Today’s Old Man Geek-ity: Do cheap metal reflectors matter THAT much?
I’m just doing two plants in a 4x5 tent right now. I have a 1000W HID set up. I use a CoolTube (6" inch diameter glass tube that contains the burning bulb).
I am NOT, however, using a reflector.
The shadows cast by the light are pretty dense. This is especially true as I move the plants closer to the light, of course. I’m talking about the buds toward the bottoms of colas, yes, but also simply the way they shade eachother. I am LITERALLY turning the plants a 1/4 turn every 3 hours while the lights are on. (Note to self: build lazy susan to do this for me).
The shiny inside of the tent doesn’t seem to mitigate the shadows.
I’ve thought about building a sort of parabolic “floor” just underneath the canopies, but over the container edges, that is made of reflective liners and car dash visors, etc. (Imagine early sun tanners, who held a metal reflector under their chins to create a more even face tan.)
I will probably end up doing this with measurements somehow, but just off the cuff: if I put my crappy metal reflector on TOP of my CoolTube, how much of a difference would it make? (I would literally try it myself, but – long story short – it’ll be a bit of a PITA for me to do it, at this point.)
Just a point of reference. I saw PPFD value difference of 10-20% with tent door open vs closed using LED. Thats just from a reflective door on the side.
I saw a rotisserweed somewhere. Can’t find it here may have been on reddit.
Anyway I’m pretty sure putting some reflectors around should help with light penetration. You may also benefit from a defoliation. That can open up your plant and allow for light penetration to those covered sites. I also will trim off everything below the net. That way if I can ill tuck big fan leaves down below the canopy rather than always hacking at them.
HIDs are ‘point source’ emitters, they lend themselves to a light mover setup to beat the shadow problem.
Have a look at the LED ‘bar’ lights (where the LED strips are mounted to parallel bars for a distributed source) if you decide to upgrade.
The efficiency is higher so you will see a nice power savings and you will ‘save a pile’ on bulbs over the lifetime of the LEDS.
Reflectors definitely make a big difference. My yields went up significantly on my third grow when I added parabolic reflectors, then even more next year with light movers.
I’m sorry about brainfarting my reply – I lost track of this. Your advice was hugely important to me during this (my current, about to end) grow. I did end up doing a fair amount of defoliating, and totally took your advice about trimming underthing under the net (then I removed the tent). Thx a TON for this. HUGELY important to me.
)