Starting hot pepper plants under grow lights

[alexen]

HI everybody.

I have a few different grow lights, some which are fairly low power, which I use for microgreens/seedlings, and also some very powerful HLG 100 V2 4000K lights, under which I am growing mature or more mature plants.

Now I am in the process of germinating a lot of hot pepper seeds. Until now I have been starting the pepper seedlings under low power lights. After thye grow a few sets of true leaves, I transplant them and put them under the HLGs.

But it would be much more convenient and cost effective for me if I just put eveyrthing under the HLG lights from the get-go and had all my plants together there. The reason I have not done this I am concerned my seedlings might turn out spindly and not grow well. Under the low power lights I put them right under the light as they grow, and they seem to do great that way - but I know if I put them this close under the HLGs it would probably burn them up!

HLG recommends the light remains 15"-18" from plants, but they do not distinguish between stages of growth. My intuition is seedlings would need to be put at different distance?

Should I be able to grow everything under the HLG, and if so does anyone have suggestions about the best distance for seedlings from a more powerful light like that? Does it need to be different from the manufacturer's suggestion for the seedlings to thrive and not turn out spindly?

Thanks for your feedback!

 

[Logan]

Hi I don't use grow lights so here's a video about growing chillies under lights.

And here's a follow up

 

[NigelJ]

Put them a sensible distance below the more powerful lamps. They become spindly because of insufficient light, not too much. You have to put them close to the lower power lamps to get sufficient light and you can do this because less heat is produced. So under the more powerful light just put them further away.
Light intensity drops off roughly with the square of the distance from the lamp.

 

[alexen]

Thanks for the replies!

So I've done an experiment the last couple days.

Kept a couple of pepper seedlings under the low power lights, and put a couple under the HLG, at different distances - one closer, one further away.

For whatever reason, the seedlings under the low power lights are growing faster and getting bigger than the seedlings under my HLG lights. I barely notice a difference in growth in the ones under the HLG lights, whereas the other ones have got true leaves rapidly forming.

The only variable that's different that I can think of is that the low powered light is one of those multi-colored lights, which has a lot of red and purple in it.

But my understanding is those spectrums are really only useful in the flowering/fruiting stage, whereas the 4000k HLG is supposed to be ideal for the veg stage.

So I'm surprised by these results but don't know what I could adjust except to put the seedlings even closer under the HLGs.

If you have any ideas let me know.

I'll update as growth progresses to let you know if the ones under the more powerful lamps catch up / surpass the others at some point.