Tips and ideas for lowering costs of growing.

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PROMETHEUSRISING

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I'm poor. And working that into my growing is important for my survival. Being disabled I'm always looking for the most efficient, and least expensive option. Having said that, I like to shoot for best possible results. Just throwing out ideas and work arounds I've come up with.

Lights: The absolute cheapest solution I've come up with is a little hair brained, but also possibly the best. General house hold LED bulbs. With cheap extension cords, maybe some wiring, you can cut the the bottom round half off LED bulbs, and turn them into basically flood lights. A 100w replacement bulb puts out 1500 lumens at 14W. If you like you can suspend the bulbs at any height individually, for maximum effect.

My favorite solution however is LED shop lights. Available at Walfart and Harbor Freight for ~$20. 5000 lumens, and 5K color work great, and gives the effect of a four foot t5 bulb. They pull 1.1 amps usually, so you could have ten in a tent with little heat problems and probably lowest energy cost.

General supplies: DollarTree all day. Small waist baskets, Black buckets, oil change pans for drip trays, plastic net baskets... all a dollar each. Seasonally you can also find precision clippers. A little string, some masking tape and you can make little label collars for the base of your plant to keep it identified. Net baskets and poly wool can make a very effective pump filter that won't clog. Measuring cups, shower curtains for floor protection.... think outside the box for uses.

Walfart has emergency blankets for a few bucks. That's a cheap source of mylar for reflective lining. Be sure to secure it adequately to minimize fire hazard.
 
jaynewbie

jaynewbie

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How's the temperature and humidity in your place you're planning to grow?
 
P

PROMETHEUSRISING

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How's the temperature and humidity in your place you're planning to grow?
Actually not planted at the moment. Hope to be soon. Many factors as anyone in the hobby knows. I do have a grow tent I use for veg until flower stage, and then it becomes my flowering point, unless a decent sized closet is available. When I was in the high desert it was easy to keep humidity in the single digits. Where I'm at now I need a dehumidifier to keep it below 30 in flower. Generally, in veg I like humidity 50-80%. Cloning, and babies 80-90% humidity. Blooming as low as I can get it. Veg temps 65-100f. Flower 55-100f.
 
jaynewbie

jaynewbie

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Actually not planted at the moment. Hope to be soon. Many factors as anyone in the hobby knows. I do have a grow tent I use for veg until flower stage, and then it becomes my flowering point, unless a decent sized closet is available. When I was in the high desert it was easy to keep humidity in the single digits. Where I'm at now I need a dehumidifier to keep it below 30 in flower. Generally, in veg I like humidity 50-80%. Cloning, and babies 80-90% humidity. Blooming as low as I can get it. Veg temps 65-100f. Flower 55-100f.


What's your ideal RH in your area? I'm living in a high RH area fyi. My babies are doing fine and lovely around 60-65 RH% during flowering.
But the key is to have a proper ventilation.
 
P

PROMETHEUSRISING

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Currently in a high humidity area. Not so much in the winter, but summer humidity is easily 70+% in summer. My understanding is that plants make more resin in lower humidity to mitigate water loss. So while blooming the lower the hummidity the better. Otherwise, higher hummidities are great for vegetative growth. Unless I've miss guessed what RH is.
 
jaynewbie

jaynewbie

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Currently in a high humidity area. Not so much in the winter, but summer humidity is easily 70+% in summer. My understanding is that plants make more resin in lower humidity to mitigate water loss. So while blooming the lower the hummidity the better. Otherwise, higher humidities are great for vegetative growth. Unless I've miss guessed what RH is.

Oh, it sounded like mine... everyday it's high humid where i'm from. 70% + everyday.
That's true , plants will product more resin in lower humidity, but sometimes the geolocation plays another role.

During veg, it'll be around 68% RH ( This is not really a challenge )
During flowering, now that's challenging for me. Even with a commercial dehumidifier and 2 normal dehumidifier, i can only hit 55% RH with 4 in the tent and i'm using heart of the lungs room method which helps me , sometimes it's tough. I'm thinking of reduce to two during my next growth. Because the more plants you have, the more humid it'll produce. What's the temperature like?

This might help you out
  • Air conditioner: cools the air, reduces humidity
  • Evaporate cooler: cools air, increases humidity
  • Dehumidifier: heats air, reduces humidity
  • Humidifier: heats air, increases humidity
  • Heater: heats air, typically reduces humidity
 
Nugg

Nugg

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Just going to put this out there...plants don't react to lumens..lumens are for human eyes not plants..you should take the word right out of your vocabulary for grow lights...your after a Parr reading..
 
P

PROMETHEUSRISING

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Just going to put this out there...plants don't react to lumens..lumens are for human eyes not plants..you should take the word right out of your vocabulary for grow lights...your after a Parr reading..
There's all different terminology used, and misused when talking lights. I totally agree with that. Having watched dozens of videos where people have actually tested the claims of manufacturers I can safely say correct terms are almost never used by them. While par is a measurement of the 'photosynthesis active range', what the individual plant wants changes. Lumens is a term that can be easily tested and verified.

It's kind of like 'organic'. Manufacturers slap it on the box and charge more.
 
MIMedGrower

MIMedGrower

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There's all different terminology used, and misused when talking lights. I totally agree with that. Having watched dozens of videos where people have actually tested the claims of manufacturers I can safely say correct terms are almost never used by them. While par is a measurement of the 'photosynthesis active range', what the individual plant wants changes. Lumens is a term that can be easily tested and verified.

It's kind of like 'organic'. Manufacturers slap it on the box and charge more.


I agree. Its baseless advertising. Even if accurate PAR doesnt differentiate between red and blue spectrums for intensity so alone it is about useless to determine proposed plant growth.

In my opinion (and Hortilux’ and University of Michigan- from previous reading) wattage or Lumens (intensity) combined with a spectral analysis is the only way to judge light performance. A PAR map will show how well covered things are though. But simple math can handle that.
 
BigCube

BigCube

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I suggest you check out my micro tent grow. It was very low budget. Cost under $100 all in and easily got me over a quarter pound.

Dollar store 100w (15w) led bulbs, amazon 7 to 1 bulb splitter, cheap inline duct fan, lamp timer and a pc fan.
In a tent I made from 1x2 and plastic sheet (panda film).

You can also use cheap fertilizer, MG and scotts work. Just use it at half strength.

 
BigCube

BigCube

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Just going to put this out there...plants don't react to lumens..lumens are for human eyes not plants..you should take the word right out of your vocabulary for grow lights...your after a Parr reading..

Wrong. Just wrong...
Lumens are definitely used buy the plants. A lumen is just a measure of light.
There is no way to have lumens that plants dont react to. I suggest learning more about light and how it works.
This is bad information to be giving to people.
 
scyncegrown

scyncegrown

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Wrong. Just wrong...
Lumens are definitely used buy the plants. A lumen is just a measure of light.
There is no way to have lumens that plants dont react to. I suggest learning more about light and how it works.
This is bad information to be giving to people.
Lumens are for humans my friend.
That is a measure of light for sure but a poor measure for plant lighting looking toward PAR is way more effective and accurate
Lumens however can give you an overall rating of light intensity
 
scyncegrown

scyncegrown

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13
Been playing with this new apogee meter by far the most accurate meter I've seen in a bit. I understand the PAR push back and as MiMedgrower said you can do some math from Lumen reads to get some solid numbers. Looking for PPFD mesures is the best bet always.
 
BigCube

BigCube

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Lumens are for humans my friend.
That is a measure of light for sure but a poor measure for plant lighting looking toward PAR is way more effective and accurate
Lumens however can give you an overall rating of light intensity

Yeah. That has nothing to do with what I said. Look up the lumens spectrum, then look up the par spectrum. Now tell me how you can increase lumens without increasing par.

The reality is both par and lumens cover the same range of the spectrum. Par is a tiny bit larger, so anything in the lumens scale necessarily has to be in the par scale.

More lumens = more PAR. There is no way around it. As already stated, you can do some math and convert lumens to ppfd. There are even websites that will do it for you.

I would like you to address anything I said that was wrong please.
 
P

PROMETHEUSRISING

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Not why I started the thread. But 'lumens' is a measure of light intensity. 'PAR' is a graphic measure of color spectrum emitted. Plants use more Red and Blue than Green. They also can use some non visible spectrums. But to grow a plant requires a minimum amount of lumens, the more the better to a point. And it also requires PAR values to a point. But most White Light contains all necessary PAR values, so it then simply becomes a matter of lumens generated. A 1000w HPS bulb can put out 110,000 lumens. And depending on the PAR values can be a better or worse bulb for growing plants. PAR is spectrum ranges. Lumens is intensity.
 
P

PROMETHEUSRISING

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PAR is essentially a measurement of light emission within the photosynthetic range of 400-700nm. This represents the area of light that plants use for photosynthesis, or to grow. PAR is measured by the amount of micro moles of light per square meter per second.


lu·men1
/ˈlo͞omən/
noun
Physics
plural noun: lumens
  1. the SI unit of luminous flux, equal to the amount of light emitted per second in a unit solid angle of one steradian from a uniform source of one candela.


 
BigCube

BigCube

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263
Not why I started the thread. But 'lumens' is a measure of light intensity. 'PAR' is a graphic measure of color spectrum emitted. Plants use more Red and Blue than Green. They also can use some non visible spectrums. But to grow a plant requires a minimum amount of lumens, the more the better to a point. And it also requires PAR values to a point. But most White Light contains all necessary PAR values, so it then simply becomes a matter of lumens generated. A 1000w HPS bulb can put out 110,000 lumens. And depending on the PAR values can be a better or worse bulb for growing plants. PAR is spectrum ranges. Lumens is intensity.

Yes, well said. Though it is a bit more complex than that. Different plants react differently to different spectrums of light. They do use green, yellow and orange as well as blue and red.

Most plants like a mostly red spectrum like %60 or more red. Then about %20 blue, and the rest mixed in values that actually do have quite an effect on the plant.

Its explained well here:

 
Nugg

Nugg

702
93
In another information article on this site we discuss lumens and how they affect plant growth, but you should be aware that a lot of scientists would argue it’s not the lumens that affect plant growth at all – it’s the PAR (photosynthetically active radiation). Understanding the difference between the two different methods of measurement may seem like nit-picking, but it’s not really. If you’ve read up on this topic you might be forgiven for thinking that they’re one and the same thing at first glance but, like any other information, it takes a while to process.
There really are a lot of terms that you need to get familiar with if you’re going to start a successful grow operation of any size, but taking the extra time now to figure all this out will pay dividends for you in the future. We’re going to take a closer look at exactly what the difference is between PAR and lumens and how this might affect your grow operation.

So What Is a PAR?
Essentially a PAR is the amount of light that is actually available to be used during the photosynthesis process. There may be more light emitted from a particular source, but your plants don’t make use of all of it – some of it has no real effect on the photosynthesis process. It might be best to explain this with an example. For the human eye a bright white or yellow light bulb seems to illuminate the room most effectively, whereas blue or red light appears to our eyes to be very dim and so for us we prefer the brighter bulb to light up a room.
The lumen is a measure of brightness or how much light is actually emitted from any particular light source at a given time. Unfortunately, plants don’t really use that bright yellow light for photosynthesis, and while your traditional light bulb may be high in lumens it won’t necessarily be very high on the PAR scale. Plants experience the best growth when exposed to both blue and red lights and this type of light, while still visible to the human eye, is better measured in terms of PAR’s than lumens. As part of the visible color spectrum blue and red light is found between 400nm and 700nm and as you approach 700nm the PAR exposure increases. As a plant grows from a seed to a mature plant its need for light shifts from the blue to the red end of the spectrum, and you can measure how much exposure to light it’s getting in nanometers by using special instrumentation – the closer the light gets to 700nm the higher will be the PAR reading. As long as you keep your plants exposure between that 400nm and 700nm range at the appropriate levels for each stage of the plant’s growth cycle, you’ll end up with healthy and productive plants.
 
P

PROMETHEUSRISING

45
18
In another information article on this site we discuss lumens and how they affect plant growth, but you should be aware that a lot of scientists would argue it’s not the lumens that affect plant growth at all – it’s the PAR (photosynthetically active radiation). Understanding the difference between the two different methods of measurement may seem like nit-picking, but it’s not really. If you’ve read up on this topic you might be forgiven for thinking that they’re one and the same thing at first glance but, like any other information, it takes a while to process.
There really are a lot of terms that you need to get familiar with if you’re going to start a successful grow operation of any size, but taking the extra time now to figure all this out will pay dividends for you in the future. We’re going to take a closer look at exactly what the difference is between PAR and lumens and how this might affect your grow operation.

So What Is a PAR?
Essentially a PAR is the amount of light that is actually available to be used during the photosynthesis process. There may be more light emitted from a particular source, but your plants don’t make use of all of it – some of it has no real effect on the photosynthesis process. It might be best to explain this with an example. For the human eye a bright white or yellow light bulb seems to illuminate the room most effectively, whereas blue or red light appears to our eyes to be very dim and so for us we prefer the brighter bulb to light up a room.
The lumen is a measure of brightness or how much light is actually emitted from any particular light source at a given time. Unfortunately, plants don’t really use that bright yellow light for photosynthesis, and while your traditional light bulb may be high in lumens it won’t necessarily be very high on the PAR scale. Plants experience the best growth when exposed to both blue and red lights and this type of light, while still visible to the human eye, is better measured in terms of PAR’s than lumens. As part of the visible color spectrum blue and red light is found between 400nm and 700nm and as you approach 700nm the PAR exposure increases. As a plant grows from a seed to a mature plant its need for light shifts from the blue to the red end of the spectrum, and you can measure how much exposure to light it’s getting in nanometers by using special instrumentation – the closer the light gets to 700nm the higher will be the PAR reading. As long as you keep your plants exposure between that 400nm and 700nm range at the appropriate levels for each stage of the plant’s growth cycle, you’ll end up with healthy and productive plants.
No arguments with this. It's science. What it doesn't say is that you need to spend hundreds of dollars on grow lights specifically.
 
OdlaFett

OdlaFett

394
93
You can grow very cheap. All you need is some light, get the best one you can afford. Then just pure cheap soil, dont need perlite etc. Good nutes are 20$, I like flora nova has everything the plant needs and last long time. And one fan. Thats it, you dont need anything else
 
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