| LED Gardener |
In This Issue Measurement of Growing Lights Grow Kits That Work Featured Distributor Phantom Plants Dracut, Massachusetts 1-978-761-6348 www.phantomplants.com Featured Product ABP5 LED Aquarium Light Professional model with 5 LED clusters Ideal for Saltwater Tanks, and Freshwater Tanks Over 20" deep. MSRP $305.00 Receive 10% off of your purchase of the ABP5 model in the month of July by simply mentioning that you are a reader of the LED Gardener. (Enter into Special Requests if using our website shopping cart.) Order now. 1-866-414-7244 Care to Comment? The LED Gardener appreciates all the input we receive from our readers. If you would like to submit an article or pictures; or if you would like to comment on a current article please send submissions and comments or questions to: admin@led-grow-master.com You are receiving this email because you subscribed at led-grow-master.com If you do not wish to receive this newsletter :Request your name removed by emailing angela@led-grow-master.com Contact LED Grow Master Global, LLC: Admin@led-grow-master.com |
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| July 1, 2009 Volume 4, Issue 7 |
Measurement of Growing Lights
only light, and not as it relates to plant growth. Light meters are designed to measure “natural” sunlight, not artificial light of any type, light meters are designed to only measure light based on human vision. From this basic understanding comes the quantum light meter, which measures light energy in a scientific way. However, today’s quantum sensors were again designed to measure “natural” light not artificial light. Indeed, quantum sensors have a large margin of error when measuring traditional man- made lights, and an even larger error when measuring LED based light, especially red and blue LED light. It’s use for artificial light of any type requires a translation table based on wavelength and plant absorption ratio. The LGM5 grow lights only output active photo radiation. PPFD is an unweighted measure, meaning each photon is counted regardless of its ability to power photosynthesis. This can be used to compare the plant growing ability of like luminaries (i.e. Two HPS lamps, or two metal halide lamps, etc.), but is meaningless when comparing dissimilar devices. Two lamps, one producing nothing but green light plants can't use, and another producing only light plants prefer, but with the same PPFD, would be counted equally from a PPFD standpoint. This is absurd from a 'plant growing' perspective. So how do we measure? The basic outline is: you divide the light by wavelength slices; this is done using bandpass filters. A bandpass filter only allows light of a prescribed wavelength(s) to pass through the filter. SolarOasis uses 10nm slices from 400nm – 750nm. The bandpass filter is attached to the Li-Cor quantum sensor, which now limits the light entering the quantum sensor to a 10nm window, all other light wavelengths are reflected by the filter. The quantum sensor, with filter attached, is positioned at one end of a 25cm white tube 2 1/4" in diameter. At the other end of the tube is attached the light source. In our case the light source is either a single LED or a cluster of LEDs. SolarOasis uses the single LED mount to qualify new LEDs for our process. The cluster mount allows SolarOasis to measure the total light emitting, by 10nm band slices, from a single cluster. This is useful in measuring changes to the cluster power method or to compare a new cluster to an old test cluster to detect any light degradation. The tube is sealed on both ends around the sensor and light source to eliminate any stray light. Once the measurement is taken, it is then fed into a computer application written for SolarOasis engineering. This math application now compensates the raw reading for loss transmission in the band pass filter, provided by the band pass filter manufacturer (Intor). Then it is compensated for the loss in the quantum sensor as described by McCree and Bugby in their published work. This then provides a true measurement of photons emitted by any LED light source, by wavelength, by importance to a plant based on the known absorption curves. --CEO SolarOasis
In my quest for new products that work well with our LED growing lights- I recently realized that I should have been looking for old products that work well with LEDs. This is where I found SonicBloom. Dr. Dan Carlson's story is one of a true American hero. He dedicated his life to solving world hunger. Dr. Carlson developed a method that allows the grower to harvest in fewer days, using less water, less herbicides and pesticides, yielding larger crops, with more nutrition, and a longer shelf life. Imagine a full grown sprout every 72 hours with a 30-day shelf life instead of the three or four days that is typical, or a 15 foot tomato plant bearing more than 800 tomatoes. His work earned nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001,2002, and 2003; “Prestigious awards for great agricultural accomplishments” from the Japanese government; “Humanitarian of the Year”, from the Institute for Human Potential, and a place in the Guinness Book of World Records to name a few. The idea is, certain sound frequencies allow plants to absorb more nutrients. Plants have millions of stoma, (mouth-like pores) on their leaves where plants breathe, nutrients are exchanged with the environment, and oxygen is released. Dan Carlson’s program utilizes the harmonic frequencies of bird songs, crickets, and even a bit of classical- broadcasted over crops causing the stomata to open wide while a misting machine or spray bottle with a special foliar applies organic nutrients to the plants’ leaves. Sonic Bloom grow kits include Organic Foliar Spray, Sonic Sound CD and easy to follow directions. It took Dr. Carlson twenty years to perfect the sound frequencies and nutrient combinations needed to make the original “Sonic Bloom”, his discoveries have been confirmed and well documented by independent researchers and growers throughout the world for over 30 years. Dr. Carlson remains a passionate advocate for the hungry and is currently retired in Wisconsin. He has passed the torch to the next generation (Dan Carlson Jr./you/me) to ensure his contributions continue to benefit the world. --AL |
