Indoor Lighting vs. Mother Nature

He just announced that he was closing down, but mass medical strains shares a similar philosophy, that there are valuable qualities in landrace sativas from back in the day that have been somewhat forgotten about in the pursuit of the denser, more convenient instagram-worthy indicas. might be worth picking up some of his seeds before they all get snatched up, though they're certainly not cheap.

I recently had the chance to try our Glue Trap in 3 separate versions: led grown, cmh grown and sun grown in northern spain, about 500m elevation. Its a cross of GG and something else, very indica and stony. Bag appeal was awesome in both led and cmh but the sun grown blew both of them away as for stonieness, full face melt and speechless for a couple of hours.

If you wanna do thc-v/p i think you either have to grow in the sun, or add some UVA and a little UVB.

IndigenousAlien said:

working with light burst? High intensity... perhaps to shock the plant

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Curious as to your definition of "burst of high intensity".
How much more light than normal would the constitute a burst?

As other's have said and I experienced with my own grow. UV does give the plants more trichomes.

nunyabidness420 said:

Curious as to your definition of "burst of high intensity".
How much more light than normal would the constitute a burst?

As other's have said and I experienced with my own grow. UV does give the plants more trichomes.

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That is the million dollar question... I am just beginning to educate myself on lighting and cannot answer your question yet. I am seeking all information on such and will certainly let you know what I find out if it is viable. I think it is time to start talking to some growers, ya know, do some networking...

There is research that shows pulsed UV to be more effective than continuous UV.

Not sure if many grower are manipulation light at this level though.

Solacure UVA and UVB bulbs for cannabis, curing finishes ...
https://www.bing.com/search?q=solacure&form=ANSPH1&refig=fddd90b3c6ef43d08f18ce46075012d2&pc=U531&sp=-1&ghc=1&pq=solacure&sc=8-8&qs=n&sk=&cvid=fddd90b3c6ef43d08f18ce46075012d2#

Most people run the bulbs even with the general lighting, around 12 to 24 inches from the canopy. They can be used as close as 6 inches (reduce time) or as far away as 6 foot (increase power and time). If you have an unusual situation, just call and we can give you basics to start with. The lamps can be run in a single continuous cycle, say 4 hours in a row, or you can split it up into two sessions. Some people like to pulse them, running them 10-15 minutes every hour. The extra power makes them very flexible. All tests have shown CBD to remain the same or increase a very small, insignificant amount. They show radical increases in THC production.

Solacure recommends building up to 2 hours per day. 4-6 hours per day, can reduce yield, but will increase Chmical Profile more than 2 hours per day. So there's a trade off.
They also recommend to start using them the last 2 weeks in Veg to harden them off for flowering. You just cant put your plants undr these lights for a couple/few hours right off the bat, and expect them to survive. Some may, but they also have a big chance of being fried to a crisp. Like going to sleep in a tanning bed for 3 hours.

Nothing compares to these lamps in the 280nm-305nm range. 20x more powerful in UVB than the best Reptile bulb, which is the Arcadia Desert Dragon Reptile bulb. Most of the light from Reptile bulbs is visible light. No so with these bulbs. And the Solacure 32w bulb is 20x more powerful in UVB than the 54w Arcadia bulb.




Not everyone that uses our lamps wants to advertise it, so they can keep their competitive advantage, or they won't publish or license their findings for free. Here are just some of the well known companies and institutions that do use Solacure lamps:

jimihendrix1 said:

Purdue did a study with UV and tomatoes using a prototype of our Universal UV lamps

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Here's the Purdue study cited in the article.

Am I reading this wrong?
The paper says they used UVA lamps
"Supplemental UV radiation treatments began 8 weeks after sowing seed and was provided by Q-Panel UVA-340 bulbs "

and

"Our results show that neither supplemental UV-A nor supplemental UV-A+B strongly affected the biosynthesis of potentially beneficial phytochemicals including carotenoids and phenolic compounds "

I like the best of both worlds....grow indoors with sunshine

This way you avoid the weather, bugs and thieves....while benefiting from the best light source in the solar system

nunyabidness420 said:

Curious as to your definition of "burst of high intensity".
How much more light than normal would the constitute a burst?

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Well, the sun's PPFD can go up to 1700umol (even more), yet the question is, which wavebands have all been included? Such a burst of PAR 400-700nm would most likely do some damage to leaves (without CO2 supp) - esp. when wavelengths are used, which are swiftly - or efficiently - absorbed by the pigments or proteins (UV, blue, red).
At higher ppfd green & FR would make more sense, better yet: be less destructive.

Both these colors add very much to the ambient light, they hold a good penetration power, are either deflected or transmitted occasionally, and green can cause fluorescence.

Another mechanism which happens at high ppfd levels - and which further adds to the penetration - is chloroplast movement inside the cells of a leaf - and also leaf rearrangement. Both of which can be regarded as plant training - and which may also increase the strength/numbers of sub-canopy shoots - and their strength - as they temporarily get more light - in a fluctuative high-ppfd/ low-ppfd environment - compared to a average-ppfd env.

nunyabidness420 said:

There is research that shows pulsed UV to be more effective than continuous UV.

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Spot on! Establishing methods to circumvent the "getting used to" the UV.

nunyabidness420 said:

Am I reading this wrong?
The paper says they used UVA lamps
"Supplemental UV radiation treatments began 8 weeks after sowing seed and was provided by Q-Panel UVA-340 bulbs "

Click to expand...

Well, the 340 lamp does put out some UVB.
This one, and their "brothers and sisters" have specific spectra designed to mimick the sun's natural output:

In the .pdf it's stated they did also use some foliage/mylar to block unwanted wavebands - but this lamp is good to further stimulate the 310nm & 365nm response.

But they also give scientists the ability to raise the level (and, at that, naturally...)

You can read more about this here: LINK

nunyabidness420 said:

"Our results show that neither supplemental UV-A nor supplemental UV-A+B strongly affected the biosynthesis of potentially beneficial phytochemicals including carotenoids and phenolic compounds "

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Well, there are a lot of carotenoids, but the study mentiones ß-carotene - which is actually build up in response to blue-light:


In leaves, ß-carotene acts as a molecule to dissipate excess heat away from the light-harvesting-complexes - thus, it sits very much at the outside of the chlorophyl-complexes. Actually, it does also capture light, but not submit this energy into the photosynthetic process - just turn it to heat (which may be bad under a lot of circumstances...)
In this diagram you can see the drop of the photosynthetic work due to the absorption band of the carotenes: (between 450-500 in PSI)

^^ this is actually the reason why modern LED tech willfully creates this "cyan-gap" - to make it easier for the chloroplasts to dissipate excess heat - esp. from wavelengths 380-450nm.

The study you uploaded however was still very interesting - and not inconclusive - as Rutin (Quercetin) is a compound that holds alot of beneficial qualities for humans. A lot of superfoods contain it, and it works quite well as an immun-booster against certain diseases.

I guess one of the reasons why some results couldn't be brought in by the study was the supplement by HPS lamps which greatly lack the blue light.

When I was in the stage where I was building my lights, I thought about something similar; having 3000k's start on the east side, then subsequently 4000k's overhead, then 3000k's on the west to mimic both the sun's movement and (at least my understanding of) the way sunlight changes through atmospheric angles. The only "bursts" I added were 2-3 15 minute sets of UV.

I could not say that this setup in any way improved my grows, but I can say it added a bunch of extra timers that just meant more stuff to maintain. I remember my motivation being that I wanted to make the environment more natural so that the plants would be... happier. I decided that plants that are thriving are happy, and they thrive just fine with single stage overhead lighting. And simplicity makes me happy, so now we're all happy. I love a happy ending.

HEY! Damn, thanks for all the good, relevant information. Hopefully, within the next few months, I will be growing a few choice strains...Fingers Crossed!
Again, thanks a bunch. I will keep ya'll informed.