It's 2019, What IS the Known OPTIMAL Spectrum for Resin/Terpene Rich Cannabis?

Thank you, I'm looking forward to how it turns out.

Douglas.Curtis said:

St. Phatty, do you have flower from a previous run of these genetics under different lighting? I'd be interested in the differences you can detect.

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My third LED grow.

The LED light combination was the best for lettuce. Dropped in some Cannabis to see how it would go & cause I felt like starting some Cannabis plants.

A couple links which I've found useful information from recently...

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Using Spectrum Control to "Design" Your Plant - AKA - Photomorphogenetics
California Light Works

This covers the effects of spectrum on plant expression, and how to adjust your spectrum for specific results. Full oil production, max flower production, max terpene production or a combination at different times during flower.

3 days of No-Red-Light before harvest showing an increase in terpene content

lumigrow.com said:

Effects of No Red Light on Terpene Content
When totaled, twenty terpenes from the 4 varieties showed differences in terpene quantity for the “No Red” light treatment. The majority of these significantly different terpenes were found in Chocolope and J1 (Figure 2). For these strains, 8 terpenes showed significant differences in the “No Red” light treat-ment, with 15 of these cases showing significant increases in terpenes and only 1 case showing significant decrease.

The data for OG-18 and Reserva strains was much less significant with only 2 terpenes showing significant difference in the “No Red” light treatment. Reserva flowers contained the greatest quantity of total terpenes on average, followed by J1, and then OG18. Chocolope flowers contained the fewest total terpenes.

CONCLUSION
The data shows that the amount of terpenes in dried Cannabis flowers increases with a “No Red” light treatment for the final three days of production. Based upon these findings, we feel confident in recommending a spectrum control program that eliminates red light output from LumiGrow fixtures for the final 72 hours of the Cannabis flowering cycle. Spectrum control programs, including the program for this study, are easily automated using the LumiGrow SmartPAR Wireless Control System. We recommend lab analysis of the final dried flower product, as there is always some variation within the given varieties.

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From Lumigrow Blue only End Of Flower Study pdf:

Ibechillin said:

From Lumigrow Blue only End Of Flower Study pdf:

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Yep.

They found the terpene levels to be higher without having a negative impact on cannabinoid production. Keep in mind, this is only the last 3 days of flower before harvest.

Great stuff.

The study is bullshit and flawed as hell lol, the anaylsis of the terpenes are negligible differences that could easily be attributed to other environmental factors in reference to light intensity, humidity change, dry and cure etc. Terpenes reside in/on trichomes, no increase in cannabinoids no increase in relative terps if you see what im saying.

UV and IR effect surface temp. Tech isn't there yet because max is desirable yet at the same time wee little veggies don't need a lot of UV.

White light, UV and IR that is safe for humans and pets is good. I'd just watt the lights out for specific footprints and dim the uv. Yet the penitration requires a SOFT light. A 250 HPS street light shines a long way and leaves not much shadow. A CMH leaves more shadow that is why hard light will not penitrate as well.

It may be as simple as red light is causing heat on the plant surface burning off the terps.

Ibechillin said:

The study is bullshit and flawed as hell lol, the anaylsis of the terpenes are negligible differences that could easily be attributed to other environmental factors in reference to light intensity, humidity change etc. Terpenes reside in/on trichomes, no increase in cannabinoids no increase in relative terps if you see what im saying.

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I'll buy that.

I'd still like to see more studies on it, since there's at least a shred of scientific basis behind it. This bit is of interest and something I'll probably chase for a minute.

http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/135/4/1893 said:

Emission of volatile compounds from flowers and leaves of some plant species, as well as herbivore-induced volatiles, varies remarkably throughout the photoperiod. The release of floral volatiles in these species displays a rhythmic pattern with maximum emission during the day or night, which generally coincides with the foraging activities of potential pollinators, and is controlled by a circadian clock or regulated by light (Jakobsen and Olsen, 1994; Helsper et al., 1998; Kolosova et al., 2001a)

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Its 2019 and china has already created a larger scale artificial sun (6 times hotter than the core of the real sun) capable of nuclear fusion.. oh and a moon too.

Imagine having a small scale reactor with a real miniature 400-1000w sun in your grow room! And a radiation suit, containment unit, to work with it.

I bet the elite will have sunny artificial beach resorts in huge undergound complexes where they get tans and grow their crops, after they are done farming us to extract the rest of the resources needed up here

NASA/space agencies are probably just a big hoax to develop tech like bio suits and underground environments and condos, etc. that allow them to go down under and survive there.. not up in space like they want us to beleive.

Meanwhile we only get to play with measly HID/LEDs, while they create real suns and even moons that can emit any kind of photon they want lol.




Back on topic though, I would want a mix of every type/color LED, and the ability to dim each specific circuit they are on. Also built in timers that can dim at cetain times as well. That way you could emulate the sun, for example slowly fade in a certain color at the start of the day like the sun coming up in the morning. Then slowly fade in more of another color, even some UVs during mid day, etc.

I would also have the light interfaced with a smart environmental controller, so the colors can fade/change with the temp and humidity, also emulating the environment to some extent.

Kind of like when a cloud passes by, the spectum changes and so does the temperature of the canopy. That could all be programmed in to the system. Have days with higher humidity like rainy days and whatnot, different programs to change it up all the time.

Not very practical really.. but LEDs make it more possible to do something like that.


I guess that unless you had a building with 100 multi type/color units, doing side by side tests, we'll never really know exactly. One guy with a few lights could take a life time to find the optimal spectrum for his environment if at all. The plants probably just use what they need anyway, and can somewhat evolve to do so over time depending on the genetics.

For now though I'll be happy playing with 2.7-5k at different ratios, and trying to beat or come close to hps/mh, cheaply as possible. Until you guys figure it out anyway

Likely guaranteed results can be found in keeping an eye on VPD and DIF.

Ibechillin said:

Gavita says it uses top bin Osram and Samsung led and advanced Philips drivers but doesnt list which ones on the site/brochure specs, and ya they draw 630w on 240v power. The fixtures are almost 4x4 wide at 44 inch x 44 inch so they would be running 2 per 4x8 table. 1260w total pulling 4 pounds ~1.5 grams per watt vs the double ended using 2300w total over the same space yielding 6lbs ~1.2 grams per watt. Totally reasonable yields with a high yielding cut imho. The abundant overlapping light from having rows of them hanging in parralell would help too.

Here is the Gavita 1650e led spectrum:
(no UVB/UVA or Far red but abundant usable red and blue light)

View Image

The Fluence Spyderx plus is near the same configuration as they are both 8 led bar fixtures that fit a 4x4 space pulling around 630-650 watts, spectrums are near identical but Gavita has more blue it seems.

Fluence spyderx plus spyder2p spectrum:

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I read recently, that shorter wavelength light carried more energy. 25% more energy in a blue photon than a red photon. My head kinda fell sideways onto one shoulder, and hasn't quite recovered yet.

If you apply this notion to the vertical axis, reducing the gavita mw rating to photons, the graphs are near identical. Maybe actually identical.


I'm not willing to say a blue photon carries any more energy than a red one, but I can see it through the mist. I must resolve this soon, if nobody paints a quick picture for me.

Of course blue light is at higher energy state than red light, that's a basic physical property of light.
Regarding those two spectrums...not the same.
Look closely at red and blue spikes, the fluence light has more blue than red, gavita otherwise.
Basically it could be two identical designs, one using 3000K white leds, the other using 4000K white leds(or using 3000K + a few blue leds).


Cheers

Koondense said:

Look closely at red and blue spikes, the fluence light has more blue than red, gavita otherwise.

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I think you meant the Gavita has more blue then red haha.

In the lighting science thread there is mention of plants evolving from the ocean. When I was putting the thread together and came across the blue light has more energy topic I researched deep sea plants to verify with also. Electrons use photons for energy, Blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light and shorter wavelengths carry more energy. Plants that use photosynthesis (and algae) need to stay in the upper 200m depth called the euphotic zone to survive, which only violet and blue light penetrates into (explaining the more efficient use of violet and blue light, its the earliest form of light used/they evolved to use).

This is how different colors of light penetrate into the ocean:



Here are the different light zones in the ocean and typical creatures that live there:





Chlorophyl A Is the primary pigment used in photosynthesis, others are merely accessory pigments and are much less efficient at converting light into growth energy. The most efficient use of light by chlorophyll A is at 430nm which is actually violet or indigo in color.



The Emerson effect shows how light at 670nm or 700nm red alone is poor at photosynthesis, but when 680nm red and 700nm red are used simultaneously photosynthetic rate increases exponentially.



Maximum growth rate and expression happens when all the chlorophyll and accessory pigments are stimulated simultaneously on the top and bottom of the leaves (reflective material, overlapping lights, light movers) with broad spectrum light, with the different colors of light proportioned in order of most used/effective to least in respect to photosaturation and daily light integral.

Ibechillin said:

Gavita says it uses top bin Osram and Samsung led and advanced Philips drivers but doesnt list which ones on the site/brochure specs, and ya they draw 630w on 240v power. The fixtures are almost 4x4 wide at 44 inch x 44 inch so they would be running 2 per 4x8 table. 1260w total pulling 4 pounds ~1.5 grams per watt vs the double ended using 2300w total over the same space yielding 6lbs ~1.2 grams per watt. Totally reasonable yields with a high yielding cut imho. The abundant overlapping light from having rows of them hanging in parralell would help too.

Here is the Gavita 1650e led spectrum:
(no UVB/UVA or Far red but abundant usable red and blue light)

View Image

The Fluence Spyderx plus is near the same configuration as they are both 8 led bar fixtures that fit a 4x4 space pulling around 630-650 watts, spectrums are near identical but Gavita has more blue it seems.

Fluence spyderx plus spyder2p spectrum:

View Image

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The spectrums you posted there are what you get from white+red designs trying to match the basic McCree curves. Neither is a "specialty" spectrum meant for cannabis yield, terps or anything like that. Those are both the "general plant growth" spectrum LED light makers aim for.

The different balances of blue vs the middle/yellow region is because a different color temp of white led was chosen. The gavita matches what you'd get from a 4000K diode, the other one is likely a 3000k.

The amount of cyan shown (20%) is surprising. I suspect it may just be from chart smoothing, but if it's real then the white LED chosen would likely be an 80 CRI model. (higher CRI diodes are less efficient)

The amount of red added is quite small in both. These would be mainly white LED lamps with a low ratio of reds added. Likely 5:1 white to red or higher if you're using similar power diodes.

Koondense said:

Of course blue light is at higher energy state than red light, that's a basic physical property of light.
Regarding those two spectrums...not the same.
Look closely at red and blue spikes, the fluence light has more blue than red, gavita otherwise.
Basically it could be two identical designs, one using 3000K white leds, the other using 4000K white leds(or using 3000K + a few blue leds).


Cheers

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So it's the idea that shorter wavelengths expresses as energy, more than mass?

I'm seeing the Fluence blue peak at 80% of the red? Why do you say to look at the peaks and it has more blue? Your making me question my sanity.

I agree the gavita has more red photons than blue, but I think you may back pedal at this point.

I will wait for some clarification before carrying on.

@ f-e

Koondense made a typo haha. The spectrum charts are essentially showing what the blended light output is a ratio of is all.

I found this explanation looking into spectrum affect on solar energy cells awhile ago:

Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect helped establish the quantum model of light. Each light bundle, called a photon, has a characteristic energy determined by its frequency of vibration. The energy (E) of a photon is given by Planck's law: E = hf, where f is the frequency and h is Planck's constant (6.626 × 10−34 joule∙second). Despite the fact that a photon has a particle nature, it also has wave characteristics, and for any wave, its frequency is the reciprocal of its wavelength (which is here denoted by w). If the speed of light is c, then f = c/w, and Planck's law can be written: E = hc/w

When photons are incident on a conducting material, they collide with the electrons in the individual atoms. If the photons have enough energy, they knock out the electrons in the outermost shells. These electrons are then free to circulate through the material. Depending on the energy of the incident photons, they may be ejected from the material altogether.

According to Planck's law, the energy of the incident photons is inversely proportional to their wavelength. Short-wavelength radiation occupies the violet end of the spectrum and includes ultraviolet radiation and gamma rays. On the other hand, long-wavelength radiation occupies the red end and includes infrared radiation, microwaves and radio waves.

Sunlight contains an entire spectrum of radiation, but only light with a short enough wavelength will produce the photoelectric or photovoltaic effects. This means that a part of the solar spectrum is useful for generating electricity. It doesn't matter how bright or dim the light is. It just has to have – at a minimum – the solar cell wavelength. High-energy ultraviolet radiation can penetrate clouds, which means that solar cells should function on cloudy days – and they do.

The wavelengths of visible light occur between 400 and 700 nm, so the bandwidth wavelength for silicon solar cells is in the very near infrared range. Any radiation with a longer wavelength, such as microwaves and radio waves, lacks the energy to produce electricity from a solar cell.

https://sciencing.com/effect-wavelength-photovoltaic-cells-6957.html

Ive looked at ALOT of spectrums and it amazes me that they all seem to peak at the 450nm point and not the higher energy and more photosynthetically active 430nm point?

Ibechillin said:

I think you meant the Gavita has more blue then red haha.

In the lighting science thread there is mention of plants evolving from the ocean. When I was putting the thread together and came across the blue light has more energy topic I researched deep sea plants to verify with also. Electrons use photons for energy, Blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light and shorter wavelengths carry more energy. Plants that use photosynthesis (and algae) need to stay in the upper 200m depth called the euphotic zone to survive, which only blue light penetrates into (explaining the more efficient use of blue light, its the earliest form of light used/they evolved to use).

This is how different colors of light penetrate into the ocean:

View Image

Here are the different light zones in the ocean and typical creatures that live there:

View Image

View Image

Chlorophyl A Is the primary pigment used in photosynthesis, others are merely accessory pigments and are much less efficient at converting light into growth energy. The most efficient use of light by chlorophyll A is the at 430nm which is actually violet or indigo in color.

View Image

The Emerson effect shows how light at 670nm or 700nm red alone is poor at photosynthesis, but when 680nm red and 700nm red are used simultaneously photosynthetic rate increases exponentially.

View Image

Maximum growth rate and expression happens when all the chlorophyll and accessory pigments are stimulated simultaneously on the top and bottom of the leaves (reflective material, overlapping lights, light movers) with broad spectrum light, with the different colors of light proportioned in order of most used/effective to least in respect to photosaturation and daily light integral.

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OMG the sea spider reaches 90cm in size. If we evolved down there, it's no wonder we are inherently scared of spiders. I need to go and scratch. I will read the rest later

Ibechillin said:

Ive looked at ALOT of spectrums and it amazes me that they all seem to peak at the 450nm point and not the higher energy and more photosynthetically active 430nm point?

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Efficiency. Different colour LEDs have wildly different efficiencies, just a quirk of chemistry, and 460nm diodes are an absolute miracle of efficiency. They're the best LED we have. A 460nm diode puts out 10-20x more light per watt than a 430nm so the plant growth you get from a 460 is going to be way better than the more theoretically ideal 430.

They're so good that white LEDs are actually blue 460nm diodes coated with phosphors that block some of the blue light and re-emit it at other frequencies.

Fascinating, seriously. I can't wait for the next 3 years of cannabis + led experimentation to finish. lol

btw... someone sent me this link. I have zero information on it other than it was shared with me. Older equipment? Scam article by the competition? Black market knock off? https://www.fluencereviews.com/