Lighting Grow From Underneath?

i went by a buddies place this morning to check out his grow for him and see how things were going.


hes growing in a space about the same size as mine. hes got 8 plants (4ft tall) on flower right now with 1 1000w MH above them (he never uses HPS and always grows nice tight crystallized potent firebud) , but he has a 500w output florescent on the ground shining up into his plants. in the middle of his grow. ive been growing for years and never saw such a thing (side lighting?...yea, underside lighting, no). it did look though like the plants were getting plenty of light up in areas that generally wouldnt get any due to the canopy .


anyone else ever do that?.....looked pretty nifty, i might have to try it myself!

the light he has looked pretty slick. it has a mount on it to, so it could be mounted on the walls on the sides of a grow if wanted.

I've heard of it....never tried it myself. but it makes sense to me....the more light, the bigger and better the buds....:jointsmile:

would you be able to get any pics to show us how he set his up?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by moody420

I've heard of it....never tried it myself. but it makes sense to me....the more light, the bigger and better the buds....:jointsmile:

would you be able to get any pics to show us how he set his up?

---

actually, i can do one better. i went by and got the exact same light at our local hardware store about 1/2 hour ago so i can try it myself. heres a picture of the light hes using ( and i got). it was really cheap, $37.99, its self contained with its own reflector, and puts out 500w of light ( the box says it will cover a 40ft by 40ft area without any issues with sun bright light). the color rendering index on the light is about 80 (out of 100, which is pure sunlight) and it is BRIGHT AS F**K. you cant look at it directly when its plugged in, plus, no heat. it comes with its own swivel base for mounting too. with the light output and as cheap as they are, a person could get several and mount them aove, below, on all the walls all the way around your grow ect and really throw the light out. plus, it says it only uses 10 cents of electricity per kilowatt hour, which is pretty damn cheap. you could put up literally 10,000 watts of light with these things and it wouldnt be shit. youd have to wear some kick ass sunglasses though when you went in your growroom.


my grow room is about 12ft wide ( i think, cant remeber exactly right now, damn romulan) but what im gonna do is im gonna get a couple of more of these (they only had one, so i ordered 2 more) and mount one on 3 sides of my grow and wire them into my timers so when my overheads come on those will to. i can see it now. so much ice clean light on your grow ya gotta turn them off to see your plants!...WoOHOO!

once i can get into my growroom ( after 3pm, its on 12/12) ill plug it up and take a couple of pix and post them

anyway, the one picture is of the lights box, and the other i tried to take a pik of the light with it on, but its just to damn bright.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ShastaCoMan

actually, i can do one better. i went by and got the exact same light at our local hardware store about 1/2 hour ago so i can try it myself. heres a picture of the light hes using ( and i got). it was really cheap, $37.99, its self contained with its own reflector, and puts out 500w of light ( the box says it will cover a 40ft by 40ft area without any issues with sun bright light). the color rendering index on the light is about 80 (out of 100, which is pure sunlight) and it is BRIGHT AS F**K. you cant look at it directly when its plugged in, plus, no heat. it comes with its own swivel base for mounting too. with the light output and as cheap as they are, a person could get several and mount them aove, below, on all the walls all the way around your grow ect and really throw the light out. plus, it says it only uses 10 cents of electricity per kilowatt hour, which is pretty damn cheap. you could put up literally 10,000 watts of light with these things and it wouldnt be shit. youd have to wear some kick ass sunglasses though when you went in your growroom.


my grow room is about 12ft wide ( i think, cant remeber exactly right now, damn romulan) but what im gonna do is im gonna get a couple of more of these (they only had one, so i ordered 2 more) and mount one on 3 sides of my grow and wire them into my timers so when my overheads come on those will to. i can see it now. so much ice clean light on your grow ya gotta turn them off to see your plants!...WoOHOO!

once i can get into my growroom ( after 3pm, its on 12/12) ill plug it up and take a couple of pix and post them

anyway, the one picture is of the lights box, and the other i tried to take a pik of the light with it on, but its just to damn bright.

---

Very interesting shasta man.....thanks for the info....let us know how it goes! :jointsmile:

Dude, the undersides of leaves dont need light!
All this will do is cost u more money.
Now, if ur saying ur friend is using this as extra light in a dark corner thats fine.
But, lighting the underside of leaves is useless.
L8
MJ

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MJACTIVIST

Dude, the undersides of leaves dont need light!
All this will do is cost u more money.
Now, if ur saying ur friend is using this as extra light in a dark corner thats fine.
But, lighting the underside of leaves is useless.
L8
MJ

---

I don't think it's the underside of the leaves that anyone is worried about....it's the underside of the buds when they are in flower! Light being sent from all angles is going to produce better buds....that's why people use mylar or other reflective materials to help reflect as much light onto the plant as possible! :jointsmile:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by moody420

I don't think it's the underside of the leaves that anyone is worried about....it's the underside of the buds when they are in flower! Light being sent from all angles is going to produce better buds....that's why people use mylar or other reflective materials to help reflect as much light onto the plant as possible! :jointsmile:

---

Actually, this makes sense. I've grown in boxes utilizing multi-sided CFL growing techniques with great success. Placing CFL lighting in such a manner along the sides of an indoor grow of relevant proportions underneath HPS lighting just plain sounds right. Yet Iâ??m certain one might want to check out less expensive approaches towards spreading the light such as trimming some leaves from more closely situation plants instead; more from an economic standpoint too.

i didnt put mine under, i mounted it on the wall beside my grow, and pointed right into the nderside of the canopy. only got one, but im supposed to have another in like monday. whats cool is if you turn off the MH lamps, you can see just how much light is thrown off of that 500w output CFL. it put out WAY more ligh t than i thought it would. im going to mount one on 3 sides of my grow. that will give me 1500w of CFL and 2000w of MH light beatin down on the girls......if im not careful there goig to start asking for mieties wit little unbrellas and some sunscreen!

what store i you find that light at i can't find it do you have the part # off the box

never mind i found it

The light from below will compensate for the upper branches blocking light to the lower branches, so I think it is a good thing , BUT, you need to be sure that the Kelvin output of the bulb is close to 2700k. otherwise you are just wasting electricity. Bright does not = correct color spectrum, and the plant wants it's light in a certain spectrum of the color range,,,,,,just like a woman.:jointsmile::jointsmile:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LLLou2

The light from below will compensate for the upper branches blocking light to the lower branches, so I think it is a good thing , BUT, you need to be sure that the Kelvin output of the bulb is close to 2700k. otherwise you are just wasting electricity. Bright does not = correct color spectrum, and the plant wants it's light in a certain spectrum of the color range,,,,,,just like a woman.:jointsmile::jointsmile:

---

That's only true for flowering, and it's not 100% essential. Just helps the buds thicken up since the the extra red in the spectrum promotes the creation of chloropyhll B better than blue.

I think Side lighting is very important when not using HID lighting. Even then it can help fill light gaps. It may help a LITTLE to have it pointing at the underside of the leaves, but moving it to the side would undoubtedly be more beneficial.

they are the correct color spectrum, the box shows they are 75-85% of natural sunlights color range, so they should work PDG

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by moody420

I don't think it's the underside of the leaves that anyone is worried about....it's the underside of the buds when they are in flower! Light being sent from all angles is going to produce better buds....that's why people use mylar or other reflective materials to help reflect as much light onto the plant as possible! :jointsmile:

---

exactly

i picked up a couple of these off of amazon to have as backups, just in case something goes out during indoor season

Amazon.com: 400 Watt Electronic Switchable Ballast Hydroponic Grow Lamp System with Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium HPS Light Bulbs, Cord + Hanger, GYO2002: Patio, Lawn & Garden

they come with an auto-switchable digital ballast, reflector and hangars, 1 400W HPS and 1 400W MH bulbs. ill tell you what, for the money what a setup! very basic, but shit, it even has a 2 year waranty. the reflector design is OK i guess, but shit, you couldnt build a light setup and buy two bulbs for what this whole setup costs. PERFECT size also for closet grows ( i veg my clones in the closet and move them out to the grow room when they get about 12"). great value on this set guys. basic and inexpensive, but WELL worth the money. if you need a primary or backup grow light, this is the one to get. comes ready to go. just attach the hangers, put in the bulb you want to use, plug it in and go..im gonna post this out of this thread to, just in case anyones interested.

The way chlorophyll works, usable light passes through one-way. Lighting from the underside is wasteful, you're better off putting the light inside the canopy, not underneath it.

If you had a centrifuge and could make a suspension of chlorophyll in a test tube, then had an incandescent light to observe the tube, you'll see two different things depending on the orientation of tube and light relative to you. If you held the tube in front of you and had a light next to you, you would see the tube as green. Now, take that light, put the tube between the light and your field of vison, suddenly you're seeing red. This is a characteristic of aggregate chlorophyll. Now the little bit of reflecting light from the undersides of the leaves hitting the tops of other leaves helps, yes, but otherwise quite a bit of light is being wasted.

I've tested this many times in my younger days. Underside lighting is rather wasteful, side or inside lighting is much better.

I did not read the responses but I am sure they were along the lines of my opinion.
Undersides is wast full, Side lighting is much more efficient.
:jointsmile: