I'm a little behind with this update, but here we go! Another week of timelapse video. Things are looking a little more conclusive this time.
A couple of things:
-You'll see quick strobe of the whole background now and then. These are times I was down in my garage doing something with the lights on.
-The baffle that was keeping each color of light contained on its side of the experiment fell down and flattened a couple of plants, but they recovered nicely.
-Some plants have fallen over on their own. This seems to happen at night. Sometimes they pop back up the next day, sometimes they stay down for a while.
-Neither set of plants appear to be as happy as they'd be under other light sources, but that side-by-side experiment is waiting for the results of this one.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Video Update: LED Timelapse, week one
Below you'll find the first timelapse video of my Red/Red-Blue LED panel experiment. The camera has run from Sunday until today (Friday). So, less than a full week but still interesting. Honestly I couldn't wait any longer to look at the video myself.
Every 13 or so hours the video skips, this is when the lights shut off for the evening and the camera sleeps until the lights come on the next morning.
This video was made using a PlantCam, which I received as a Christmas gift from my wife.
The lettuce isn't exactly growing quickly, but it does a lot of moving around. The root systems did develop quite a bit this week so hopefully that will lead to more vigorous growth in the weeks ahead!
Hrm. I didn't know that Blogger would shrink the video so much. I'll have to upload a hi-res version to YouTube, I suppose;
Every 13 or so hours the video skips, this is when the lights shut off for the evening and the camera sleeps until the lights come on the next morning.
This video was made using a PlantCam, which I received as a Christmas gift from my wife.
The lettuce isn't exactly growing quickly, but it does a lot of moving around. The root systems did develop quite a bit this week so hopefully that will lead to more vigorous growth in the weeks ahead!
Hrm. I didn't know that Blogger would shrink the video so much. I'll have to upload a hi-res version to YouTube, I suppose;
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Photo Update: Time-Lapse test shot (LED Lettuce)
Today the long-awaited red/blue LED experiment has gotten underway. That is, the plants have been moved into their new reservoir below the LED panels. I spent some time today setting up the time-lapse camera and getting the focus/etc corrected. Below is a test shot from that camera, indicating approximately how the time-lapse videos will look. It's a little strange that this setup is totally in the dark, but I want to exclude all secondary sources of light.
Some details you might find interesting:
-The camera is set up to take photos every fifteen minutes during the 'daylight' hours of the experiment.
-The lettuce is receiving 13 hours of light per day, so we'll get about 52 shots per day.
-The lettuce is being fed Maxi-Grow dry nutrient from General Hydroponics, at a concentration of 1 teaspoon per gallon.
-The reservoir holds 7 gallons of solution.
-The solution pH is being kept at 6.5
-Solution temperature is 68 degrees.
You'll notice the camera is set up a bit high, or that the plants appear very low in the frame. This is to make space in the frame for the (hopefully) explosive growth we're about to witness.
Some details you might find interesting:
-The camera is set up to take photos every fifteen minutes during the 'daylight' hours of the experiment.
-The lettuce is receiving 13 hours of light per day, so we'll get about 52 shots per day.
-The lettuce is being fed Maxi-Grow dry nutrient from General Hydroponics, at a concentration of 1 teaspoon per gallon.
-The reservoir holds 7 gallons of solution.
-The solution pH is being kept at 6.5
-Solution temperature is 68 degrees.
You'll notice the camera is set up a bit high, or that the plants appear very low in the frame. This is to make space in the frame for the (hopefully) explosive growth we're about to witness.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Photo Update: LED Lettuce Redux
Here are the test subjects for the LED Lettuce growdown. I have twelve pots of Bullet Romaine Lettuce, which have been germinated and sprouted under conventional fluorescent lighting. There will be six plants under each LED panel so that we have plenty of subjects to even out small discrepancies in the experiment.
As you can see, there has been prodigious germination here, pretty much every seed that I sowed has grown so I'll have to do a cull pretty soon to keep only the strongest-looking plants.
This weekend I will move these guys into their new home and set up the time-lapse camera. Every week I will post the time-lapse of the previous week's growth.
As you can see, there has been prodigious germination here, pretty much every seed that I sowed has grown so I'll have to do a cull pretty soon to keep only the strongest-looking plants.
This weekend I will move these guys into their new home and set up the time-lapse camera. Every week I will post the time-lapse of the previous week's growth.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
New Project: Red/Blue LED Grow-down
It's a week late but as promised, I have restarted the red/blue LED side-by-side comparison. In this new setup all plants will be grown in the same deep water culture unit, with one half of the plants receiving light from a blue LED panel and the other half receiving light from a panel with both red and blue LEDS:
Pictured here is a hasty shot of the system that I set up, shot from a mobile phone. There are a couple of small problems that need to be straightened out before the plants can go in- the floor isn't quite level under the system so the nutrient level would be slightly deeper at one side than the other. Also you can see that the red/blue panel is sagging just a bit and needs its outer edge lifted.
The crop will be Bullet Romaine lettuce (seeds from Territorial Seed Company). Having all plants grown in the same system will eliminate any errors due to discrepancies in nutrient mixing.
Where are the plants? They're all off together in a starter system until they germinate and develop roots, at which point they'll be moved into the deep water system.
One control that is missing from this experiment is a set of plants grown under conventional lighting. After the results of the LED experiment are in, I'll do another experiment using the winning LEDs side-by-side with a more conventional compact fluorescent grow light.
As a special treat, I'll be tracking this experiment via time-lapse camera, so there should an interesting video to watch at the end of things!
Pictured here is a hasty shot of the system that I set up, shot from a mobile phone. There are a couple of small problems that need to be straightened out before the plants can go in- the floor isn't quite level under the system so the nutrient level would be slightly deeper at one side than the other. Also you can see that the red/blue panel is sagging just a bit and needs its outer edge lifted.
The crop will be Bullet Romaine lettuce (seeds from Territorial Seed Company). Having all plants grown in the same system will eliminate any errors due to discrepancies in nutrient mixing.
Where are the plants? They're all off together in a starter system until they germinate and develop roots, at which point they'll be moved into the deep water system.
One control that is missing from this experiment is a set of plants grown under conventional lighting. After the results of the LED experiment are in, I'll do another experiment using the winning LEDs side-by-side with a more conventional compact fluorescent grow light.
As a special treat, I'll be tracking this experiment via time-lapse camera, so there should an interesting video to watch at the end of things!
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