Will cheap solar-powered LED footpath lights fool cannabis to stay in veg during winter?

ltecato

ltecato

Well-Known Member
Okay, I'm sure I'm not the first SoCal grower to "invent" this wheel, so I'm hoping someone will save me the trouble of doing the "research" myself. Here is my thinking:

1. It almost never freezes in LA County except up in some mountains where I don't live.
2. Winter won't get cold enough to kill a plant, but the daylight hours will be so short that an outdoor plant will go straight into flowering, especially a clone.
3. But you can buy really cheap solar landscape lights for $1 or less at the "dollar store."
4. If I buy a few of those, I can put them in the ground next to my cannabis clones and maybe they will trick the cannabis into thinking it's summer instead of winter.
5. Then the clones will veg for as long as I want them to.
6. I can remove the LED lights whenever I want the clones to start flowering.

Will it work with the cheap dollar-store LED lights or will I have to spend a couple more bucks on something fancier from Home Depot?
 
twagner23

twagner23

Well-Known Member
ltecato said:
Okay, I'm sure I'm not the first SoCal grower to "invent" this wheel, so I'm hoping someone will save me the trouble of doing the "research" myself. Here is my thinking:

1. It almost never freezes in LA County except up in some mountains where I don't live.
2. Winter won't get cold enough to kill a plant, but the daylight hours will be so short that an outdoor plant will go straight into flowering, especially a clone.
3. But you can buy really cheap solar landscape lights for $1 or less at the "dollar store."
4. If I buy a few of those, I can put them in the ground next to my cannabis clones and maybe they will trick the cannabis into thinking it's summer instead of winter.
5. Then the clones will veg for as long as I want them to.
6. I can remove the LED lights whenever I want the clones to start flowering.

Will it work with the cheap dollar-store LED lights or will I have to spend a couple more bucks on something fancier from Home Depot?
Click to expand...
That won't work with path lights, you need something much stronger. I have path lights in my backyard that are much brighter than the $1 LEDs and it does not affect flowering.
 
W

waterproof808

Well-Known Member
It will work with stronger solar powered LED Flood lights but you have to manually turn them on in the middle of the night. I grew this way for about a year and a half, just to see how little I could spend to grow cannabis. Now I just use a shop light on a timer for 1 hour at midnite.
It will not work with the landscaping lights you are thinking of using.
 
Billy25

Billy25

Member
ltecato said:
Will it work with the cheap dollar-store LED lights or will I have to spend a couple more bucks on something fancier from Home Depot?
Click to expand...
I'm doing the same thing with my balcony grow, and no, you will need powered lights of some sort. Here is a great article that discusses both daylight-extension and night-interruption lighting in commercial greenhouses. Can you get an exterior-type extension cord to your plants? You will need at least 10 foot-candles evenly over your plants.

Google: GrowerTalks "Managing Photoperiodic Lighting:
 
W

waterproof808

Well-Known Member
Billy25 said:
I'm doing the same thing with my balcony grow, and no, you will need powered lights of some sort. Here is a great article that discusses both daylight-extension and night-interruption lighting in commercial greenhouses. Can you get an exterior-type extension cord to your plants? You will need at least 10 foot-candles evenly over your plants.

Google: GrowerTalks "Managing Photoperiodic Lighting:
Click to expand...
Not true, I have succesfully used sunforce brand 1000 lumen solar powered flood lights to keep plants in veg and have gotten plants to decent size this way. Having power is extremely helpful but it can still be done with solar lights....just not the weak little pathway lights they sell for $1-2. 10 foot candles equals 10 lumens per sq ft....which is hardly anything.
 
Billy25

Billy25

Member
waterproof808 said:
I have succesfully used sunforce brand 1000 lumen solar powered flood lights to keep plants in veg .
Click to expand...
Just looked those up, and they look really nice. At $49 each, hope he doesn't need too many! I'm using daylight extension with clamp-on work lights and CFLs, but your post got me wondering about night-interruption instead. The article claimed that 4 hours of light was required in the middle of the night, but it sounds like you are doing it with a lot less.

https://www.growertalks.com/Article/?articleid=20668

edit: testing to see if the forum will allow me to post a link.
 
W

waterproof808

Well-Known Member
Billy25 said:
Just looked those up, and they look really nice. At $49 each, hope he doesn't need too many! I'm using daylight extension with clamp-on work lights and CFLs, but your post got me wondering about night-interruption instead. The article claimed that 4 hours of light was required in the middle of the night, but it sounds like you are doing it with a lot less.

https://www.growertalks.com/Article/?articleid=20668

edit: testing to see if the forum will allow me to post a link.
Click to expand...
I got the lights from costco for under $30. The downside to this method is having to turn the lights on every night by hand around midnite....its easy to forget but if you are disciplined you can make it work.
Using the solar flood lights was just an experiment to see how little I could spend growing, since Hawaii has the highest electricity rates in the nation by far (~$0.42kw/h)....vegging indoor for 18hrs a day adds up very quickly.

Alot of outdoor growers in Hawaii use the night-interruption method to veg outdoors...just takes 1-2 hours at midnite to keep plants in veg, maybe a little more for certain strains. Regular 5-10w LED bulbs work fine for this and dont really add anything to your electric bill.
 
Billy25

Billy25

Member
waterproof808 said:
Using the solar flood lights was just an experiment to see how little I could spend growing, since Hawaii has the highest electricity rates in the nation by far (~$0.42kw/h)....vegging indoor for 18hrs a day adds up very quickly.

Alot of outdoor growers in Hawaii use the night-interruption method to veg outdoors...just takes 1-2 hours at midnite to keep plants in veg, maybe a little more for certain strains. Regular 5-10w LED bulbs work fine for this and dont really add anything to your electric bill.
Click to expand...
I'm going to try the night-interruption method myself. Fortunately, I have electric on the balcony, and can use a timer. I hear you on your electric rates, but you are better off than I am in San Diego:

Summer: $.50568
Winter: $.42246
https://www.sdge.com/sites/default/files/regulatory/10-1-18 Schedule DR Total Rates Table_0.pdf
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Billy25 said:
I'm going to try the night-interruption method myself. Fortunately, I have electric on the balcony, and can use a timer. I hear you on your electric rates, but you are better off than I am in San Diego:

Summer: $.50568
Winter: $.42246
https://www.sdge.com/sites/default/files/regulatory/10-1-18 Schedule DR Total Rates Table_0.pdf
Click to expand...
Fuck. The local power utility just instituted peak time billing; it's $.21/kWh during peak hours, and a third of that the rest of the time.
 
W

waterproof808

Well-Known Member
Billy25

Billy25

Member
waterproof808 said:
Those rates are only if you are exceeding your baseline by over 400%. It's $0.20-0.24kwh if you are within your baseline.
Click to expand...
Yes, and the formula for baseline is complex - by design - but is roughly 260kwh for most. Average US household electric usage is 909kwh, so most usage above a household average (those lamps!) is charged at the High Usage rate (4x baseline).
 
Rob Roy

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
Onset of flowering can vary from strain to strain and even pheno to pheno within a given strain.

Some strains "see" low light better than others and will hold off on flowering, so a solar light COULD work, but it isn't going to work on every plant, every time. To up your chances of staying in veg, use a timer and a decent amount of light.

In laymans terms cannabis measures the length of the dark period when deciding whether to flower or not. You may want to google "phytochrome and cannabis" to learn more about this.
 
W

waterproof808

Well-Known Member
Esotericallyme said:
Thank you for the phytochrome and cannabis tip. That gave me some huge help with the learning curve. I am a total newbie at growing in hawaii. View attachment 4227154
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I didn’t learn about this way of vegging outdoor until several years of growing. It’s a great way to keep plants in veg in bigger pots while taking advantage of the natural sunlight.

PS. Check out the Hawaii Growers thread
 
B

bobqp

Well-Known Member
waterproof808 said:
I didn’t learn about this way of vegging outdoor until several years of growing. It’s a great way to keep plants in veg in bigger pots while taking advantage of the natural sunlight.

PS. Check out the Hawaii Growers thread
Click to expand...
Hey matey I'm going to try this method with clones and seedlings outdoors in the rainforest with solar powered led lights. These are the lights I bought. Both solar powered . what do you think of them ? Screenshot_20181230-203708.png Screenshot_20181208-231409.png
 
W

Wethenorth

New Member
ltecato said:
Okay, I'm sure I'm not the first SoCal grower to "invent" this wheel, so I'm hoping someone will save me the trouble of doing the "research" myself. Here is my thinking:

1. It almost never freezes in LA County except up in some mountains where I don't live.
2. Winter won't get cold enough to kill a plant, but the daylight hours will be so short that an outdoor plant will go straight into flowering, especially a clone.
3. But you can buy really cheap solar landscape lights for $1 or less at the "dollar store."
4. If I buy a few of those, I can put them in the ground next to my cannabis clones and maybe they will trick the cannabis into thinking it's summer instead of winter.
5. Then the clones will veg for as long as I want them to.
6. I can remove the LED lights whenever I want the clones to start flowering.

Will it work with the cheap dollar-store LED lights or will I have to spend a couple more bucks on something fancier from Home Depot?
Click to expand...
No it will not
 
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