how's it going everyone cj from on
the grow here and today i'm going to be comparing some fluorescent full
spectrum 54 watt grow lights to some berina t5 20 watt led shop lights
these are just garage lights we're going to see how they grow some kale
micro greens so stay tuned for the video alright you guys so like i stated in the intro
this video today what we're going to be doing is another lighting experiment if you guys are new
to this channel what we like to do is a lot of experiments testing out how we can affect the
growth of microgreens and try to get the best product that we can get the healthiest most
juiciest microgreens and we also teach people how to grow microgreens as well as quite a
few other things we're starting to move into house plants and things like that so if this is
something you're interested in please stick around because we've got some awesome content coming
all right guys so let's go ahead and talk about this experiment a little bit and go back and do
a little bit of story time here so ten days ago what i did is i took four trays and i filled them
each with six cups of coco coir per tray and then i seeded it with 20 grams of kale specifically la
canada lacinato last lachinato i don't know how to pronounce it it's dino kale and it is also i think
like a tuscan black kale or something like that either way i see the 20 grams per tray of
this after we seeded all these trays we then watered it with a slight anti-fungal and then
we put this into a three day germination period normally we do four days but after the three
days with the 14 pounds of weight on top we saw that everything was growing so well that
we just put it directly into the light there was no blackout whatsoever we did not need to stretch
this crop because it was growing very aggressively and really really solid once it was introduced to
the light we began bottom watering it with ocean solution 2-0-3 mixed into our tap water at 0.5
ounces per gallon we have a 3-gallon reservoir so that is 1.5 ounces that we mix into that
reservoir and then we ph balance it to the 5.8 ph range these trays then spent six full days in the
light and today is their seventh day underneath these lights and they've been under there for
a few hours now what i need to do is i need to get all these trays pulled off the shelf and we'll
take a close look at the appearance of each one of these before we get these pulled off i just want
to quickly show so the yellow label trays are the two kale trays that were underneath the three
berina t5 leds and then the two red label trays are the two trays that went underneath the two
sunblaster t5 high output fluorescent grow lights whenever you pull microgreens off of a shelf you
really want to scoot your trays over because you can see how they're touching down this middle
if you just pull it forward it's just going to drag all those uh cotyledons together and rip a
bunch off this really helps it self separate them okay so i've got all these trays pulled off and
everything is looking pretty dang comparable and i'm very happy with the growth on all of these
so far i'm loving the consistency it looks like really solid germination across all the trays
the growth looks very even consistent i will say this one fluorescent has a slightly odd area
right here but other than that the rest of tray is looking really really happy okay so let's go
ahead and dive into a comparison on the appearance of these at first glance first thing i'm going
to do is turn off this grow light right here because this pink light cast a crazy coloration
on all this okay so if you guys will remember the two red label trays are fluorescent
and the two yellow label trays are our led lights so starting over here on our fluorescent
trays like i said we have this slightly weird area right here on tray number one but overall the
growth on these cotyledons and the coloration looks really nice i'm loving the greens on this it
is a nice deep green that looks very very healthy we have a little bit of stretching to one side
and i think that this was the uh tray that was on the end so usually what happens is whenever you
have that you'll have a kind of a weaker growth on one side of this tray versus the one that has
uh it's positioned more in the middle of the shelf you can see how much more rounded and well
well grown it is and with the second tray same thing i mean i'm loving the coloration on this uh
cottolins the canopy looks very nice and healthy the rounding to it looks really solid we
have a very uniform growth going on here and as for coloration of stems i am seeing like
a slight purple tinge down here at the base of these stems oh yeah here's one that looks really
good right here it's kind of hard to get that to focus there i love to take my word on it so we got
some purple down there that looks really good on those fluorescents overall i'm very happy with the
growth on these fluorescent trays maybe slightly taller than i would like but i think that's
because their growth space has been hotter than usual on to the leds these as well are looking
super super happy i'm really loving the growth on these and if we compare it side by side with
the fluorescence it seems to be nearly identical with the height and the growth overall i'm not
really noticing a whole bunch of differences here between the coloration and actually i mean
it does these seem to be a lighter green than these i don't know if you guys can really
see that hauling me don't focus on my hand yeah so these do appear to be like a slightly
looks a little bit more neon coloration compared to these which seem to be a bit more muted
and darker which could be healthier growth or healthier growth i don't really know we'll
figure out soon enough again overall loving the growth on these two trays i think that
the leds have done a really great job here let's see if we got some of that purple so we do
have some of that purple here as well so that is actually pretty abundant on these led trays
a lot of this purple coloration down here it seems like it's a little bit more
prevalent nope yep there it is cool on these uh led trays compared to the fluorescents
like i'm just not seeing as much of that purple coloration you guys see that interesting i guess
we'll find out more as soon as we harvest so what i'm gonna do right now is actually ask you guys to
go ahead and smash that thumbs up button because it really does help out our youtube channel if
you guys are feeling extra generous be sure to click that subscribe button and the notification
bells that way you guys get notified whenever we release new videos so let's go ahead and harvest
these i will set up the camera over here so you guys can kind of just check it out from over
the shoulder and watch this thing get harvested you can see how pretty those little stems
are i don't know if you guys can see that purple right there but that is some good looking
stimmage any like little stragglers like this you just go like this and
they'll fall out tickle the roots not supposed to taste it yet all right if
you guys don't already and you grow a lot of microgreens get yourself a little bucket
that you can just throw compost stuff into because it really helps out as you can see all
the mess that's created from harvesting and stuff you just swipe this into your compost bucket
and then toss this into your compost or just into your yard instead of into a trash can
where it'll never actually return to the earth all right so same thing for first glance i'm
seeing a little bit of that purple down here at the base of the stem but not as much
as i was kind of seeing on those leds i do feel like this one has a little bit more than
that first tray of the fluorescent group though overall again i think it's really beautiful
looking and i'm really excited with that product okay i finished harvesting all four of the
trays let's go ahead and take a close look at the harvest weights again and the appearance
of these crops okay so i have all of the product laid out here in front of me we've got our led
harvested bag over here and then our fluorescent harvested bag over there these two trays are these
two groups right here are the leds and then these two groups right here are the fluorescents as for
the fluorescent side we had a harvest weight of 295 grams for one tray and then 305 grams for the
second tray as for the led groups the first tray had a harvest weight of 289 grams and then the
second tray had a harvest weight of 321 grams 289 plus 321 equals 610 total for the leds divided
by 2 equals 305 gram average for the led side 295 plus 305 equals 600 grams total for the
fluorescent so so far leds have one in overall harvest weight divided by two 300 gram average for
the fluorescent groups so that was crazy close and the harvest weights there and the overall winner
for the harvest weight is the led side with a 5 gram higher average than the fluorescent side now
let's go ahead and take a look at the appearance so again we got leds and fluorescent starting on
the fluorescent side i think that the growth here is very beautiful and i love it overall i'm really
happy with the stem coloration i'm not seeing any signs of disease or pathogens or anything like
that the coloration is really quite nice on it let's go ahead and flip it here so we can take
a look at the cotyledons the cotyledons are a really nice green color it is a deep green and
it doesn't seem to have any light spots or too much of anything bad going on so looking between
the fluorescent group right here and the leds over here it seems like the leds are almost just
a little bit darker and they're caution coloration which is actually quite surprising as for the
stems on the led side again i think that they are really beautiful we have a tiny bit of purple
do i see any in here there's just a very faint amount of purple here and overall it's just the
same really solid looking happy growth okay so as for the winner on appearance i'm actually not
seeing any here i noticed a little bit more purple whenever i was harvesting the leds so that was
nice but as i put them side by side i'm not really seeing too much of a difference so i think that
the appearance here is just a draw overall now let's go ahead and move into a taste test so i'm
going to call in a guest celebrity who has no idea which one of these trays are which or which one of
these crops are which so let me go ahead and get her pulled in here mandy will you come here and
taste some food all right so i found this random woman walking down the street and i asked her if
she'd like to be a part of a microgreen taste test and she said what are microgreens so i had to give
her a little pitch that's a very healthy crop that grows in 7-14 days and they're very nutritious so
ma'am can you confirm that you've never known what a microgreen was before this moment i've never
seen a microgreen before in my life so mandy if you would just start digging in and i know
what is what all right first off i have to say walking in here i can smell that brassica flavor
so i think all your products probably really good because it smells really good and i think
let's start on this side we're gonna do this one very light crunch and very mild flavor as well okay so first one you
taste it was very like crunch very mild flavor okay coffee is actually really good for cleansing
the palate that's what a lot of people use for uh cleansing their noses when it comes to
smelling perfume i'm gonna do this one do it i feel like i'm almost kind of similar to
the first one light flavor light crunch yeah i would say those two are pretty identical
okay so the first two tastes are identical i'm grabbing from the third group third group yes
yes she can count a lot more crunch than that one flavor is still about the same though so far
all three groups had basically the same flavor but the texture was different good to know so all
three groups have similar flavor but the texture on that one was just a little bit crunchier
okay and then now for the second group more flavor more crunch all the way on that
one more flavor more crunch on that one okay so what's the what's the winner then not a second
group okay i will say that the flavor is still pretty comparable it was
just like that slight just what if it's my favorite slight um there's a
slight moon okay good to know all right thank you you may continue to walk down the street okay
guys so mandy has said that her favorite was this tray right here which is actually our second tray
from our fluorescent group so this was the t5 high output fluorescent uh trays right here and she
chose that second one as being the overall winner as for all the flavor though she said all of them
had a very similar taste uh the only difference was this one had a little bit more crunch and
this one just had a little bit more oomph as she describes it for the second tray so that
fluorescent tray is the winner and flavor though most of them seem to be pretty comparable okay so
the last thing that i haven't talked about is the actual cost of running these lights and their par
output and all the specs basically on the lights so let's go ahead and talk about the top shelf
first so the top shelf was our sunblaster t5 grow lights which again were fluorescent they
were not leds these were full spectrum and their coloration they had there were two of them at
54.80 apiece bringing the total for the two lights to 109.60 the par output for these two lights was
about 60 to 95 depending on where we positioned the par meter on the shelf the watt and amp per
light is 52 watts and 0.64 amps per light meaning that it costs a total of 21 cents per day to run
these lights the other lights were the berina t5 led shop lights now again these are t5 they
were 6500k and they're light temperature there were three of them at six dollars and 67 cents a
piece which brings a total to 20 and one cent for all three of the lights to be on the shelf the
power output was a little bit higher at 75 285 so actually the sun blasters had a higher total
or i guess a higher peak par output but the par average was a lot better on the led groups staying
between that 75 to 85 compared to the 65 to 95 for the um sunblaster t5 grow lights as for
their watt and amps each the leds pulled 19.6 watts apiece and 0.16 amps and since there were
three of them that means it cost a total of 12 cents per day to run all three of these lights and
that is it for the actual light specifications now let's go ahead and talk about the total cost so
like i said for the leds it was 12 cents per day and for the sun blaster t5 grow lights it was
21 cents per day to run the lights which means for the leds it was a total of 84 cents
for the seven days to run these lights and on the fluorescent t5 grow lights it was
21 cents per day which brings a total to 1.47 to run these lights for the entire seven days of
this experiment now right there we have nearly doubled the cost of running these lights for
the fluorescents compared to the leds and i would say that the growth was actually pretty darn
comparable between the two even though the winner for flavor was kind of the deciding factor there
that went to the sun blaster the fluorescent group but the leds did a great job overall like mandy
said all the flavors seem pretty consistent and very nice across the board so as for the
overall cost of running these lights i feel like the leds is kind of the way to go i really
love the t5s they don't put out as much heat so that's something that i value in my grow space
especially in the summertime and spring and things like that where i don't want these crazy hot
temperatures in my grow space i want to keep that for winter so the fluorescence might
be nice for winter and that way you don't have to use a whole bunch of heaters or stuff
like that but again it does cost more energy and it is a much much higher up front cost
like i said for those two fluorescent lights 110 dollars basically compared to all
three of those berina t5 leds for 20 bucks i mean that's a massive difference to people you
can basically fill up the whole rack right there or you could fill up the whole rack with three of
those marina t5s per shelf for the cost of just one level of that fluorescent t5 grow light so
now i have to choose an overall winner for this experiment personally i'm gonna have to go with
the leds just because they use so much less energy way less up front cost if you use three of them
per shelf and get a similar par output to the two fluorescents then you're gonna get very similar
growth i didn't notice a huge difference between the 6500k temperature which is the color rating
on the light output for these leds compared to the full spectrum of the um fluorescence i was gonna
say something else the fluorescent sunblaster lights above it all right guys well that is it
for this experiment i hope that you guys enjoyed it i'm gonna be testing out these fluorescent
lights a lot more i'm gonna be comparing them to actually these blurble lights let me go
ahead and get those pop back on before i forget boop so i'll be comparing these uh fluorescents
like i said to these uh actual t8 led grow lights from the same company barina as the led lights
above it and then also against these more powerful garage shop lights from marina down here which
are t8s so we'll see how these things will just stack up against all these and what i did is i
did my best to even out the par on all four of these shelves so maybe i'll end up doing like a
whole massive test where we'll do maybe two or four trays per shelf and just compare like a super
overall master guide for each one of these lights compared to each other for like a full grow and
a crop we'll see about that that'll be a lot of work to do that because it'll take forever to
jot down each weight and everything like that and to talk about it individually but it could be
a lot of fun to really get like a master guide to all these lights so hope that you guys enjoyed
this video if you did please be sure to give us a thumbs up if you dislike this video give
us a thumbs down if you have any questions or comments please leave them in the section below
and we'd love to get those answered for you as soon as we possibly can our instagram and our
facebook are both out on the grow farms and our website is www.onthegrowth.net thank you so
much have a great day keep on believing and i was thinking trying to think of something
with lights oh god i couldn't think of a single light joke we'll just leave it there i
feel sad now keep on beliefing and keep it lit you
