Supplemental lighting

Sup y’all,
I’m currently running an HLG 320 XL v2 Rspec in my 2x4x7 and I’m looking to add some supplemental lighting during flowering to beef up bud production. I have about 6 inches between my light and tent on the front and back side of my light length wise.

I know I’m limited to some sort of bar style lights due to their small size but I’m just not sure which avenue to take. Do I add one/two of HLG’s 100w light saber bars or? Any recommendations are appreciated. I know the light I have is great but who doesn’t like beefier flowers.

that thing has such a nice spectrum but still is "basic" and I suppose you're having more or less 800 umoles around your canopy, so you could try implement the EM emission on UVA/B or/and far red!!

I'm pushing you there since I also plan to implement my spectrum rather than my ppfd, you might end with just more unused photons from the plant (which actually uses very little of the energy we imput in our ligths trough EM) and thus just trow away money but also is not good from an envoirement point of view, we should always think about that!

GOOD LUCK IN YOUR SEARCH!!

Sounds like you already have a pretty good light source for that space. If you add too much light on the top you could start to piss the plants off. Do you have a PAR meter?

As @CBDbear mentioned a little boost in the UV spectrum or far red spectrum would be your best bet. The far red is more likely to have an impact on yield where the UV would give them a little boost in resin production.

Renfro said:

Sounds like you already have a pretty good light source for that space. If you add too much light on the top you could start to piss the plants off. Do you have a PAR meter?

As @CBDbear mentioned a little boost in the UV spectrum or far red spectrum would be your best bet. The far red is more likely to have an impact on yield where the UV would give them a little boost in resin production.

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I do not currently have a par meter I need to order one. The HLG 320 is an Rspec light so it has far red added. So UVA would probably be the only thing I’m lacking. Any recommendations on a good uva light? Thank you!

Spazz24 said:

Any recommendations on a good uva light? Thank you!

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https://www.rollitup.org/t/uv-suppliment-lighting.987316/page-38#post-15058171

You might find some options there or in some of the other UV threads. I am pretty new to the LED lighting myself. With UV you have to be careful, too much and you will burn the plants. If the leaves start to get a shiny / waxy coating then it's too much and burn is likely eminent. I tested some CMH bulbs that had no UV filtering in the glass and the plants got burned quick. How much is too much, well I have yet to find that exact number but I have seen people playing with setups where the UV light source only runs for a very short period each day, like a few minutes. FWIW my first run with LED really impressed me and I had no UV so it's not something you have to get.

I might be wrong but when I think about far red I refer to around 740nm lenghtwave, still I have to correct me there are a lot of 660 in your spectrum so my "basic" adjective above might not properly fit...

edit: is it just my impression or a lot of spectrum graphs are like stretched up to appeal the buyer?

CBDbear said:

I might be wrong but when I think about far red I refer to around 740nm lenghtwave, still I have to correct me there are a lot of 660 in your spectrum so my "basic" adjective above might not properly fit...

edit: is it just my impression or a lot of spectrum graphs are like stretched up to appeal the buyer?

Click to expand...

Honestly I’m brand new to LED lighting myself. When I was in the market for an led light I had a few people recommend the hlg320 and 550. After reading mostly good reviews I pulled the trigger on it.

When I think about it now I feel like I should have went bigger for yield purposes. That’s one thing I wasn’t able to find online were any reviews of that light and what people were getting out of them yield wise. So I guess I’m my own guinea pig lol.

For 500 dollars, I hope it outperforms my expectations lol.

If I am running one 320 board in a 2 x 4, I use 2 x 2' AgroMax Pure UV T5 lamps on each side of the 320 board. And I run them starting at week 7 of flower for 3 minutes each hour at a height of 28". And for the other 6 weeks of flowering I use 2 x 2' ATI Coral Plus lamps at the same height as my 320 board. I also have another tent that is 2.6 x 4.6 and in that tent I run 2 x 320 boards at 70% and 3 x 2' AgroMax Pure UV T5 lamps, one on each side of the 320 boards, then one in the center of the 2 x 320 boards, using the same lighting schedule and T5 lamp changes schedule as I use in my single 320 board setup that I run in a 2 x 4 x 8 tent!

I started using led just recently too, belive me you will not be disappointed!!