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Chlorophyll Meter

EvergreenState

Active member
I'm out in Pennslyvania for several months and I picked up the local Sunday newspaper because of a story on the front page about farmers needing to add extra fertilizer because of excessive rains.
There was a photo accompanying the story showing a farmer using a chlorophyll meter. I'd never heard of a chlorophyll meter and I wondered if anyone had ever used one and if it would even be useful for our growing? I think it might be useful in some outdoor grow situations and maybe even indoor grows. Any comments would be appreciated.
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EvergreenState

Active member
Here is more on that story about some local farmers adding extra nitrogen trying to hopefully help some corn plants that have stunted growth and yellowing due to excessive rain.
An agronomy educator at Penn State said that you lose 3 to 4 percent of your nitrogen once the soil is saturated. He said that nitrogen is really important to corn and when we see that much yellowing, it means a nitrogen deficiency. You can read the rest of what he said in the photo I took of the article.
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CannaRed

Cannabinerd
If it works, it would be cool to test it throughout life and then test during dry and cure to see if chlorophyll "degrading" really is part of the the process of a well cured bud
 

Mr. Greengenes

Re-incarnated Senior Member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
The price of that SPAD 502 is almost three thou! It's hard to find a CM for less than three fiddy though it would be a nice gadget to have. I wonder if it could be used on dry leaves to test if curing is a thing as CannaRed suggested?
 

CannaRed

Cannabinerd
The price of that SPAD 502 is almost three thou! It's hard to find a CM for less than three fiddy though it would be a nice gadget to have. I wonder if it could be used on dry leaves to test if curing is a thing as CannaRed suggested?

Damn! I couldn't find a price, so I figured it was expensive, but that's alot of money.
 

CannaRed

Cannabinerd
Man, I have questions about this.
I wonder if a purple plant would test as deficient?
Is the chlorophyll level still the same but just covered up from the anthocyanins?
 

EvergreenState

Active member
It does look like it would be an interesting tool but I also checked out the price and most are very expensive 2-3k. I did find one brand that went for about $350. I do think it could be useful though.
 

Mr. Greengenes

Re-incarnated Senior Member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Yeah, it does look like something I might purchase at the $350 price. Still need to do some more research to figure out what exactly we could do with it. Seems like corn growers are using it, but I think just on live green leaves. Interested in whether it could be used to test dry material like CannaRed suggested.
 

Lost in a SOG

GrassSnakeGenetics
These definitely work and are common tools in professional horticulture.. considered buying one a few times over the years but never did. Its mostly useful for mapping nutrient availability over different areas so id say most useful for field based horticulture.

It only works on live leaves. They help with knowing Nitrogen absorption more than anything i think.
 

Tony21

Member
Yes, this in interesting technology. It's not new and as others have said, question is HOW to use it in a practical way. There's probably also lessons to be learned about the readings and how to understand them across strains before any corrective actions are taken.

I thought about getting one, but having an Apogee quantum meter collecting dust, I decided this is pretty useless for the ordinary grower.


https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2018.01752/full


The apogee, which is a cool 1700 bucks or so, even comes with cannabis settings. There's plenty on YouTube and their website about the technology.
 

Drewsif

Member
According to the internet, you can smell the chlorophyll in plants. No test needed,just smell it.

Eventually internet growers will wake up to the real world, where plants have been growing for thousands of years. But in the meantime... Testing nitrate levels for decades,and the internet proclaims: flushing is a myth. Its damnable ignorance these little boxed off paranoid one-way mirrored forums love.
 

Tony21

Member
According to the internet, you can smell the chlorophyll in plants. No test needed,just smell it.

Eventually internet growers will wake up to the real world, where plants have been growing for thousands of years. But in the meantime... Testing nitrate levels for decades,and the internet proclaims: flushing is a myth. Its damnable ignorance these little boxed off paranoid one-way mirrored forums love.


Yeah, the real world is a cool thing, what exactly are you trying to say, real world-like.....?
 

EvergreenState

Active member
According to the internet, you can smell the chlorophyll in plants. No test needed,just smell it.

Eventually internet growers will wake up to the real world, where plants have been growing for thousands of years. But in the meantime... Testing nitrate levels for decades,and the internet proclaims: flushing is a myth. Its damnable ignorance these little boxed off paranoid one-way mirrored forums love.
Another cruel, judgmental jerk. Yes you can see that a plant has chlorophyl in it but in the search to grow as perfect a plant and to have the best finished product as possible, this tool might help in determining how much or how little chlorophyl a plant has in it at any given time. It might help determining how much is healthy or unhealthy depending on each stage of the plants life.

It might also help in refining how much or how little feeding is necessary at any given time, when to stop a veg. cycle and when to harvest a plant. All of these things would take trail and error and the more information we would be able to gather at each stage would be helpful in our search to be the best growers we can be. All tools and all the information that could possibly help us in reaching our goal to be the best growers possible are worthy of investigation.
Being close minded and judgmental holds you and others back and is of no value what so ever.
 
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