Quote:
Originally Posted by drew51
OK, well it doesn't have the wattage info. Spectrum is as you mention, the growth spectrum, not the blossom spectrum. They are plant lights, T-5's at 4 feet, 4 bulb fixture. It's bright!! I'll tell you that! I do not like looking at it. I can also add more lights, but only 2 footers. Like say a side light for mature plants. Right now the foil is useless as they are just seedlings and the light is very close to plants. I actually have a bunch of old I guess T-8 fixtures. I might use them in the future too, they are being useless at the moment.
So in the winter, use the 6K Kelvin? not the 3K Kelvin lights?
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But you said the total input wattage was 230 Watts? If this was a 4-bulb T5HO 4' long system, those are 55 Watt bulbs so the actual input wattage is 220W. At 95% efficiency you'd get about 210 Watts on a projected area at 1 meter from the bulbs. It's easy to measure projected area - just suspend the fixture a meter from the floor and note where the edge of the illuminated area is. Compute the area of that rectangle. (Note: the light fixture must have a top-down reflective hood.) Divide the total wattage by the area and now you know your system parameters. If the area is too big, you can narrow it somewhat by extending your hood. By lowering the light fixture closer to the plants you can also increase intensity: at 1/2 meter the light intensity is double what you measured at 1 meter, and at 1/4 meter above the plants the light intensity is 4 times what you measured.
The 3000K bulbs and this whole concept of "grow" vs. "fruit" color spectrums is a way to sell more product to stoned people growing pot. In trials where everything else (including nutrients) is nearly ideal, there is no efficacy for using 3000K bulbs and in some crops the results are poorer. No one I know in professional agriculture is using them, including the 55,000 sq.ft. indoor vegetable growing facility 3 miles down the road from here.
The 3000K bulbs
do have a use in manufacturing.