setup is 2x2x4 with a 210w, they said 200w but the kill a/w says different, Timber grow light citizen clu48, 3500k.

Should I add red? If I should, what does anyone recommend? Lol sorry to be lazy, this is a long thread.

No reason to add additional red. 3500°k is a good flowering spectrum. If you want some far-red for end of day threatment(5+5 minutes) use "growmau5's far-red puk", its 5w is more than enough for a 2x 2' area.
 

giantsfan24

Well-Known Member
No reason to add additional red. 3500°k is a good flowering spectrum. If you want some far-red for end of day threatment(5+5 minutes) use "growmau5's far-red puk", its 5w is more than enough for a 2x 2' area.
As with everything in my new box, I'm into overkill but would this be a beneficial add?
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
As with everything in my new box, I'm into overkill but would this be a beneficial add?
For sure, if you know how to use far-red as end of day threadment(only a few minutes before and after lights off).
You can shorten the night, eg. to only 10h and extend the days to 14h, or you leave it at 12/12h and shorten the whole grow by a week or more.
With the mentioned far-red puk and a 2x 2' tent you would need a max. of 5+5 minutes, maybe only 3+3 or 2+2 is already enough. You will recognize its too much far-red when you get unwanted stretching. In this case decrease the time step by step untill the growth is back normal. Plants react very quickly to far-red radiation!
 

giantsfan24

Well-Known Member
For sure, if you know how to use far-red as end of day threadment(only a few minutes before and after lights off).
You can shorten the night, eg. to only 10h and extend the days to 14h, or you leave it at 12/12h and shorten the whole grow by a week or more.
With the mentioned far-red puk and a 2x 2' tent you would need a max. of 5+5 minutes, maybe only 3+3 or 2+2 is already enough. You will recognize its too much far-red when you get unwanted stretching. In this case decrease the time step by step untill the growth is back normal. Plants react very quickly to far-red radiation!
Ok..thanks for the insight. :clap::clap:
 

randydj

Well-Known Member
Is far red at the end of the day good for autos? Has anyone tried it?
Yes, Far red works on autos to speed along flower initiation but only a small gain compared to photos and you pretty much follow the plant instead of leading it. By that, I mean I started using the far red when flowering just started on the plant around the end of week 3.
 

Big Green Thumb

Well-Known Member
So much information on this forum!
If am looking to increase yield foremost, using 3 Growmau5 pucks in a 5x5 tent, what light schedule would be best? 13/11?
 

Demas

Well-Known Member
Hi please look to rapidled to emerson-effect-booster-board

Spec.
12 x photo Red (around 22w)
6 x far red LEDs (around 8W)
Coverage Area : 2' X 4'
Current 700mA
15min after light.

Why use photo red? Why not only deep red?
Is it 8w deep red to cover 2x4 enought? Thx
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
An Emersom Booster is not only used for end of day treatment it can run the whole time along with your other diodes.
But it's effect is better with low PPFD's around 400μMol/s/m². At usually used intensities around 800-1000μMol/s/m² the effect is not that useful.

For end of day treatment only far-red/730nm is needed, around 2000-4000μMol/m²{not μMol/s/m²) is enough to switch phytocrome red into far-red and put the plants faster into "night-mode". Therefor 8w/m² for around 10 mins is more than enough!

Photored and deepred are two names for the same wavelength and to make it even more complicated, Osram calls it hyperred. Cree calls it photored and most of the rest call it deepred, they all discribe the same 640-680nm wavelength. Cree additionally offers different color bins in 5nm steps between 650 and 680nm. You can get photored in 650-660nm, 655-665nm, up to 670-680nm. XP-E High Effiency C01 bin in 670-680nm is their most powerful deep red diode currently.
Osram hyperred top bins are hard to find the best way to get top flux bin is to look for their horticulture series which includes royal blue, hyperred and far-red diodes.

But they all are relatively costly and I still recommend to use warmwhite top bin diodes, COB's or strips. If you want something special add some UVB to increase resin content. That's far more useful like an Emerson Booster and mixed UV wavelength from reptile or special grow tubes supports important defense processes within the plants, making them healthier and more resistant. IndrGro's latest LED with UVB Pontoons are a good example for what's is doable.
Of course, you should not overdo it, otherwise you will roast your plants, but a few hours a day is not a problem and really useful. We talk about 20-30% increase in thc, this means a 18% strain could end with up to 23,5%. Check out the links in my signature to get an idea of how it could look like.
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
An Emersom Booster is not only used for end of day treatment it can run the whole time along with your other diodes.
But it's effect is better with low PPFD's around 400μMol/s/m². At usually used intensities around 800-1000μMol/s/m² the effect is not that useful.

For end of day treatment only far-red/730nm is needed, around 2000-4000μMol/m²{not μMol/s/m²) is enough to switch phytocrome red into far-red and put the plants faster into "night-mode". Therefor 8w/m² for around 10 mins is more than enough!

Photored and deepred are two names for the same wavelength and to make it even more complicated, Osram calls it hyperred. Cree calls it photored and most of the rest call it deepred, they all discribe the same 640-680nm wavelength. Cree additionally offers different color bins in 5nm steps between 650 and 680nm. You can get photored in 650-660nm, 655-665nm, up to 670-680nm. XP-E High Effiency C01 bin in 670-680nm is their most powerful deep red diode currently.
Osram hyperred top bins are hard to find the best way to get top flux bin is to look for their horticulture series which includes royal blue, hyperred and far-red diodes.

But they all are relatively costly and I still recommend to use warmwhite top bin diodes, COB's or strips. If you want something special add some UVB to increase resin content. That's far more useful like an Emerson Booster and mixed UV wavelength from reptile or special grow tubes supports important defense processes within the plants, making them healthier and more resistant. IndrGro's latest LED with UVB Pontoons are a good example for what's is doable.
Of course, you should not overdo it, otherwise you will roast your plants, but a few hours a day is not a problem and really useful. We talk about 20-30% increase in thc, this means a 18% strain could end with up to 23,5%. Check out the links in my signature to get an idea of how it could look like.
Ive seen many of your nice builds. I like the multiple spectrum options. In the grow cycle, how do you add 660 reds? And what was the results? Do you think its worth it and if so how much, as % of total watts. Looking at these for some time: https://led-tech.de/en/50cm-Osram-SSL-Horticulture-Hyper-Red-Plug-and-Grow-Stripe
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
Ive seen many of your nice builds. I like the multiple spectrum options. In the grow cycle, how do you add 660 reds? And what was the results? Do you think its worth it and if so how much, as % of total watts. Looking at these for some time: https://led-tech.de/en/50cm-Osram-SSL-Horticulture-Hyper-Red-Plug-and-Grow-Stripe
I know the range of ledtech.de, they often have new products like these horti-stripes, the Luga COB's or more recently also boards with LM301b. I've tried COB's with additional hyperreds(145w COB+20w hyperred) and I was not impressed. The deepreds has cause accelerated ripening and increased stretch when used the whole time, so I could only use them in the second half of the bloom without getting losses. If I had used 20w more white light instead, I could have used it all the time and I'm pretty sure with better yields.
Anyway, they are sold and in my current setup I used only 3000°k diodes. ⅔ CRI80(F-strips) + ⅓ CRI90(COB's) and I've added a UVB reptile tube, to profit from UV wavelength. This makes much more sense to me because it immediately improves the end product, improves plant health when used correctly, which at the end cause also a better yield. The producer of the IndaGro UV Pontoons has posted some test results on their website, very interesting stuff to read. With UV you can get following benefits:
• Increased flower size
• Increased resin, oil and trichome production
• Decreased harvest time
• Controlled dosing that mimics optimum plant production outdoor conditions
• UV-B suppresses mold and mildew
The only thing I dislike is their claim the UV-Pontoons would be 20 times stronger than reptile bulbs. Like a 2% tube for forest reptiles maybe, but not like the ones for desert reptiles with 10-14% UVB.
I don't think their T12 tubes have 2000% of the UVB output of a modern T5HO, otherwise two of them could be only used for minutes above an 4x 4' area and they recommend up to 6 hours.

Solacure is the producer of the UV Pontoons
http://www.solacure.com/horticulture.html

BTW,
I'm currently in flower week 6, 13/11h light regime with far-red trigger at the end of the day(5+5mins) and my tube run for 2x 3h. First 3h when light goes on and the other 3h before the lights go off. This way they have a break to recover.
What I can say for now is the results are even visible!
They've already started resin formation a week earlier, and under the magnifying glass, the trichome heads are also slightly larger than usual at this time
... and that is no imagination!
Damn, there are even trichomes on the big leaves and they stink like hell, lol!
 
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burnpile

Well-Known Member
Just bought 2 fixtures with bulbs, Hopefully this get me one step closer to growing stuff that looks like some of the pics i see on here. Just harvested 4 blueberry and have 6 more that have been in the room for 1 week at 12-12, I should get a good comparison between the two runs. I pressed an oz last night and got 4g of rosin so not bad but some of the outdoor plants have yielded over 5g per oz. Already have the far red for 15 mn at lights out.
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
Just bought 2 fixtures with bulbs, Hopefully this get me one step closer to growing stuff that looks like some of the pics i see on here. Just harvested 4 blueberry and have 6 more that have been in the room for 1 week at 12-12, I should get a good comparison between the two runs. I pressed an oz last night and got 4g of rosin so not bad but some of the outdoor plants have yielded over 5g per oz. Already have the far red for 15 mn at lights out.
Yeah, thats a good way to compare it when not the best. I'm curious to your results. Keep us updated, mate! Real world results matters more than any percent claims. What typ of bulbs did you purchase? True UVB or reptile bulbs like me?
 

WeedSexWeightsShakes

Well-Known Member
I’ve been toying with the idea of adding some far reds to my grow. Have 3 260w 3000k qb kits and 4 3500k 132 boards in my 4x8. Think I’d benefit much?
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
Indeed! Properly applied it can shorten the bloom circle or increase your yields. 3w per 2x 2" is enough, so ~20-25w for a 8x 4' area should be sufficient.

Read the first few pages of this thread to get an idea of how it is working and how to apply. In short, far-red goes on 5 mins before lights out and out 5 mins after it switched off.

A well-functioning cycle could look like this:
- week 1+2: 12/12h regime + 10mins far-red end of the day
- week 3-8: 13,5/10,5h regime + 10mins far-red
- week 9-end: back to 12/12h

With a 10 week cycle it would be 840h without far-red and 903h with the light regime above. That's 63h or 7,5% more light and should increase your yield accordingly.
Important!
Too much is not good!!! Too much far-red would trigger SAS, the "Shadow Avoidance Syndrome"! It causes huuuuge stretch, larger bright green leaves, a lot fewer nodes and therefor a significant loss in yield. Really nothing good!
You will also notice slightly more stretch when properly applied but we talk here of only 2-4' depending on strain.
If you want it to be precise, determine how many μMol your far-red diodes produce per second and then determine how many seconds it will take to produce 2000-4000μMol/m². (You can use a QER of 6μMol/J for 730nm)
With 10w/m² it should be between 5 and 10mins!

12 Cree XP-E/730nm or 12 Osram Oslon SSL120/727nm and an APC-25-700 would be ~20-22w. With cheap e3ay diodes I would take 20 or 4 10w/far-red COB's.

10x Cree XP-E/730nm, ..601 binning, 25$US
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-Cree-XPE-Far-Red-730nm-LED-1-9V-2-4V-350mA-1000mA-20mm-PCB-Board/322722116845?hash=item4b23bcb4ed:g:txsAAOSwKUhZsUG5

10w 730nm-COB(~6,5w @1A), 8,75$US
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-High-Power-LED-Light-Lamp-Bead-Infrared-IR-Light-730nm-740nm-Bulb-DIY/222391258876?hash=item33c78d4efc:g:N6sAAOSwcu5UMoCT
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
Indeed! Properly applied it can shorten the bloom circle or increase your yields. 3w per 2x 2" is enough, so ~20-25w for a 8x 4' area should be sufficient.

Read the first few pages of this thread to get an idea of how it is working and how to apply. In short, far-red goes on 5 mins before lights out and out 5 mins after it switched off.

A well-functioning cycle could look like this:
- week 1+2: 12/12h regime + 10mins far-red end of the day
- week 3-8: 13,5/10,5h regime + 10mins far-red
- week 9-end: back to 12/12h

With a 10 week cycle it would be 840h without far-red and 903h with the light regime above. That's 63h or 7,5% more light and should increase your yield accordingly.
Important!
Too much is not good!!! Too much far-red would trigger SAS, the "Shadow Avoidance Syndrome"! It causes huuuuge stretch, larger bright green leaves, a lot fewer nodes and therefor a significant loss in yield. Really nothing good!
You will also notice slightly more stretch when properly applied but we talk here of only 2-4' depending on strain.
If you want it to be precise, determine how many μMol your far-red diodes produce per second and then determine how many seconds it will take to produce 2000-4000μMol/m². (You can use a QER of 6μMol/J for 730nm)
With 10w/m² it should be between 5 and 10mins!

12 Cree XP-E/730nm or 12 Osram Oslon SSL120/727nm and an APC-25-700 would be ~20-22w. With cheap e3ay diodes I would take 20 or 4 10w/far-red COB's.

10x Cree XP-E/730nm, ..601 binning, 25$US
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-Cree-XPE-Far-Red-730nm-LED-1-9V-2-4V-350mA-1000mA-20mm-PCB-Board/322722116845?hash=item4b23bcb4ed:g:txsAAOSwKUhZsUG5

10w 730nm-COB(~6,5w @1A), 8,75$US
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-High-Power-LED-Light-Lamp-Bead-Infrared-IR-Light-730nm-740nm-Bulb-DIY/222391258876?hash=item33c78d4efc:g:N6sAAOSwcu5UMoCT
Hey Random. Have you ever used End of day far red for veg? Or just the last week before flipping to 12/12? Or in combination with 660 red?
 

WeedSexWeightsShakes

Well-Known Member
Indeed! Properly applied it can shorten the bloom circle or increase your yields. 3w per 2x 2" is enough, so ~20-25w for a 8x 4' area should be sufficient.

Read the first few pages of this thread to get an idea of how it is working and how to apply. In short, far-red goes on 5 mins before lights out and out 5 mins after it switched off.

A well-functioning cycle could look like this:
- week 1+2: 12/12h regime + 10mins far-red end of the day
- week 3-8: 13,5/10,5h regime + 10mins far-red
- week 9-end: back to 12/12h

With a 10 week cycle it would be 840h without far-red and 903h with the light regime above. That's 63h or 7,5% more light and should increase your yield accordingly.
Important!
Too much is not good!!! Too much far-red would trigger SAS, the "Shadow Avoidance Syndrome"! It causes huuuuge stretch, larger bright green leaves, a lot fewer nodes and therefor a significant loss in yield. Really nothing good!
You will also notice slightly more stretch when properly applied but we talk here of only 2-4' depending on strain.
If you want it to be precise, determine how many μMol your far-red diodes produce per second and then determine how many seconds it will take to produce 2000-4000μMol/m². (You can use a QER of 6μMol/J for 730nm)
With 10w/m² it should be between 5 and 10mins!

12 Cree XP-E/730nm or 12 Osram Oslon SSL120/727nm and an APC-25-700 would be ~20-22w. With cheap e3ay diodes I would take 20 or 4 10w/far-red COB's.

10x Cree XP-E/730nm, ..601 binning, 25$US
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-Cree-XPE-Far-Red-730nm-LED-1-9V-2-4V-350mA-1000mA-20mm-PCB-Board/322722116845?hash=item4b23bcb4ed:g:txsAAOSwKUhZsUG5

10w 730nm-COB(~6,5w @1A), 8,75$US
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-High-Power-LED-Light-Lamp-Bead-Infrared-IR-Light-730nm-740nm-Bulb-DIY/222391258876?hash=item33c78d4efc:g:N6sAAOSwcu5UMoCT
This is great! Thank you!
With the 10w could you put it in something like this?
https://m.ebay.com/itm/10W-20W-30W-50W-100W-LED-Flood-Light-Outdoor-Landscape-Lamp-Waterproof-Spotlight/281625800230?hash=item419234ae26:m:mu1jHDfWfBtigfiAa-dn3ug
Then do 2 of those.
 

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
Yepp, that works perfect! I've done the same many times actually for all my g-buddies. But you need a 3-10v/900mA driver because this COB's takes only 5,5-6,5v depending on current flow. 9-12v drivers does not work with this chips! You can get them from e3ay and they look the same like the build-in 10w drivers(28-42v/300mA).
The rest in only changing parts and done in 10mins, you only need a screwdriver and a soldering iron. The cheapest 10w floodlights costs me ~7$US. The driver another 5$. I'm pretty sure you can get the 3-10v/900mA drivers from the same seller.
 
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