FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Everyone, after I moved a Royal Red or a Clayton's Red from the LED grow light's shelf to the four-lamp T5's shelf, it seemed to grow faster than it did under the much brighter of the two lights. What explains that besides wishful thinking, hallucination, or potential delusion?

By the way, I'm waiting for a new grow light from (http://www.hydrogrowled.com) because it'll shine even brighter than LED one does. My Dana's Delight keeps reddening under the old LED light. So maybe it'll do even better under the new one.

I would check the spectrum of the two sets of lights. The T5s might actually have a better spectrum for overall plant vitality. Also, the T5s (with a good reflector) might be delivering more light to the sides of the plants, allowing more of the plant to engage in photosynthesis. How are you determining the brightness of the two sets of lights? If the LEDs are blue/red and the T5s are white, it could be hard to make a real comparison of their relative strengths.

What explains that besides wishful thinking, hallucination, or potential delusion?

Almost everyone thinks more light is always better with plants. This is probably usually the case, not only with most plants but also because indoor lights are much weaker than most people realize - they are designed to provide light for human eyes not photosynthesis - and windowsills are pretty dark compared to full sun too.

I think this is not always the case though. Many plants will grow differently in different light settings. Often the plants will grow larger leaves in low light and smaller leaves in high light. Plants in low light often reach a max size bigger than those in high light. The reason is because the plant needs a certain amount of solar energy, and in a high lighting environment, it needs less leaf surface area to capture that energy, so it stays smaller. In low lighting it compensates for low light intensity by growing larger surface areas to capture more light.

It is possible this sort of effect could be causing your growth spurt. Since the plant senses that it is getting less intensity of light, it may have grown more surface area to try to compensate.

A pet theory of mine for which I have no real evidence is that this is probably particularly the case with plants that get pigments and color up under high lighting. I suspect that red pigments actually block the red side of the spectrum from photosynthesis, so the pigmentation is like sunscreen in very high lighting, getting rid of some of the extra light when it is actually a bit too bright. I like the colors obviously so I blast my plants with light to get good pigmentation, but I suspect that the plants that turn red under high light would actually be more vigorous (and bigger) under lower lighting that lets them stay green. The pigmentation looks pretty but it's probably not optimal for the plants. So I don't think your crazy, I believe that your plant might actually be growing faster in lower light.

Thanks, friends. I'll try to check the spectrum of each grow light, especially because I'm still confused about why the plant seems to grow faster back under the T5 lamps. Before I bought my Black Dog LED grow light about three months ago, I gave Kevin Frender, a salesman at Black Dog, an FTS Flaming Lips. About two weeks later, when I asked how it was doing, he told me that "very happy," his phrase, not mine, plant had doubled in size. Then, last week, he said it had quadrupled in it. So since Black Dog uses Black Dog lights in its plant rooms, it's hard to believe that his VFT would be healthier under T5s. Maybe there's something else wrong with the conditions my plant lives in?

Here's a link to information about a light like mine, but mine uses 135 watts. I'm sure you'll understand the technical details about spectra, etc., that I don't understand.

https://www.blackdogled.com/products-le ... 240-u.html

evenwind wrote:I would check the spectrum of the two sets of lights. The T5s might actually have a better spectrum for overall plant vitality. Also, the T5s (with a good reflector) might be delivering more light to the sides of the plants, allowing more of the plant to engage in photosynthesis. How are you determining the brightness of the two sets of lights? If the LEDs are blue/red and the T5s are white, it could be hard to make a real comparison of their relative strengths.

Oops. I forgot to say that the LED looks brighter than the T5s. Maybe my eyes are fooling me? Do I need a light meter?

Entropy81, should I move the plant back up to the LED light's shelf to see whether it slows the little fella's growth now when I'd hate to cause needless shock?

I'm wondering whether I should put the Dana outdoors if the squirrels won't eat it. God forbid that I'd harm any of my plants in any way.

BillMcEnaneyJr wrote: Oops. I forgot to say that the LED looks brighter than the T5s. Maybe my eyes are fooling me? Do I need a light meter?

I'm not sure why the LEDs look brighter to you but I can tell you that a Mark 1 Eyeball is not a good instrument for determining relative brightness between different spectra. Obviously, we humans see not only reds and blues but also the middle of the spectrum - greens and yellows. Plants basically ignore greens (they reflect them, after all) and use reds and blues for growth. So you're trying to compare lights designed for your total visual range and lights that aren't. To take an extreme case, picture a room lit only by ultraviolet and/or infrared light. It would be pitch black to us but they'll be plants that can use it to grow. A standard light meter is going to pretty much measure light in the normal human visual range and not do at all well with specialist red/blue LEDs.

Besides, I've found that my plants have growth spurts and slow periods. Maybe the change in lighting just kicked off a growth phase and it will slow down again in time.

Entropy81, should I move the plant back up to the LED light's shelf to see whether it slows the little fella's growth now when I'd hate to cause needless shock?

Beats me. I'd probably let it settle where it is, like you say to avoid shock and let it get used to it, before moving it again.

If you want to create a test condition to try to find out, I'd say the best way to try to do that would be to propagate the plant (with future divisions or leaf pullings) and put cloned plantlets under each light and see which develops better over a long time. It's trial and error, a lot depends on the plant.

I'm wondering whether I should put the Dana outdoors if the squirrels won't eat it.

Yeah squirrels suck. I don't think they'll eat it, but they may dig it up which can hurt it. I've got plants I want outside inside now because of that... need to get some chickenwire or something to cage them with so the squirrels can't get in the pots.

entropy81 wrote:

I'm wondering whether I should put the Dana outdoors if the squirrels won't eat it.

Yeah squirrels suck. I don't think they'll eat it, but they may dig it up which can hurt it. I've got plants I want outside inside now because of that... need to get some chickenwire or something to cage them with so the squirrels can't get in the pots.

The chickenwire idea sounds great to me. Meanwhile, I'm hoping the squirrels will be too lazy to climb my wheelchair ramp to snack on the Sarr. or uproot him.

Would you please humor a guy with OCD, and change the "but" to "put" in the post I'm answering now? I hate typos. Thanks.

entropy81 wrote:

Entropy81, should I move the plant back up to the LED light's shelf to see whether it slows the little fella's growth now when I'd hate to cause needless shock?

Beats me. I'd probably let it settle where it is, like you say to avoid shock and let it get used to it, before moving it again.

If you want to create a test condition to try to find out, I'd say the best way to try to do that would be to propagate the plant (with future divisions or leaf pullings) and put cloned plantlets under each light and see which develops better over a long time. It's trial and error, a lot depends on the plant.

Another great idea, entropy81, but I hesitate to propagate because the plant is tiny.

Aha! Simple solution: Buy more plants! Get a pair of good ones from Matt or bad ones from the hardware store or take your chances on Ebay. If you're not hand picking them, tell the vendor that you're going to run a relative growth experiment and would appreciate two plants as close in size as possible. And let us know what happens!

evenwind wrote:Aha! Simple solution: Buy more plants! Get a pair of good ones from Matt or bad ones from the hardware store or take your chances on Ebay. If you're not hand picking them, tell the vendor that you're going to run a relative growth experiment and would appreciate two plants as close in size as possible. And let us know what happens!

Will do. I'll buy more plants from Matt because he sells the healthiest ones I've ever seen. The tiny plant came from another nursery, though.

I need to be careful because my botanical family may get to too big. The kids are already keep complaining that sleeping in the compact fridge is like being 15 people crammed into a chartered bus's bathroom.

Yes I think so as the more light the better, what with photosynthesis and all that!