My light comes equipped and I've always utilized the function. Never tried a comparison grow.

quirk said:

My light comes equipped and I've always utilized the function. Never tried a comparison grow.

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I was looking at the ss550 bt CLW, how happy are you with your light?

Maybe you’ve seen it! It’s short.

Adding extra UV to the flowering spectrum used will increase resin and essential oil content in most plants, from lavender to cannabis. It will almost always increase the potency of the flower, but while diminishing the taste/flavor profile just a bit in my experience. Many plants use their resins for the purposes of protecting their DNA from radiation. (as well as many other things)

I tend to always add a few extra individual actinic LED's on their own driver to supplement whatever LED panel im using, whether they have a few UV led's or not.

In an entire 4x4 ill use 6 or 8 additional actinic UV or UVB leds. You can absolutely go too far with UV though, and youll have deformed growth, and if you try and use the plant to breed you may have some unwanted results in the offspring of the plant lol. You can actually see a little bit of the actinic light, but id still recommend wearing sunglasses in the presence of them while on. They arent necessary for quality flower at all, but can absolute increase resin content. Get enough actinic light in an LED's spectrum and the plants perform a bit more like they are under 6500k t5 panels, which imho is a pretty good thing.

With lavender grown under a light, exposing the plant to a good bit of UV will nearly double your essential oil extractions. Ive had some cannabis plants that respond in a very similar way. Lavender is an extreme example though, ime, even adding a single florescent black light to a tent's grow light will increase lavender's resin content.



As for cooking the plants, hook it up, run some tests, check your temps. Just manage temp increases like you normally would Prob wear sunglasses when in the tent with it on lol. 8 actinic LED's have been negligible when it comes to heat production or burning my plants. As far as UV exposure goes. Maybe test exposure levels on a small potted plant of another species or something lol.

I use the actinic aquarium Reef LED's because in my personal experience, even though they are a good bit lower in UV/b, i get similar results in the resin content departments to using straight UV/b Led's, and the actinic reef LED's seem to be much kinder to my eyes. Cheap and easy to design your own little LED driver circuit for however your grow room is setup, and make sure each plant receives a semi-even level of UV.

Years ago i used UV cold cathode tubes with pretty decent results too. A bit better results then the actinic LED's. But they also break a lot easier and had to hang them lower then the height of the main light which was annoying.

Oldchucky said:

Maybe you’ve seen it! It’s short.

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I just watched it. Now I know a lot more than I did before. I've thought about adding UV light, but haven't justified the cost for my purposes. I did, however, read something that claimed a small section of UVC (~220 nm) influenced plants' need for magnesium. Since I saw that report, I haven't been able to find any more information about it. Nevertheless, it seems plants grown under LED lights need more Mg and something about the light spectrum is likely to be the reason, IMO.

Stokes said:

I was looking at the ss550 bt CLW, how happy are you with your light?

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I have the SS CLW 550. i just got it but it seems to be doing a good job. I like how you can dial the RWB and it even keeps track of how long your grow is.

GNick55 said:

Busting common myths about cannabis and UV

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"Actually, this one is true. Even a cheap UVB bulb is better than no UVB. That said, for a little more than a cheap UVB bulb, you can have the best UVB around, and since Flower Power last twice as long, they really aren't more expensive. So use what you have, but make room to upgrade later if you really want top shelf results."

So we don't need UV lights except for the ones that article is selling?

LoveGrowingIt said:

I just watched it. Now I know a lot more than I did before. I've thought about adding UV light, but haven't justified the cost for my purposes. I did, however, read something that claimed a small section of UVC (~220 nm) influenced plants' need for magnesium. Since I saw that report, I haven't been able to find any more information about it. Nevertheless, it seems plants grown under LED lights need more Mg and something about the light spectrum is likely to be the reason, IMO.

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I used it on my last grow because it was a standard on my light. I can't say that I noticed any special difference. In fact my harvest was lacking the wow factor on the trichomes in my opinion. Maybe it's genetics. We will see on the next run.

From all the videos I've watched led can only provide uva. For uvb your gonna wanna go florescent. Led is just not there yet for uvb and if they can make them they burn out and are highly expensive.. I've seen the uva booster bars and led strips- they don't do anything really. No intensity. Maybe a led UV COB would be better idk. Shane from migro has a few videos and does par & ppfd tests on them. I have and use AgroMax 4' uva+, pure veg+uvb, pureUV & the 2' California lightworks uvb T5. Way I see it outside sun has uva & uvb , majority of led lights have 0. So I supplement in ripening phase, after most bud swell is finished and your just waiting on hairs to recede inside to really get those calyx swollen that's when I start uvb... uva I do from seed or clone to harvest. Uvb I start out 3' away for 3 minutes, every other day, second week 3' away for 5 minutes every other day. 3rd week same 3' away 5 minutes twice a day think high noon intensity from 12-2 right..slowly I build up to 10 minutes total every day. Strain dependant. Can't heavy hand it or they stress and can throw nanners so go light and easy from a distance at least 3' ... really all you want to do is activate the uvr8 photoreceptor so it can communicate and give the shout for mo sunscreen. You will need to supplement calcium, magnesium & L aminos to help, at least in my experience.. I noticed a uptake in sulfur usage as well. I supplement with chitosan oligosaccharide, triacontanol & brassinosteroids. As for the studies, they are a tad skewed but migro has a video where they did a 3rd party cannabinoid test and if showed it was definitely worth it but also strain dependent.. some strains want nothing to do with it , they are better with uva or a low uvb light like lec /cmh or something less than 75% uvb to 25% uva - like a 310 nm.. I use AgroMax supposedly they get the light down to 285nm so the closer to 285 the less exposure to time is needed.. think pulses or bursts. Other strains immediately the next day are coated in a glitter bomb and no leaf stress just beautiful colors that accentuate that beautiful end time fade. Not needed to grow great bud but I also supplement low blues 380-450nm & far red 720-730nm because again majority of lights don't have samsung mint evo diodes or enough far red to cause ps1 & ps2 combo from combining 660nm with 720-730nm. All about trying to get these lights closer in quality to the sun if not better ratios.

UV is only recommended in weeks before harvest ( last 3 weeks of flower - question running at ? only 4 hrs per days)

hawkman said:

UV is only recommended in weeks before harvest ( last 3 weeks of flower - question running at ? only 4 hrs per days)

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uv needs to be used the whole grow to have any affect

GNick55 said:

uv needs to be used the whole grow to have any affect

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i think he means UVB. My CLW 550 has UVB lights that i will use at the last 3 weeks of flower.

Cannacraze said:

i think he means UVB. My CLW 550 has UVB lights that i will use at the last 3 weeks of flower.

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using it for 3 weeks does absolutely nothing,,
tell me how long a capitate-stalked trichome takes to grow and develop and become ripe for harvest? 3 weeks? hahaha at best your getting cystolythic trichomes which have no cannabinoids or terpenes,..

GNick55 said:

using it for 3 weeks does absolutely nothing,,
tell me how long a capitate-stalked trichome takes to grow and develop and become ripe for harvest? 3 weeks? hahaha at best your getting cystolythic trichomes which have no cannabinoids or terpenes,..

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ok i guess you know more that CLW does.

Cannacraze said:

ok i guess you know more that CLW does.

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yep i do

GNick55 said:

yep i do

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must ne nice to be you then huh.

i’m

Cannacraze said:

must ne nice to be you then huh.

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GNick55 said:

i’m

Cannabis Inflorescence Yield and Cannabinoid Concentration Are Not Increased With Exposure to Short-Wavelength Ultraviolet-B Radiation - PMC

Before ultraviolet (UV) radiation can be used as a horticultural management tool in commercial Cannabis sativa (cannabis) production, the effects of UV on cannabis should be vetted scientifically. In this study we investigated the effects of UV ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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that totally contradicts everything that this light is suppose to do. in that case, if the info you provided is indeed correct then i should get my money back for this useless light.