Anyone use Barrina or Monios LED lights?

[Shadeflower]

10w

[greyblackfish]

Yes 10 watts. I have so far removed my phals from the lights. One has turned purple from them and I just suspect this isn’t very desirable. My other orchids are doing fine under them. I have one cattleya that is growing very well with them.

[Leareu]

I use Monios LED, but I honestly hate the warm white colour. Plus, they gave a reddish hue to some of my orchids so yeah, not my favourite.

[Jmoney]

recently set up a basement greenhouse with Monios T5. I used Kelly McCracken's (High Desert Orchids) excellent articles on LED growing as a reference.

I find these lights to be quite bright, and even after calibrating to the "proper" recommended levels, using a quantum PPAR meter, I was quickly seeing signs of excess light stress. I suspect that is due to a few things - the windowsill light here in CT in the winter is quite lacking, and the plants need more time to acclimate. Also I had so many plants (shocking, I know) stacked behind each other that they were probably getting a little shocked by all the artificial sunshine. So instead of 12 hour days they are getting 6-8 hour "days" until they acclimate.

But I think in the long run it will be a big step up, especially with better humidity and at least some day/night temp differential. On this rack the lights are set up in 3 parallel banks, 10" apart. usable width about 2 feet.

[jiblylegs]

I’ve been using Barinna t5s and t8s. Many of my plants exhibit some level light stress, but after a year of use I don’t think this is a big issue. I grow indoors and also used High Dessert Orchids to calibrate. The plants make the pigment to offset the stress, and since they are LEDs I have little risk of burning them unless the environment gets way too warm. However up to 88F they are fine. They flower and grow well, and some lower light plants actually make less pigment than the higher light plants. Angraecum Leonis, Cattleya Purpurata, and Vanda Gigantea show no sign of light stress whereas my Vanda Bangkok Sunset and Vanda Garayi are thoroughly purple at the same light level.

[estación seca]

...Barinna t5s and t8s. ...since they are LEDs....

I don't follow. T5 and T8 are fluorescent light tube sizes, not LEDs. There are LED lights made in the shape of T5 tubes, but they aren't T5 fluorescent tubes.

Purplish coloring in Vanda alliance plants during cooler periods may be due to magnesium deficiency. It can be corrected with Epsom salts added to water. It can take a long time for the plant to take up to correct the deficiency.

[jiblylegs]

Originally Posted by estación seca

I don't follow. T5 and T8 are fluorescent light tube sizes, not LEDs. There are LED lights made in the shape of T5 tubes, but they aren't T5 fluorescent tubes.

Purplish coloring in Vanda alliance plants during cooler periods may be due to magnesium deficiency. It can be corrected with Epsom salts added to water. It can take a long time for the plant to take up to correct the deficiency.

They are the form factors barrina sells them as. The product listings give you the PPFD amount they output. The T5LED is ~90ppfd at 8in and the T8LED is ~220ppfd at 8in. The ppfd is in metric. Though my vanda enclosure uses this grow light which I’ve adjusted to 40% giving ~400ppfd at its current height based on my measurements. According to high dessert orchids this is sufficient at 14h on I do.

I’m not sure about magnesium deficiency, I fertilize weakly weekly with MSU and the blush is intensity dependent. My enclosure gets minimum 60F on cold days but is usually 65F at night and gets as high as 80-85F. I’ll see if as the summer sets in and my min temp gets higher if the blush effect lessens.

[estación seca]

A couple of things occurred to me... According to IOSPE, Vanda/Ascocentrum garayi is a medium light plant, not high light. Maybe it's getting more than it needs?

Do you mean this Bangkok Sunset?
Perreiraara Bangkok Sunset
All three of its species ancestors are part shade plants.

[jiblylegs]

I had based my garayi culture off this article and this which say to give it pretty bright light. I've read they can "be acclimated to direct sunlight", but I'm not sure of that much. My Bangkok sunset is definitely getting much more than is needed photo-synthetically.

Though you have me realizing two things. First, "Thoroughly purple" is sort of subjective so I'm including pictures of their color. Second, these are probably the two most stressed out plants of my collection. I've done a real bad job up until a few months ago. I wonder if their root structures just aren't recovered enough and there really is some magnesium deficiency. Vanda Garayi stalled for 3 months and started growing roots again 2 months ago and progress is slow.



You'll see I just started using purely organic last week. Before that it was all 1/4 strength MSU once a week before.

[Jmoney]

Kelly (of High Desert Orchids) just gave a talk this past week at our local OS about LED light growing. She mentioned a phenomenon of excess LED light she refers to as "toasting" - it doesn't appear like sunburn but the affected leaves/growths are wrinkled and disfigured. Not reversible. She thought this was due to excess light (not heat, hence no "burn"), and excess water losses at night through transpiration. I believe she suggested a product intended to be applied to leaves to reduce transpiration water losses.