I normally start my plants under fluorescent grow lights, indoors. I put them in the ground in the Great Northeast June 1st. I just replaced my old tubes with 6500K LED’s. Will I fry the seedlings if they come up 12" below these lamps? Should I raise the LED’s or replace the CFL lamps for the first few days. I normally begin with five Blue Haze seeds and settle for four healthy plants. They grow to eight feet, occasionally ten feet, and produce a pound per plant after trim.
Thank you and best regards,
Dick
What’s the wattage of the new led? ![]()
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Nice, what height do you put that above the seedling and what intensity do you use for the first 2 weeks?
Start out at 50% then raise intensity to 100% as they grow. ![]()
As for height, about 1 foot+ above throughout.
I’ve used T5s and full spectrum LED. Keep the PPFD around 250 and roll with the LED fixture Grow Bro ![]()
what he said, PPFD around 250 and you can use the photon app to measure it to get your light at the correct height
I start 95 percent of my clones under a led tube shop light from Wally World, works well and not going to fry clones or seedlings under those. The 6500 kelvin is a good choice to keep them from stretching and being leggy on you.![]()
32watts
I have not used LED’s for weed. I have only used CFL’s. From what I’ve read, 11" is a good place to start with 2 48" daylights.
You guys are losing me. PPFD? Photon app? Change intensity? I appreciate you bringing me into the 21st Century.
32 watts each bulb?
Still it’s low enough wattage to not be over concerned with burning.
That’s what I wanted to find out, make sure you wasn’t starting with a big light ![]()
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11" should be a good starting point. I use a 65w BIY led light for my starts and I’d say I’m between 12-16" for the first day or so to see how they react.
But my light is a small square. Yours is 4’ long so not concentrating the wattage straight down.
Down load the free Photon app mentioned above ![]()
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I’m relatively new but the 1 thing I’ve nailed everytime is a strong resilient seedling and in my admidetly inexperienced opinion I personally believe it’s better to start the seedling in the environment the plant will spend it’s time in once established, I have by far had better outcomes when I did not optimize for seedlings in vpd and light, rather I found the plants I allowed to acclimate naturally, even if they looked stressed the 2nd day from emergence they always took off crazy fast and were incredibly tolerant of cold fronts, vpd swings and innapropriate light intensity, when you compensate for the plant , at least in my experience, the result is a more dependent/reactive plant. So idk what the “ right “ answer is but I’d personally start em out in sun if they’re living in sun, ever take a ppfd meter from your grow light to the sun? The difference is staggering, the sun pins the meter, so if that’s what they’re going to long term I would imagine there will be a stress period while the young plants adjust to the intensity , and other metrics. But then again I’ve never done outdoor stuff so maybe I’m off base but I found it intriguing ![]()
I had some seeds left in larf buds from a seed run I did last year, threw them in burn pile. Some must have missed or not burned as several plants came up in their own, the seeds weren’t even buried. It grew to about 4 ft and finished decent for the humidity we had. They sprouted and grew in full sun.![]()
One time I decided to add a late addition seedling ( one time
I have 1 grow!) and I thought that since I’d dialed my environment for 3 week old plants I might need to use a humidity dome, something I only use for seed sprouting, the only seed I ever did that with, the “ problem” cams when I decided to remove the dome, I lift it and not kidding the little demon sprout curled it’s leaves into 2 terrifying devil horns! lol
so I said “ oh my, I do so apologize little demon seedling “ and I returned its dome, the horns receded and then I tried lifting it slightly when little miss Abadon wasn’t paying attention to slowly harden her off, to this day that plant still throws the first fits, she’s the most reactive to her environmental shifts in comparison to her tent mates , the ones i acclimated naturally are just tougher plants. I realize it’s a minuscule sample size but it was enough for me to understand that these plants are more capable than most think, and stronger when conditions aren’t so perfectly dialed in so I try to shoot for consistency over perfection of metrics and I’ve had decent results


