3 on/9off utilizing DIY 730nm PFR pontoon and a tentacle of light

It will flower of course but it will be a very immature plant with a small root system and smaller fan leaves meaning poor quality in every way. Poor yeild, poor high, por size. And with so little little it will also be slow, fluffy, and lack luster in taste smell and high

FilthyFletch said:

It will flower of course but it will be a very immature plant with a small root system and smaller fan leaves meaning poor quality in every way. Poor yeild, poor high, por size. And with so little little it will also be slow, fluffy, and lack luster in taste smell and high

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entirely possible... and maybe even probable. Point is, i found several growers who said they were happy with less than 12 hours of light - down to as low as 6-7. I figured I could try to take it to an extreme and work backwards if needed based on results.

update - I changed lighting to 6on/11off on 2/21. The plant has been swelling over the last week or so, I'll look at the trichomes later and see if it's done yet. In this test, I don't think I successfully sped up maturity in the slightest bit by manipulating the photoperiod as it's been in flower for 65 days now. From some reading in SDS threads, it may be different if I use 730nm during lights on so I may queue up another test.

Interesting you say 730nm at lights on..

the one run where I gave lots of 730 all 12/12 stretched like crazy but the plants did seem to finish thoroughly. Instead of foxtails or new flowers in late flower they just seemed to completely "ripen"

Seems to do more when on the whole cycle?

these 730s are quite hard to nail down...starting to think they do the most when on the whole cycle in a small amount...kinda like how sds uses a few high cri low kelvin leds

If I'm interpreting correctly, SDS seemed to imply that he thought 730nm would speed up maturity (maybe specifically paired with 660nm - can't remember). I need to re-read his notes and make sure I'm not misrepresenting his thoughts.

Any updates caretak3r?

Has anyone successfully shortened the flower-time?

Also, what happens if 730nm is used throughout the night?

8/10 said:

Has anyone successfully shortened the flower-time?

Also, what happens if 730nm is used throughout the night?

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I haven't had the chance to revisit this lately - I do plan on running another full flower cycle on 6/11 in the not too distant future so I'll start a new thread when I do that.

8/10 said:

Has anyone successfully shortened the flower-time?

Also, what happens if 730nm is used throughout the night?

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What happens?...

I did a test with 15 minute 730nm pulses every 2 hours throughout a 12 hour night. Holy shit did it stretch.

At first I concluded that the FR interruptions at night were delaying flowering so after 3 weeks of this, I stopped doing it. It finished in the normal time, so it seemed to not interrupt flowering.

Now that I'm doing the same strain again without FR interruptions at night, it stretched a lot in those first 3 weeks regardless!!

So the results were inconclusive, but show evidence toward the FR interruptions not causing a serious issue.

8/10 said:

Also, what happens if 730nm is used throughout the night?

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churchhaze said:

I did a test with 15 minute 730nm pulses every 2 hours throughout a 12 hour night. Holy shit did it stretch.

At first I concluded that the FR interruptions at night were delaying flowering so after 3 weeks of this, I stopped doing it. It finished in the normal time, so it seemed to not interrupt flowering.

Now that I'm doing the same strain again without FR interruptions at night, it stretched a lot in those first 3 weeks regardless!!

So the results were inconclusive, but show evidence toward the FR interruptions not causing a serious issue.

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I read somewhere that outdoors,there is background 730 nm at night so it's always present.

With FR present in my last grow, from the start of week two to near the end of budding, I was able to harvest the fruit a week sooner than expected (@53x days rather than ~60x days).

I could have went the full 60x days or even longer, but I was on a schedule so it worked out great - turned out to be my best overall grow despite the surprise seeds.

Would two ledengin 740nm 5w leds work in a 3,5sqf? I am about to order. Main question is the 740nm vs the regular 730..

8/10 said:

Would two ledengin 740nm 5w leds work in a 3,5sqf? I am about to order. Main question is the 740nm vs the regular 730..

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Rather get yourself some Cree XP-E photo red. It's way more efficient and should be cheaper, too.

alesh said:

Rather get yourself some Cree XP-E photo red. It's way more efficient and should be cheaper, too.

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Photo reds are 660-670 nm.

the king of farRed

GF CS8PM1.24
Osram
OSLON SSL 730 nm (far-red)

Product Features

• Color: 730 nm (far-red)
• Radiant Efficiency: typ. 36 %

Hey 8/10, from what AP has sad that would be plenty of FR for that space. Weren't you part of my FR question thread, I believe we surmised that you would only run FR for a short period at lights out to change Pfr to Pr, which happens in a matter of minutes instead of hours with the FR. Since you can only obtain 97% Pr at lights out I believe there is no value to running FR any longer than that, especially if your worried about efficacy. A far as running he FR during the day, were looking for the Pfr to be dominant ( max 85%) so we'd want as little FR as possible during the day. Keep in mind at lights on Pfr and Pr are constantly changing to the others form. If you have the same amount of Fr and R you would achieve a balance of 50% Pfr and Pr, that's not what were looking for, so at lights on with no Fr you would be able to get to that max of 85% Pfr.

8/10 said:

Would two ledengin 740nm 5w leds work in a 3,5sqf? I am about to order. Main question is the 740nm vs the regular 730..

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They list the peak wavelength on those. If you look at the data sheet they put out light Between 723nm and 745nm. So the middle would be 734nm which is close enough to 730nm. I run 4 of them in a 4 x4 space a bit of over kill. But they would work fine, I personally would go with 3 in a 3 x 5 tent or grow room though just to make sure all the leaves get a taste of the 730nm light. What part number you looking to buy mine are rated @ 6.3 watts per a star if ran @ 700mA ?

md2of2, yeah I was mainly concerned about the 740nm vs the 730nm but as Javaco points out it's close enough. I already ordered two of those guys even though they were on the expensive side, I like LedEngin a lot for some reason, so it's good. Could only find china and one seemingly old cree model of far red on ebay and aliexpress, so when the ledenigns appeared on ebay I just went with it.

I'll be using them, as prescribed, for a short period after lights out. But experimentation is definitely something I look forward to! like what caretaker has been doing in this thread. I just saw some kind of article where they've been studying the "cocklebur" whatever the heck that is, and it seems they definitely shortened the required amount of "night" in order for the plant to go into flower, with 730nm.

Cocklebur is the plant they were using as study, very common here in cali. Do you have a link to the article?