Happy Wednesday!

I'm wondering if any esteemed Nexians have had good (or bad) experience keeping cannabis mother plants under LED lights. Any details you'd be willing to share would be much appreciated.

Peace & Love,
Pup Tentacle

Yes and no

I have exclusively used LED for growing herb for the last 4 years before I was HPS all the way. Have no mother plant though.

Depending on the scale of your setup LED lights can be the best thing going. I would never use them to substitute a 600 or 1000w hps as the cost vs efficiency would not be worth the effort.

For a small scale grow IMHO LED lights can not be beaten.

However I would advise against buying a pre built unit especially anything like a UFO (red traffic light with a couple of blues thrown in).

Pre built lights are usually either rubbish or massively overpriced and they often make outrageous claims (90w to replace 400HPS or all cree LEDs when cree make no 660nm diodes) snake oil anyone? I emailed one reputable manufacturer once to ask why there 300w output light only used 235w of power and they email back to say it was because it was really efficient. I emailed back to say that if they had a device that could output more power than it consumed then they should focus on solving the worlds energy crisis rather than make grow lights. Tossers

What you want is to get some aluminium panels sized up for your grow space and mount the diodes to that.

You want red 660 and 625nm and blue or violets in the 425 to 465mn range. And use good quality emitters such as cree. There is a real good site called L e d g r o w. e u in which the author has doucumented the evoulition of his panels and grows completed with them. I would recommend reading it as it has good information regarding the true results you can achieve, some science that is not made up and instructions on how to build a panel. You can also buy a good pre made panel from there.
Before you ask I do not know the man running the site or have any affiliation.

Led group buy is good for components and where I got some of my parts.

Thing to remember with led is that you have the option of multiple sources of light so with carefull positioning can avoid any shading on your plants. That is where most panels fail. They have a similar footprint to an hps with a reflector but lack the power of hps. The LEDs get hot run less efficiently and loose the benefit of providing good coverage.

Hopefully my ramblings have provided some help let us know if you need anything more specific

Regards

No experience with LED personally, but I have a 4 foot T5 setup that does alright. Very efficient with power use and the bulbs last forever and don't cost a lot to replace if they do go out.

I've had my Tangerine Dream mother under a T5 veg setup for about a year now and she loves it. All my clones love it too.

... Is the right answer.

Thanks for the replies...

I'm using T5s for veg and mothers as well and am pretty happy. From the research I've done it seems like LEDs have a ways to go before they'll replace those T5s. I was just hoping to cut down on electricity consumption, but not for 17 bazillion dollars.

Thanks again

Would not say LEDs have a way to go 1.2 to 1.3 gpw speaks for itself. Diffrent light systems suit diffrent grows it all depends on your situation what is going to work best. Buying a led in the hope that it will pay for itself through electrical savings is however a false economy.

Pick your lights depending on your individual requirements. I like the fact you can space Leds out to get good coverage in a small space and get them within a few inches without burning plants.

If light output vs inital cost is a concern a HPS light wins hands down every time. HPS also beats led and t5 for the amount of input energy that is converted to light.

Fair enough, I should have put it differently... LEDs have a way to go to fit MY situation and needs.