Quote Originally Posted by farredeyed
I'm trying to absorb all this as fast as I can, and.. my brain hurts. Mother, Salmayo, DogsNova, Has there been a formula established as to how long it takes for red(and how much red) to convert phytochrome to only absorb far red, and then how much far red it takes to convert back and how much time that process takes?

Do I have the whole concept wrong? It seems this whole thing is taking advantage of being able to control light frequencies indoors and using red and far red to bounce the phytochrome back and forth unnaturally to feed constantly and speed up growth, while keeping blue seperately controlled.

I do not, at all,understand how introducing yellow, orange or green would make sense. If the plants photosynthesis of light is much lower rates at those frequencies, why not just use that electricity to add more red or blue?

I do understand UV-b is debated to be usefull. If one were leaning twards wanting to try some uv's in that range, would they have to go in during the blues time slot?
We've eliminated the formula for conversion time (in our fine tuning tables, last step) in favor or a more standardized "Given" time (half for the first spectrum, half for the next), but greater range of the adjustment increases the real time needed and higher intensity decreases it (we currently use 3 - high, medium, and low intensity ranges). Which means we then have 6 numbers to look at in the (fine tuning) table, but we'd REALLY like this to be just one generic number.

It sounds like you have the concept right, but light spectrums tend to be the first thing to consider, then time factors based on the spectrums.

Just a note - The words unnaturally and artificially are interchangable, but unnatural tends to be applied more to things that are viewed as unhealthy, while artificial finds more use when discussing improving upon nature (which of course is unnatural by definition.)

We're interested in Yellow, Orange or Green since Red is comparatively slower without Far Red and Far Red is expensive in most terms. (One question to consider is, how much Far Red can you DO WITHOUT, to save money on equipment and electricity?) What would you do If you got the same yield from a Watt of Orange as from a Watt of Red PLUS half a Watt of Far Red, and the cost of 1 Watt Orange was less in terms of initial equipment investment and electric bill? I'd not pay for the extreme cost of Far Red LEDs, unless the cost of the Orange LED frequencies were more extreme for a particular application.

What you want will dictate what you do, several people may want several different things in terms of extremes and even variations.

We've (TP's) sworn off UV, particularly because of it's carcinogenic nature and especially because it doesn't do what people HOPE it will.

I hope this helps FarRedEyed.

Till next time everybody,

Take Care, Sal. :thumbsup: