Grow Light Set-up

[cindiras]

Hmmm! Red/blue LED's, 2 red bulbs to each blue bulb, as close to the top of the plants as you can get them. Heat won't be an issue with the LED bulbs against the plant leaves. One tip- be sure to also have a regular light bulb, incandescent or florescent, to keep an eye on the actual color of the leaves of the plants.

[HHLL38]

Interesting to see other people trying out the LEDs! I thought the same thing about the reviews, very little valuable information to me the orchid grower. Too much emphasis on the wrong plant. ;p

It will certainly be interesting to see, in the coming months.

[Magnus A]

I does not like the combination of red and blue LEDs as they give an awful color cast!

I prefere the white LEDs and I am testing a new Ultra High Output Panel with white LED. Color temperature 6500K, 110 lm/W and a good spectra.
I have good growth over the 3 month I have tested it and I am so confident in it that I started to build a larger orchid cabinet designed for the panel.

This is a picture of my test cabinet after 10 weeks without any other light source than white LEDs.


This is the moss growth during 10 weeks under white LEDs


and as reference the starting condition with grafted moss at day one:

[HHLL38]

The white light is certainly more attractive to the human eye, I just considered it "wasted" energy since the plant does not actually absorb a majority of the light given off in that configuration.

The results from what few tests I've seen have been positive, that's for sure.

[Magnus A]

Sam, looking at the spectrum of these white LEDs I test they have a pretty good spectra with a clear dip in the green with clear peak at 450nm and a very broad peak at 560-650. The small part of yellow-green is worth it for the color rendation.

:-)

[HHLL38]

I was unaware that the color rendition was so spot on while still being white! Very interesting, makes me consider adding to my set-up.

[Magnus A]

Sam, I agree with you about the spectrum.
It has a slight red color cast when I photograph my orchids but the human eye correct for it without problems. The photograph can easily be corrected in the computer afterwards by lowering the red chanel.

You though need to chech the spectrum for the white LED you might consider as they can differ alot! Particularly older designs...

/M