Lettuce & Leafy greens
Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 3:30 pm
I have read everything I could on the subject so far on this forum and others. I am new to this forum and wanted to see what some of you think.
I read about lights and HID versus LED and low wattage and high wattage LED's and have a couple of questions.
When you start the germination process and grow lettuce or leafy greens to a baby stage of growth or just for sprouts can a low wattage 14w LED panel do the job?
I am not looking for flowering, just vegetative growth in the start up phases of the plants and then harvesting them.
I have looked at 14w panels in the US and in China between $29.00 and $54.00 and mostly the red/blue or just blue LED's. I think they will work but just not sure how long they will last. Please comment on this.
Also I could build my own 14w panel using LED's on metal strips. The advantage is I can make the size and shape I want and if an LED burns out it can be replaced easily. Please comment of this.
The space I want to cover is a typical 10x20 tray setup with 9 trays in a row. So the coverage needs to be 20"x 90". I was thinking if it were Chinese made 14w panels I would need about 3 panels to cover this space. Do you think that would work?
If I made my own strips I was looking for some help on what I should be looking at?
I have seen setups where some people just use CFL's pretty far away as well as just having lights in the room work and no lights directly above the sprouting trays.
I read about lights and HID versus LED and low wattage and high wattage LED's and have a couple of questions.
When you start the germination process and grow lettuce or leafy greens to a baby stage of growth or just for sprouts can a low wattage 14w LED panel do the job?
I am not looking for flowering, just vegetative growth in the start up phases of the plants and then harvesting them.
I have looked at 14w panels in the US and in China between $29.00 and $54.00 and mostly the red/blue or just blue LED's. I think they will work but just not sure how long they will last. Please comment on this.
Also I could build my own 14w panel using LED's on metal strips. The advantage is I can make the size and shape I want and if an LED burns out it can be replaced easily. Please comment of this.
The space I want to cover is a typical 10x20 tray setup with 9 trays in a row. So the coverage needs to be 20"x 90". I was thinking if it were Chinese made 14w panels I would need about 3 panels to cover this space. Do you think that would work?
If I made my own strips I was looking for some help on what I should be looking at?
I have seen setups where some people just use CFL's pretty far away as well as just having lights in the room work and no lights directly above the sprouting trays.