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ongodsmountain

Optimal ratio of colors?

ongodsmountain
11 years ago

What is considered to be the optimal ratio of blue, red, orange, white LED light for growing fruit bearing vegetables?

and what wavelength orange and white is best?

Or is only Red and Blue desired?

Comments (2)

  • dowlinggram
    11 years ago

    You can drive yourself crazy trying to answer this and you may not get a straight answer then. You may spend big bucks buying full spectrum bulbs with no better results than you can get with T8 daylight bulbs.

    The proof is in the pudding as they say. Many of us get fine results with T8 bulbs so I don't care what the perfect ratio is. My main concern is growing bushy healthy plants to set out when the time is right and I get those results with T8 daylight bulbs set about an inch from my plants

  • ongodsmountain
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I am building an indoor grow box right now.. Made a bed heater last week, and will be making another later... Have the plywood on my router table and am designing the box now.. hoping to cut it today..

    I have several tomato and pepper seedlings on the heater now, about 3 days into germinating, and I see the first sprout this morning...

    So I need to get going... The idea is to build a box that I can use year round.. To start seeds and plant them during the summer months, and to eventually grow during the winter months indoors...

    For now, I have (3) 25w 5800k CFL bulbs I will use on these plants (coverage of an area 14" x 27").. The box will have a light hood that can be raised and lowered to the plants, and the heaters will be in two platforms that can be raised to different heights...

    I have till this fall to decide on what lighting I will need to add for indoor winter growing...

    Once I have success with this first box, I will build more...

    So, my first question is this.... The interior base dimension of this first box will be 30" x 30"... What size pots, and how much total maximum interior height from the heated base to the bottom of the lights will I need to grow tomatoes in the box?... Only trying to get a couple tomatoes a week off of the things... Eventually increasing production some and adding other veggies as I learn and get it all dialed in...

    My second question is regarding the lights... Planning on adding at this point 5 red 2' LED tube lights (11watts each), and 1 blue 2' LED tube light (11 watts)... The CFLs and LEDs will be on different timers... And I plan to make the interior of the box as reflective as possible... Thinking about possibly mounting a couple of the red tubes down near the tops of the pots... (opposite sides of the box)..

    thoughts?

    Does this sound like enough light?

    This post was edited by ongodsmountain on Sun, Mar 17, 13 at 12:21

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