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Do plants need UV supplemental lighting for growth?
Any added supplemental lighting will boost the growth of the garden. I like adding 400-watt High-Pressure Sodium in the flowering period while using LEDs in the garden. The results are amazing.
UV light will increase density of the trichome coverage, which is beneficial for many reasons.
Also helps against pests and PM.
Also helps against pests and PM.
Thanks for your information,
That's another beneficial aspect for plant growth; it's great!
Rocket Soul
Well-known member
In my experience its very beneficial to add some near UV or violet diodes to any growth stage. Healthier growth in general. It helps hitting the both chlorophylls. This is the main point of adding the samsung EVO diodes with a blue peak at 437nm. Deeper uv means more stress to the plant but also a stronger plant, but maybe best on a separate channel. Far red seems to also have a beneficial effect, especially together with uv as the balance eachother out. One makes cell expansion one makes cells smaller. But unmitigated far red can lead to excessive stretch A broader spectrum grows better always.
That's a very detailed personal experience with plant growing. It's very nice
Rocket Soul
Well-known member
Never tried the evo but we add this range thru other diodes. Especially if youre having problems with that bleachy magnesium type "led deficiency" it seems like the added stimulus of the new wave lengths in the blue region makes transpiration better and health better.
One experiment i rec for anybody doubting whether it does anything: try to put some plants never touched by uv under some uv and see how theyll react: while it will probably depend on the strain ive seen some absolute crazy praying leaves reach for the light. Its the "virgins" having the phototropy being stimulated properly for the first time. If adding UV only then try to start with a red heavy base spectrum as youre technically adding blues and may unbalance the spectrum somewhat. Research says more blue means less yield though ive not seen any very markedly in practice.
Got me thinking about adding some more blue so I can push harder without the "mag" deficiency. Any recommendations for getting that blue short of investing/building a new light?
Rocket Soul
Well-known member
If you already have some uv or similar you may not get much benefits, id try messing eith other factors like nutes. Upping nutes to up to 3 ec (while super carefully checking all run off ec) made a lot of impact in our grow. You can also try with higher ph, mag likes a little higher ec. I know gml played around with switching between standard ph and like 6.5 every other watering.
If you want to add a photosynthetic blue to a standard led to increase plant health id go for whatever best output diode around 420-430nm- its botha chloropeak (that standard blue peak 450nm doesnt hit)and a peak for transpiration.
The best thing you can do if you want to experiment is to get comfy with ledstar monos and a soldering iron
