phytochrome manipulation

dogznova said:

The phytochrome-mediated response to photoperiod occurs in the leaves. Flowering occurs in the apical meristems. A signal, called florigen, connects the two.
The Signal to Flower

Flowering involves the conversion of the apical meristem into a floral meristem, from which all the parts of the flower will be produced.
Signals that change the fate of the apical meristem include:

• • • maturity of the plant;
    • temperature;
    • the arrival of the plant hormone gibberellin;
    • and, for many plants, photoperiod — the relative length of day and night.

hope that helps

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It all makes perfect sense, yet it seems strange talking about what florigen does when the actual identify of what florigen is is still debateable. Reminds me of physics when I think about it. We know it exists, we can measure its effects, yet we can't quite work out what it is.

As a result of the problems with isolating florigen, and of the inconsistent results acquired, it has been suggested that florigen does not exist as an individual substance; rather, florigen's effect could be the result of a particular ratio of other hormones.[13][14] However, more recent findings indicate that florigen does exist and is produced, or at least activated, in the leaves of the plant and that this signal is then transported via the phloem to the growing tip at the shoot apical meristem where the signal acts by inducing flowering. In Arabidopsis thaliana, some researchers have identified this signal as mRNA coded by the FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene, others as the resulting FT protein.[15] First report of FT mRNA being the signal transducer that moves from leaf to shoot apex came from the publication in Science Magazine. However, in 2007 other group of scientists made a breakthrough saying that its not the mRNA, it is the FT Protein that is transmitted from leaves to shoot possibly acting as "Florigen".[16] The initial article[17] that describes FT mRNA as flowering stimuli stands retracted from the science magazine by the authors themselves

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florigen

Thoth said:

It all makes perfect sense, yet it seems strange talking about what florigen does when the actual identify of what florigen is is still debateable. Reminds me of physics when I think about it. We know it exists, we can measure its effects, yet we can't quite work out what it is.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florigen

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Yes kind of like dark energy or dark matter in space.. I see your point for sure.

There is still a lot of unknowns as far as plants are concerned. But thank god for some smarter people then I or I would be still in the dark about RED light.. No pun intended..

After reading more of what they say florigen does. They say it's the trigger for flowering..

I'm a firm believer that BLUE light is the trigger for veg and therefor the absence of Blue light along with the 12 hour critical dark period being met is what triggers our favorite plants to flower.

Maybe florigen and Blue light are connected..

Maybe, but that wouldn't explain what triggers florigen production in autoflowers.

Ahh, great point

dogznova said:

I'm a firm believer that BLUE light is the trigger for veg and therefor the absence of Blue light along with the 12 hour critical dark period being met is what triggers our favorite plants to flower.

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I'm suffering from flu and have half a roof at the moment so not had a proper moment to think about this but according to plant physiology it's 660nm that triggers veg (Although blue light will also trigger them to because of overlapping phytochrome absorption peaks) I'll try and scan the pages tomorrow and upload this weekend (Got no scanner at home need to go work) the relevant sections.

Once I get my as back into gear I want to do 3 rooms, identical side by side, 1 control, 1 with fr, 1 martian method so I can compare yield, flower time, bud quality (The last being the hardest to subjectively test) then I hope some one will take the offer of free lights and repeat my experiments independently for verification.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l3WCSwAACAAJ&dq=plant physiology&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2TYGU8KJA4XDhAeTyoGQCA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA

it's great book but the section on phytochrome is quite an adventure in itself if you don't know your orbital bonding from your anti bonding I recommend a quick spruce up on basic chemistry first. I didn't want to get into electron bonding as it's beyond the basics of the thread but it is also essential to understand what's actually happening inside the plant.

Desertboy said:

I'm suffering from flu and have half a roof at the moment so not had a proper moment to think about this but according to plant physiology it's 660nm that triggers veg (Although blue light will also trigger them to because of overlapping phytochrome absorption peaks) I'll try and scan the pages tomorrow and upload this weekend (Got no scanner at home need to go work) the relevant sections.

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Well, 660nm wont trigger veg.. But any spectrum below 520 will.

I guess now is the time U need to check this out for yourself..

Do a 5 min night brake test with PURE 660nm. Turn 660nm on at about the half way point during 12/12 darkness just like Cockleburs example did.

*Notice how i'm telling you to do a 5 min night break test and not a flash.. That's because I want you to see that the Cockleburs example is WORNG..

You can turn the 660nm on for 5 mins anytime during the darkness period you want.. But if you want to do it just like the Cockleburs example did then you will have to do it at the half way point.. But trust me, you can do it anytime of the 12/12 darkness period you want and get the same result..

Do this 5 min PURE 660nm night break test from start to finish during budding and your girls wont't skip a beat..

Very Important: The 660nm must not be contaminated with BLUE or UV light.. (Hence the Cockleburs example was contaminated). But what do I know.

Cheap china over driven red 660nm LEDs will bleed UV light and will not work as a PAD light. Been there done that.. They must be filtered.

Here is a cheap Lee led gel filter on ebay for this project if you feel your led's are bleeding Blue/UV light.

Of course you can't just go around substituting 66onm for darkness without knowing WTF your doing.. But a 5 min 660 night break test won't take away enough critical darkness to do any harm let alone a FLASH of 660nm.. Heck 5 min of 660nm during the 12/12 darkness will give you back approx 25 seconds of the critical darkness.. But that's for another paragraph lol .

Let's get past the simple 660 5 min night break test first.. Then I can explain 660's time factor to you.

If your not willing to check this out for yourself.. The please by all means believe something without checking it and call other peoples hard work a HOAX.

But here is what you will find out..

1. You don't grow Cockleburs

2. 660nm wont trigger veg.. Yes it can delay the critical darkness (if one does not understand 660's time factor). But trigger veg.. NO!

Red is a darkness spectrum to the plants.. 730nm and 660nm are both RED. They are separated by 70nm's . How can one work but the other don't?

One just happens to be the fastest darkness spectrum known to plants and the other happens to be the slowest darkness spectrum known to plants..

But both are darkness spectrum's.

But like I said.. let's get you past line C in that example.. Then we can talk 660/730nm speed.

Hope you get better soon.

I can't test it dogz too ill to sort it I will test soon though still need to wire me panels. It not discounting what your saying just quoting straight out plant physiology I did consider if cannabis doesn't rely on phytochromes for flower in which case the it might be another mechanism like florigen which I know very little of.

I'll try and scan the page for you tomorrow make it a bit clearer

my outdoor experiment will simply prove 660nm veg response either way (Going to flash 660nm at some short day veg I got starting april to try and extend day length) but even if it does extend day length in my veg it means nothing of cannabis. Phytochromes are very complex and plants use them in different ways auto's do have (I confirmed that now) and they don't control there flowering with them. Strawberries most definitely do so I think experimentation is the key.

It might be some strains do use phytochromes for flowering and some don't meaning we're both right in our own way.

for 2 places in the world for landraces it's undesirable to use phytchromes to trigger flowering

Equator and near polar regions due to either too short day hours or too cold when nights are long enough.

The near polar regions are our auto's the equator strains who knows but I bet equatorial strains genes are present in a very large amount of strains.

I understand with being ill and all.. But like I was saying.. If the 660 is contaminated... Meaning Blue/UV light is present when flashed or used as a PAD light .. Then you will get a false positive. Hence why most people think 660 can't be used in the darkness.. But it can.

And if it didn't get confusing enough.. This is how you need to test for UV contamination in red 660 led's.

This quote is from Sal in a previous post on a diff thread/board.

" The plants are just as UV sensitive as they are Blue light sensitive and will trigger at radiance levels as low as 1/5th Watt per Square Foot of monochromatic radiation if it appears between the 280 to 520nm band. The veg trigger bands.

Detecting UV contamination is a little more tricky than detecting visible Blue light contamination. You need to expose phosphors with some Blue emission directly to the LED (and other) radiation and observe the phosphor looking through a Blue filter. If UV is present the phosphor will emit some Blue light that is visible through the Blue Filter, which blocks out the Red.

UV from Red and other LEDs -
With the demand for higher output LEDs and especially with the popularity of the Dogma that UV increases potency, LEDs producing secondary UV emissions are being manufactured in china and marketed for plant growth and they are appearing on the market.

Part of the situation is that the best emitting LED us "Clearlake" cases which do not filter out UV. "

I avoid all this crap and use the filters I showed U from above if I use 660nm led's.. lol

As I stated in a previous post.. Using 660nm LED as PAD lighting gets kind of tricky.. It's not easy seeing UV or Blue light bleed..

But you will know you have it because the RED 660 led's being used will cause a blue/UV veg trigger.. (hence PAD is a Hoax). See my point?

Here is how I practice this PAD stuff on the cheap.

Anyone that wants to play around with this PAD method using real cheap bulbs... The below bulbs can be used.. No the red cfl is not pure 660nm.. It's basically 600 through 720nm. I will also put up the spectrum chart. But the red cfl works just fine on the cheap and has NO blue light contamination..

The reptile Black incandescent bulb is used as a cheap far red 730 source..

*Note: You can only use Black INC bulbs for a cheap far red source. NOT black florescent bulbs.. Black light Fluorescent bulbs have zero far red 730nm emission and are worthless for growing plants.. Just thought I would clear that up from an earlier post. :)

Believe it or not.. All three of these bulbs can be used as an Advanced PAD setup.. It's a real cheap way of practicing this method..

I will also post the spectrum charts for both the red cfl and the blue cfl bulbs..

I also found some info on a Standard 75 watt incontinent Black light made from woods glass.

The spectrum of an incandescent will always roughly follow a black body curve. So unless you can get the tungsten to 8000k (you can't), it will always have high IR output, medium visible output, and low UV output. Woods glass only filters visible, and IR is still passed. So you're still left with high IR output and low UV output. Here is a typical 75W tungsten black light:

I've been running Indagrow's Pro 420 Induction light with the pontoon. During lights on it emits red light in the 660nm range to meet the chlorophyll B peak absorption spectra -- which is SUPPOSED to increase flowering sites and bud development. So far, I'm very pleased with the light's bud density and penetration! That part is honestly as good or better than the 1000 HPS rigs I used to run. I don't think the buds get quite as large, but they get waaay more frosty and dense. Even the buds at the bottom of the plant fill out really nicely. I've been impressed with all except one issue...

It's taking fucking forever for my plants to finish!

The pontoon also has far red 730nm diodes which ONLY run when the lights go out. At lights out, the 730nm diodes run for about 5 minutes, slowly and steadily decreasing in intensity until they turn off. I was running a 13-on/11 off photoperiod, and no probs with initiating flowering, and I got huge, dense buds. My problem is that my plants will just not finish. I have some 9-10 week strains that are currently at 13 weeks, and STILL look to need another 2-3 weeks! The buds continue to throw new, white pistils continuously! Here's a few pics to show you what I'm dealing with. (I hope it's ok for me to post these up in your thread bro. If not...feel free to remove them).



The pics above are of an Orange OGK x Pineapple (C-99 pineapple pheno). According to the breeder (and a few who have run it) it's supposed to be done in 9 weeks...some phenos 11 weeks MAXIMUM!! These are at 90 days as of these pics, and are still nowhere near true maturity yet, imo. I think they still need at least 2-3 weeks.

I thought the pfr state was supposed to make them flower early...and therefore finish early, but clearly this is NOT what I'm seeing. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!! Best, -Max

P.S - I should probably mention that I cut back to a 12/12 cycle about two weeks ago, and so far have noticed no major differences. I have ALSO noticed that the closer the buds are to the light...the more new white pistils are thrown as you can see in the pics.

Yes, what i'm seeing is a slight re-veg in pic #1.. Meaning your critical darkness is not being met completely (hence why they wont ripen up for you..

The 730 ether needs to stay on longer or you need to drop down on the 13 hour of lights on time on.. I see you went to 12/12.

Try 11/13 for the rest of the time.. lets us know how/if they start to finish up..

If you have pure 730nm at your disposal ( meaning you can control the length of time it's on) you can get those girls ripping up in a big hurry.. Just depends on how long your willing to run 730nm during the dark period.

Just re looking at those pics.. Your close to a 12/12 schedule. And being that you put it at an exact 12/12 schedule now with the timer should def help them ripen.. I def would go 11/13 to see if she starts speeding up the ripping up for you.

Defiantly lets us no how it goes .

dogznova said:

Yes, what i'm seeing is a slight re-veg in pic #1.. Meaning your critical darkness is not being met completely (hence why they wont ripen up for you..

The 730 ether needs to stay on longer or you need to drop down on the 13 hour of lights on time on.. I see you went to 12/12.

Try 11/13 for the rest of the time.. lets us know how/if they start to finish up..

If you have pure 730nm at your disposal ( meaning you can control the length of time it's on) you can get those girls ripping up in a big hurry.. Just depends on how long your willing to run 730nm during the dark period.

Just re looking at those pics.. Your close to a 12/12 schedule. And being that you put it at an exact 12/12 schedule now with the timer should def help them ripen.. I def would go 11/13 to see if she starts speeding up the ripping up for you.

Defiantly lets us no how it goes .

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Thanks! I appreciate your opinion!! How long would you suggest leaving the 730nm diodes on? I'd love to try the 11/13, or even 10/14...but I run a perpetual harvest, so this makes it counter-productive. The pontoon does not give you separate control over the 730 diodes, I don't know if there may be a way around this, but I'm going to be thinking about it.

What would be the optimum way to use them, and burn for how long? Thanks in advance!! Best, -Max

EDIT - Another Question...Since I just turned the photo period back to 12/12 around 2 weeks ago, do you think maybe I just haven't given it enough time yet to see the difference? Maybe I just need to sit back a while and see what differences that makes. I wonder how long it will take to see the full effects of changing to 12/12? Any thoughts there? Thanks again!!

The pontoon runs the 730nm on a battery pre set to 5 mins.. That's not adjustable, would be nice if it was..

As far as how long.. It depends on 730nm intensity and canopy depth. I've been told that you can change the Prf-Pr phytochrome reaction in seconds providing the 730 is intense enough. What that intensity is per area to get the phytochromes to switch in seconds.. I have no clue. Wish I did.

I use 730 for 15-20 mins after lights out and it gives me roughly 1 hour back to the critical darkness.. It's med/low intensity 730nm LED.

I'm working on getting a few more 730nm LED bulbs and seeing if I can't get that 1 hour of critical darkness back with only 10 mins of 730nm after lights out.. It's trial and error per setup i'm afraid. Everyone's canopy will have different heights and thickness so it's not one size fits all.

In order to get the critical darkness timing correct. You have to be able to react to what the buds look like as they go through flowering and add or subtract 730nm on time. Meaning at the two week point, they should have little pop corn buds. Then at the 4 week mark the bud structure should be setting up real nice but not growing those single blade little tip leaves like (in pic one) at the top of the flower.

The problem I have found by tuning critical darkness with only 730nm during the dark period is.. 730nm alone causes a lot of stretch.. So let's say your running 14/10 and looking to get 2 hours back of critical darkness.. First, I have found I always need to add an extra 1/2 hour to my projected critical darkness target, Hence needing 2 1/2 hours back not just 2 hours.

So if i had to guess. You will prolly have to run 730nm approx and 1/2 hour to 45 mins depending on the intensity and canopy depth to get 2 1/2 hours back of critical darkness if your gonna run a 14/10 cycle.. So it's a tuning thing. You have to be able to read bud structure as the flowering processes goes through it cycle. But once you get it at 11.5 /12.5 off type of flowering schedule (full bloom), your golden..

So yes, start out getting the 13/11 schedule dialed in before you ramp up to a 14/10 schedule.

You can get 730nm LED bulbs medium base (that fit regular home sockets) from the place the Desert Boy was talking about. Hort america. The flowering initiater is also another LED 730nm option.

Of course here is real cheap option.. Black incandescent light bulbs.. But those sun of a bitches run hot as hell so they need to be kept well above 1 foot off the canopy. Look at the above spectrum chart for a black inc bulb.
It's gotta nice 730 spike.. Hot as hell, but they work.

As far as the plants switching right back into full bloom because you went back to 12/12. It takes time. I would run 11/13 to get the plant to think it's ripening time or add more 730nm on time.

At this point in your flowering (the end).. You could run a black light for 1 or 2 hours every night after lights out just to see how fast it starts to ripen up.

So as you can see you have a few options. :)

Hi Ya'll. I've been running the Pontoons now for three complete cycles. Since I'm sticking with Indica dominants I veg for 2-3 weeks and flip right into a 13/11. I do see some vegetative growth in Max's plants which likely has something to do with the longer photoperiod. I would be curious to know if he is seeing a delayed response to his trichomes shifting from clear to cloudy regardless if there is a bit of vegetative growth at this stage? As far as the 730nm at lights out influencing the Pfr shift from the research I've seen that is an instantaneous photochemical reaction when the plants are exposed to 730nm wavelengths exclusively. Running them longer than 5 minutes, as some researchers did in Canada with Chrysanthemums showed no difference in terms of the number of flowers and sizes that were developed between the control (no 730nm at lights out) plants and those test plants that had been exposed to varying exposure times of 730 which ranged from 5 to 30 minutes.

It does not take much energy at 730nm to saturate the plants. As you can see by this infrared capture at lights out these plants have complete exposure to the 730nm wavelength at lights out and the 6 diodes total draw is just under 7 watts designed to cover a minimum 4 x 5 area over that 5 minute period.

https://picasaweb.google.com/117165142682869295633/InHouseGarden1#5835240452458010738

As to how Max might finish his next run perhaps you should try dropping down to a 12/12 during the last month. I've been running 13/11 through final harvests and while I have also seen some added veg at the tops it has not slowed down my ~60 day harvest times. The benefits of the 660nm diodes at lights on are that they pick up where the 640nm peak drops off on the phosphors so I like to take advantage of that during flower and pack an extra hour of active photosynthesis into my rooms. There is no question from what I've been seeing it has increased bud densities. But even if you decide to pull back to a 12/12, when the lights go out and the 730 come on you will be initiating an instantaneous Pfr response giving the plants longer to flower during their dark cycle and you may lose that bit of veg you're seeing.

Great post..

The real question is. How much actual critical darkness is given back with 5 mins of 730nm use.. I defiantly don't see 5 mins of use giving 2 1/2 hours back.

My guess is 1/2 hour to 45 mins of critical darkness is given back with 5 min of 730nm use after lights out.. Just my guess tho.

The only way to really tell EXACTLY how much critical darkness is given back from 5 min of 730nm use after lights out is.. You have to start the plant on the 13/11 schedule from day one of flowering.. If the flowers start at the exact same time (week two in most cases) as a 12/12 flower would.. Then you know your getting with a 13/11 flowering schedule 1 hour of critical darkness back..

Like I was saying in an earlier post there's more to it then just flipping the Prf-Pr phytochrome reaction.

Most flowers, when you add a little extra lights on time lets say week 4 through week 6 in flowering meaning going from 12/12 to 13/11 or even 14/10 don't seem to mind without the added 730 at night fall..

Even though the flowers in the above example are not getting 12 hours of critical darkness it still seems to work.. Of course the grower has to goes back to a 12/12 or even a 11/13 flowering schedule for ripping. But that method does work.

So the whole point of adding 730nm after lights out. Is to get back the critical darkness (hence allowing one to flower on 13/11 or even a 14/11 schedule and still be in full bloom.. Full Bloom is the key here.

So you need to find out how much critical darkness is given back using 730 for 5 mins after lights out and adjust your "lights on time" accordingly.

Meaning, if your only getting 45 mins of critical darkness back (just my guess) then the lighting schedule should reflect that. Hence 12 hours and 45 mins on then 5 mins of 730 then darkness for 11 hours and 10 mins.

Hope that helped.

To put this into perspective; you can only recover what was lost to begin with. By not having an actual sunset where UV-B spectrums are slowly eliminated and R-DR and finally FR exclusively are available to the plants we're left with a broad spectrum until the lights go out. I take no issue with your critical darkness period of recovery but in an indoor garden that outdoor spectral shift is not going to occur. As such I see your determining the actual influence of the 5 min of 730 at lights out as valid research and discovery. But what I keep coming back to is that the 730 is going to influence Pfr response at the beginning of lights out and the lack of 660 during lights out will maintain that state until such time that the photoperiod begins again. It is armed with this knowledge that I push my flowering photoperiod harder. If it turns out that empirical evidence limits the recovery of 45 minutes of critical darkness I will be the first to adjust accordingly.

As to the Rauber report; interesting work but I found it to be written as an academic exercise. Are you aware of any trials that were run using the techniques described that would prove in practice what Rauber theorized?

Unfortunately the only well known person anyone would recognize is George Cervantes.... Last I heard he runs a PAD setup. So we wait for the book I guess.

The folks at high times where also contacted about the PAD method

I run a PAD setup.. But i'm a nobody..

I have been researching some of this for a couple years now (only reading) but am ready to try flowering under regular sun or under 18hrs light. This article says that by only running the far red for a couple hours at dusk will make crops flower without the need for 12 hrs dark...and these "light sets" are cheap if they do what they say they do. I love to dep and it would be nice to trigger flowering under full sun and have it actually work well without tarping

I have tried finding grow logs with cannabis with this method but have not yet, can someone please point me to a grow log where someone is doing outdoor "Dep/without covering" with far red or indoor with 18 hrs??

I just got lucky with google and found this thread here but am banging my head against a wall trying to find a grow log, so my apologies if I missed one here somewhere.

jack hairy said:

any specific brands of ir lights?
anyone ever use any?
so someone could set some lights up to turn on for a couple minutes at dusk, converting pr to pfr, triggering plant to flower, even in the middle of the summer with a 14 light 10 darkness schedule
the plant would see it as 14/12
then be able to flower outdoors in the sunniest time of year, and not have to worry about the late season.
even if you just used it to initiate flowering 2 weeks or a month earlier than usual, i bet it would help a lot of people

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I have been using a 730nm LED lamp for nearly four years, the Flower Initiator, outdoors and indoors.

It is pretty simple indoors, just four about five minutes at lights out, start at 12/12 for the first week, then 13.5 - 14 hours until flush, then back to 12/12 to finish.

Outdoors the 730nm initiates flowering just after sunset, not dusk, so for determining the length of your local night, use sunset to sunrise. Use a Sunset and Sunrise service to determine the length of your night. If you use blackout cloth, you can do 14/10 no problem, allowing light during the optimum time of the day for your location.

Using the flower initiator outdoors is bit more tricky, latitude has lot to do with the length of the night, the length of the night controls the flowering response with short day plants, using the flower initiator, when the night becomes 1o hours long flowering can be triggered with Sativa, some Indica can be triggered to flower with an even shorter night. Outdoors one may not know the actual moment when the light is reduced to that of "sunset", the relationship to nearby geology, a ridge to the west, east that blocks sun, or heavy forests that block morning or evening sunlight can shift the sunset and or sunrise point somewhat.

I have a flower outdoor flower test going right now, I started using the 730nm LED on it July 4th with these factors:
Sunrise: 5:53am
Sunset: 8:41pm
Day length: 14h 48m
I saw pistils and spiking, a general flowering conformation as of July 14.

There a ridge to the west that blocks the direct sun after 7:30 on this July 4th, so I start my flower initiator at 7:30 and run it to 9:00 pm. I run it from 5:30 to 7:30 am. in the morning as well (the garden does not get direct sun until 9:00 am.). I do this thinking it will provide a more stable night length as the nights continue to lengthen. I tried this before, it worked very well, so I continue to use these techniques. Two years back, 2012, I did this starting on July 29, and had finished crop on Sept. 18 (these specie types will normally finish around mid October). I have video of 2012 and the ongoing project, is it OK to link those here?