Far red, red, uv, EOD treatment
Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2019 6:00 pm
I've been reading lots on this subject and there are some things that I've come across that make me go hmmmm.
LED grows need more magnesium and calcium, according to Dutch passion they believe that something is missing in the led spectrum that causes this. I've also read that low temperatures cause mg and cal deficiencies. If leds are missing far red wavelength light, but far red serves to heat up the leaf surface and accelerates growth (Emerson effect), this should then serve to alleviate the mg and cal deficiencies. This leads to a problem though by adding more infrared you promote stretch and shade avoidance plant responses which in an led grow decreases the efficiency of leds because the lower leaves are farther from led and leds drop off in intensity quite fast with height. This forces us to sog or scorn to maximize plant growth.
This leads me to one conclusion, when adding far red the logical thing to do is to balance the far red addition with uv since blue light shortens the internode distance. This would be a whole day treatment with some variation at beginning and end of day - like a balancing act of the whole spectrum. I have seen nothing about the ratio of uv to far red, would need to be in some proportion to each other like in nature. Seems like most of literature out there focuses on red to far red ratio with very little regard for uv, red and far red ratios all together - i feel this is somewhat typically human, monitor two things as its easier to monitor and setup and run an experiment but add a third variable and now it becomes exponentially more difficult to evaluate and perform experiment. The uv and far red would be on all day but uv would peak at midday and far red peak at the start and end of day. The symphony of lighting would be that the sum of the uv and far red would be such that the plant grows as if it were normal, no abnormal stretch, no short/stunted plant just a normal representation of the plant that is as supposed to be. Stretch at beginning and end of day but uv during day to keep the infrared in check.
LED grows need more magnesium and calcium, according to Dutch passion they believe that something is missing in the led spectrum that causes this. I've also read that low temperatures cause mg and cal deficiencies. If leds are missing far red wavelength light, but far red serves to heat up the leaf surface and accelerates growth (Emerson effect), this should then serve to alleviate the mg and cal deficiencies. This leads to a problem though by adding more infrared you promote stretch and shade avoidance plant responses which in an led grow decreases the efficiency of leds because the lower leaves are farther from led and leds drop off in intensity quite fast with height. This forces us to sog or scorn to maximize plant growth.
This leads me to one conclusion, when adding far red the logical thing to do is to balance the far red addition with uv since blue light shortens the internode distance. This would be a whole day treatment with some variation at beginning and end of day - like a balancing act of the whole spectrum. I have seen nothing about the ratio of uv to far red, would need to be in some proportion to each other like in nature. Seems like most of literature out there focuses on red to far red ratio with very little regard for uv, red and far red ratios all together - i feel this is somewhat typically human, monitor two things as its easier to monitor and setup and run an experiment but add a third variable and now it becomes exponentially more difficult to evaluate and perform experiment. The uv and far red would be on all day but uv would peak at midday and far red peak at the start and end of day. The symphony of lighting would be that the sum of the uv and far red would be such that the plant grows as if it were normal, no abnormal stretch, no short/stunted plant just a normal representation of the plant that is as supposed to be. Stretch at beginning and end of day but uv during day to keep the infrared in check.