Some photos, back under fluoro's, and some of the damage done, even to peppers, tho they came thru a lot better than toms. Worst off were the potato leaf varieties of toms. Lost all but a few, and the ones I saved just dont seem to be growing. Top shelf is all new seedlings started a couple weeks ago and never under LED.

Sue_CT wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2023 12:10 pm Here we go again! It is just starting.

What LED's where you using Sue? At what height and what is their color recipe?

I've had a fantastic experience this year with my Spider Farmer SF600's. There's been a learning curve.... I learned that while young, the lights are okay close - I put the tiny newly germinated seedlings under the lights too close but had no damage from them. Once they grew true leaves, I had to move the lights up. My eggplant and peppers don't mind them down close. I have incredible growth on my plants and about 1/3 of my tomatoes have buds. They spent Monday outdoors for a few hours and will go out again today - we had showers T, W so they stayed inside.

I had the lights just a few inches above the plants as tiny seedlings, I kept them close after transplant but moved them up a few inches. I would think the true leaves and larger plants and leaves could tolerate more light, not less, but maybe not. These are already late starts I don't have time for them to recover from damage or stunting of growth as well. I need to get this right or I will be buying all my plants this year.

These tomatoes look alright, I think. Except for the one end of the row of Cherokee Purples, those had the coteyledons turn whitish, then started to twist a bit. It was right under the one end of a HF LED tube array. There is a good bit of purple on the underside of most of the tomato leaves. The lights were only about 4" away.

Yesterday when the pics are are from was the first sun they saw. Mass planted in DE end of March, transplanted to 1/3 peat perlite compost in mid April. If they had gone straight into soil block they'd be bigger by now, 6 inches and ready to plant out. Usually they go outside 2 weeks ago. Last year was the first with LEDs and the tomatoes were only under the lights for about 3 weeks before going outside.

The peppers were started inside around Mar 1, in soil blocks, and I have been ferrying them in and out of the cellar door to a similar rack inside. That is tedious. But they have seen 3 weeks or so of sun. I thought they looked fine inside and I started putting them out with 1-2 small leaves.
I don't think they look terrible, but maybe a little different than I am accustomed to seeing. But I normally plant in soil blocks from the start and I thought the sort of soft appearance was from that, until I read this thread.

Sue, I have never grown with LEDs, only fluorescent, but something looks eerily familiar to some of my own problems over the last few years. Especially that one mottled and burnt looking seed leaf. I have been assuming it is disease of some type, since I have always heard, ‘There is no such thing as ‘too close’ to the light.’ Now I wonder. It sure would be nice to be able to grow seedlings inside again.

I can go from led to direct sunlight no weaning process
Some lights they actually include sunglasses when you buy them.

slugworth wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 3:59 pm I can go from led to direct sunlight no weaning process
Some lights they actually include sunglasses when you buy them.

Yes but what kind of LED do you use. The bad experiences are with non-grow light LED, which do way more harm than good on tomato plants. Full spectrum LED that include some UV seem to work best.

they were the $12 two foot led grow lights I bought from wal mart pre-covid
they don't even sell them anymore
hurt your eyes to look at them.
always 14 inches above seedlings and the plants grow right up to them.
they do get hot,so the only damage is the sauteed effect if they hit.
I have old hardrive magnets glued on the back to stick them where the sun don't shine.

too close damage is probably from the heat,not the UV

slugworth wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 6:27 am they were the $12 two foot led grow lights I bought from wal mart pre-covid
they don't even sell them anymore
hurt your eyes to look at them.
always 14 inches above seedlings and the plants grow right up to them.
they do get hot,so the only damage is the sauteed effect if they hit.
I have old hardrive magnets glued on the back to stick them where the sun don't shine.

Slug, under those grow lights at 14 inches, did the plants get leggy at all? Ran into a lady in town selling plants and she showed me some chaeap but full spectrum grow lights from Amazon, around $10 apiece, 4 footers. All her plants were long and leggy, and I did not want to tell her that, but have been wondering about that issue if I were to try some of theses lights.

I posted about this a couple of weeks ago, and I have some cheap (as they can be) fluorescent "replacement" LEDs - 5,000k, but not grow lights - I got at HD, and they are brighter than the old T8s. Here's one of the last photos I took, before taking them out back, to harden off, and you can see how close they get to the bulbs, with no burning leaves, and they grew great!
The larger peppers, 4 chinense peppers in the back, started a week early, and just 12 jalapeño, thai, and other typically larger varieties in the front. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Here's the same peppers, shown from above:
The larger pepper plants, the 4 on the left the Chinese varieties, about a week older. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I was apprehensive about using these bulbs, since "replacement" LED bulbs for 60w bulbs, and others I had used, were always dim, in comparison. I thought I was going to have to order the old T8s online! (They can't sell them in NJ anymore, and some other states). But they certainly worked well as grow lights!

TheMad_Poet wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2023 8:01 am

slugworth wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 6:27 am they were the $12 two foot led grow lights I bought from wal mart pre-covid
they don't even sell them anymore
hurt your eyes to look at them.
always 14 inches above seedlings and the plants grow right up to them.
they do get hot,so the only damage is the sauteed effect if they hit.
I have old hardrive magnets glued on the back to stick them where the sun don't shine.

Slug, under those grow lights at 14 inches, did the plants get leggy at all? Ran into a lady in town selling plants and she showed me some cheap but full spectrum grow lights from Amazon, around $10 apiece, 4 footers. All her plants were long and leggy, and I did not want to tell her that, but have been wondering about that issue if I were to try some of theses lights.

not leggy at all
my only concern is them getting weaker? over time.
at one time I played with the poor mans' prism (blank cd held at an angle,if you still remember those) to see what the led light is putting out.