I recommend acrylic covers for sidelighting. Your plants can now touch the covers, and you have some time to remove/tuck them if they do. The loss in light isnt that big, with proper acrylic diffusors spread/penetration does increase. I'm using Evonik 0D010DF, 91% transmission, working great. Actually using them on all my lights whether it's top/side or under. UV absorbant though, keep that in mind. (Disclaimer: havent done real side by sides with/without diffusors/different types because of space/time and money constraints, so this is just my personal non hard data backed feel!)
Also good for your eyes in case you forget to put on your sunglasses. Takes a couple seconds longer to see the stars
I have been using side lighting on cannabis for almost a year now.
Best upgrade I ever did for yield. Plants are now shorter and bushier, always. Even what would traditionally be popcorn nugs at the bottom, comes out as dense bud.
What I didn't anticipate was how the plants would react physiologically. I was growing organically on my first side lighting grow, but I found the plant responded to the increase in light volume by shifting resources from the main cola down to the bottom buds. Yield was high, but my main colas were lacking in phatness.
Next grow I tried using general hydroponics flora trio, and pulled a yield off with two plants what I normally would pull from 3 plants. No popcorn or larf.
Right now, I have been learning more about DLI and have modified my setup. Instead of 4 light walls surrounding the plant, I am using the a quarter of the wattage for 1 side light, and am manually rotating the pots a quarter turn every 6 hours of lights on time when flowering. Just about to harvest, so I'll compare apples and oranges (dif strains) when I'm done to see if I get around the same as I did with 4 light walls.
If this yields roughly the same amount as 4 light walls, I'll continue with this strategy and probably add some sort of automatic plant spinner.
Glad to see others taking the plunge into side lighting!
I am considering doing side lighting on the next grow, my new light is either going to be 30 sq ft purely from above or 22 sq ft with side lighting. I was thinking of doing 25% of the total wattage on side lighting because from what I could tell on RIU on purely side lighting the plant looked strange flowering bent to the side - gravity opposing light response or something to that effect hence turning the plant. I wanted the main focus to be from above.
When you did the four light walls what was the total watts from the sides versus from above? What is that ratio now with one light wall?
I was thinking of going with two side wall lights with no turning, what do you think?
I am undecided, going purely from above or a combination of above and side light. If i go purely from above I want to try reflective material just below the canopy to keep the par levels from dropping off rapidly. I figured if it works on tent walls why not use it below, in theory would bump the par levels up by 25% or so.
Right now I am at about 55watts on the side light. With about 375-400w from above. When running 4 walls total side lighting of all 4 sides was 200watts with same 375-400w on the top. Heat was semi problematic. I averaged 26c to 29c at peak "noon" when an addition 40 watts of solacure florescent tubes is running in tandem.
The gravity bent buds are there around the sides and on subcolas that sprout up when flower starts, even with the rotated pots. Main colas do not seem to be affected by the sidewards growth problem.
My setup is below (taken after cutting down my main colas in terms of the flowers being mentioned, before adding in my 2 new girls, they were about 8 inches closer to the side light). I also have (hopefully) impregnated the two old girls with some feminized pollen, so am waiting another two weeks to see if any seeds pop.
Running Vestas on the side this time, my other walls are bxeb gen 2. Grounding is attached to my main light plus tent frame. Mirrors at an angle to help get some of that light to bounce up on the underside of the plants 'dark side'.
I've always wanted to try it but never got around to it and couldn't really figure a good way to fix them.
So I had some spear parts kicking around and finally found a fixing that I was happy with for now anyway.
I went with a vertical option only been in three for a couple of weeks but I can notice a visible difference. I'm running 150w on the sides and 600w top down.
