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When I was using HPS I only ever used Philips Son T Agro.

 

This was the one of the first bulb dedicated to horticulture & Philips are a quality manufactuer.

 

 

Agro lamps are suitable for flowering as a standard HPS lamp, but are better for growth. These lamps have 30% more blue light in the spectrum and are developed by Philips especially for horticulture.

 

The Agro HPS lamps are particularly efficient from the red part of the spectrum, but the blue part is also acceptable.

 

I am not able to compare it as it is the only bulbs I have used.

 

I was happy with the results and so didn't change to a different bulb, just stayed with what i knew worked.

 

My ballast/reflector was made by a company called Poot -

This steadfast light has been available for a decade and in it's most recent incarnation, is as effective as any modern design.

This light is used extensively throughout Holland. It is affectionately known as "The Producer" and has a reputation for consistent and abuntant yields.

This light is ideal for indoor use and greenhouse use. The unit is designed specifically to be suspended via two chains at either end of the main section.

This counterwieghts the sturdy pentagonal reflector. The unit is approximately 66cm long and the widest section of the reflector is approximately 42cm - copied &pasted from - http://www.1-hydroponics.co.uk/grow-lights/poot-light.htm

I eventually got rid of the reflector and wired in a long flex to the lamp holder so I could have a remote ballast and not to have to hang such a weight.

 

Peace & smokes

 

Lams

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well HPS is nice but with the time i prefered to use bulbs with a little more mixed spectrums, i don't have any names in my head right nw because i haven't buy  a bulb for a long time so don't know what is still on the market or not, but i prefered those to pure HPS, eventually i would add the real HPS for the 2 last weeks of flowering before harvest to change the spectrum a little it seems the plant liked it ;)

 

have a good day

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Here is an interesting question that as marijuana growers, we need to pay attention to. HPS [High Pressure Sodium Bulbs] emit almost no UV Light. Some research has been done on marijuana suggesting that the plant does indeed need and use UV rays for bud production and high THC resin gland production. 

 

Troubling...

 

It is said that using a HPS bulb should be paired with a small light of another type that has some supplementary UV Rays

 

Another point arises from this. HPS bulbs work, and they work well for budding. But........... We could be unwittingly growing bud that has a ton of resin Glands, but with little UV Rays, the resin Glands wont produce max amounts of THC.

 

Food for thought, or weed for smoke.

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 http://www.3drender.com/glossary/colortemp.jpg

As you can see in the picture, natural sunlight is at 6500K. HPS Bulbs emit around 2500k. (k = Kelvin). Look at the difference of the 2 spectrographs below. Notice how the HPS Bulb emits almost no energy wavelengths under 400 nanometers. In the Sunlight spectrograph there is considerably more energy wavelengths emitted from the sun below 400 nanometers and the UV Rays are emmitted at 300-400 nanometers. Visible light is emitted at 400 nanometers - 700 nanometers. We can deduce from this, that the HPS Bulbs emit negligable amounts of UV Rays. Less than a plant, in nature, would utilize.

 

HPS Bulb Spectrograph

Hort_HPS_Spectrum.jpg

 

Sun Spectrograph.

spectrum.jpg

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The UV used for water sterilization is UVC , The UV you want for resisn production is UVB. UVC is very harmful to living organisms and should not be exposed to skin and eyes!! (just a head up for safetys sake).

UVB tubes can be bought easily and are normallymarketed at people who keep repitles.

Sometimes hand help UVC light are sold as room sanitisers or for grow room pest eradication.

LEP (Light Emitting Plasma) light produce both UVB & UVC, The UVC is now filtered out for safety reasons. It still produces a certain amount of UVB.

MH (Metal Halides) also produce a certain amount of UVB.

UVB is easlily absorbed by glass(as in bulbs and greenhouses) and plastic (some green house use plastic sheeting & often UV stabilised to stop degredation) which can stop the UV gettting to the plants.

UVB tubes use specilized glass that lets the UVB shine through without too much filtering.

If you want to fill out your Hps spectrum with more UVB ,buy a UVB light,or a LED with UVB diodes, the LED will also ballance out the blue side of the spectrum.

I started a thread for UVB resin enhacing, I'll see if I can dig out a link.

Lets not get to distracted though, this is still athread about dufferent types of HPS! ;)

Peace

Lams

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Hi. Just a word of warning and my 2 cents.

to much uvb will make your plants hermie. I have now done a few runs experimenting with uvb at different levels and it hermied my plants every time. I have herd good things about the use of uvb and seen amazing grows with it and i will go down that road again one day but for now i am sick of hermies

cheers

Reaf

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Nice advice Reaf, I forgot to mention that UVB should only be used sparingly for a couple of hours in the middleof lights on. This advice I have read, good to hear you have had expirience with using it.

Can you tell us what bulb  you used , what wattage it was and the size of the space.

How many hours did you have it on for?

Hermies :( not good

I've been meaning to try repti grow tubes but have spent my money on new LED's ,Two of which have UVB Diodes, No hermies thankfully.

I would imagine that too high an intensity and too many hours is  what may have caused it to hermie.

It may be a matter of finding the sweet spot when using UVB. I can not say, needs more investigation.

Thanks for sharing it with us reaf as it adds to the body of information on this subject.

I have more to learn on this subject, any information greatfully recieved.

Peace brother

Lams

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yes good that you point i was about to say it too, on almost all the grows i have seen using UV te light cycle was diferent to the regular bulb cycle it would only be on for a few hours of the day, maybe what would be interesting is to watch in our sun, what part of the day has the most UV emission, i would be tempted to say  lunch time of course as it's the higher point of the sun in the day, but i'm not sure that it works this ways in nature so a little google search would be usefull on this :) and depending on when the UV emission is the higher in our days, i would adjust this to the lighting cycle and plan it properly :)

 

Good luck man!

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Thanks for the nice graph plain_sight, don't forget though not all sunlight is used by plants, have a look at PAR (photosynthetically Active Radiation) and that different plants have different PUR (Photosythetically Usable Radiation)levels.

PUR can vary on the latitude of where a species comes from due to the suns ligh coming through the atmosphere at different angles through the year. There also other factors that can affect PUR. It is little talked about and I don't knowmuch more than that (at the moment ;) ).

Here is a link to "How does UV effect Marijuana Plant" http://forums.strainhunters.com/topic/4951-how-does-uv-light-effect-marijuana-plants/

Peace brother

Lams

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Wow looks like we getting somewere with this lol thanks for input guys I ha e found this on internet it blagged my head to many joints it think but if any of you can help I think it saying about 3% uv but not sure lol

Infrared-A: 700 nm to 1,400 nmInfrared-B: 1,400 nm to 3,000 nmInfrared-C: 3,000 nm to 1 mm.

Sunlight in space at the top of Earth's atmosphere at a power of 1366 watts/m2 is composed (by total energy) of about 50% infrared light, 40% visible light, and 10% ultraviolet light.[3] At ground level, this decreases to about 1120–1000 watts/m2, and by energy fractions to 44% visible light, 3% ultraviolet (with the Sun at the zenith, but less at other angles), and the remainder infrared.[4] Thus, sunlight's composition at ground level, per square meter, with the sun at the zenith, is about 527 watts of infrared radiation, 445 watts of visible light, and 32 watts ofultraviolet radiation.[5]

Thanks

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Wow looks like we getting somewere with this lol thanks for input guys I ha e found this on internet it blagged my head to many joints it think but if any of you can help I think it saying about 3% uv but not sure lol

Infrared-A: 700 nm to 1,400 nmInfrared-B: 1,400 nm to 3,000 nmInfrared-C: 3,000 nm to 1 mm.

Sunlight in space at the top of Earth's atmosphere at a power of 1366 watts/m2 is composed (by total energy) of about 50% infrared light, 40% visible light, and 10% ultraviolet light.[3] At ground level, this decreases to about 1120–1000 watts/m2, and by energy fractions to 44% visible light, 3% ultraviolet (with the Sun at the zenith, but less at other angles), and the remainder infrared.[4] Thus, sunlight's composition at ground level, per square meter, with the sun at the zenith, is about 527 watts of infrared radiation, 445 watts of visible light, and 32 watts ofultraviolet radiation.[5]

Thanks

i like this

 

remember that the Spectrograph i made is Relative energy output. This means. at the suns light we recieve on earth on a cloudless day. This graph does not refer to cummulitive percentage of light. Meaning it does not calulate what percentage of UV Waves we get. Just the amount. Not a percentage of the whole energy recieved. 

 

Make sense?

 

This is the actual composition of energy of the sun. Thiis tells what percent of what energy the sun emits. We can then calculate how much energy we recieve on earth by using a hard equation taking the atmosphere into consideration.

 

The spectrum of the Sun's solar radiation is close to that of a black body with a temperature of about 5,800 K.[6] The Sun emits EM radiation across most of the electromagnetic spectrum. Although the Sun produces Gamma rays as a result of the nuclear fusion process, these super-high-energy photons are converted to lower-energy photons before they reach the Sun's surface and are emitted out into space. As a result, the Sun does not emit gamma rays. The Sun does, however, emit X-raysultravioletvisible lightinfrared, and even radio waves.[7]

Although the solar corona is a source of extreme ultraviolet and X-ray radiation, these rays make up only a very small amount of the power output of the Sun (see spectrum at right). The spectrum of nearly all solar electromagnetic radiation striking the Earth's atmosphere spans a range of 100 nm to about 1 mm. This band of significant radiation power can be divided into five regions in increasing order of wavelengths:[8]

  • Ultraviolet C or (UVC) range, which spans a range of 100 to 280 nm. The term ultraviolet refers to the fact that the radiation is at higher frequency than violet light (and, hence, also invisible to the human eye). Owing to absorption by the atmosphere very little reaches the Earth's surface. This spectrum of radiation has germicidal properties, and is used in germicidal lamps.
  • Ultraviolet B or (UVB) range spans 280 to 315 nm. It is also greatly absorbed by the atmosphere, and along with UVC is responsible for thephotochemical reaction leading to the production of the ozone layer. It directly damages DNA and causes sunburn.
  • Ultraviolet A or (UVA) spans 315 to 400 nm. This band was once held to be less damaging to DNA, and hence is used in cosmetic artificialsun tanning (tanning booths and tanning beds) and PUVA therapy for psoriasis. However, UVA is now known to cause significant damage to DNA via indirect routes (formation of free radicals and reactive oxygen species), and is able to cause cancer.[9]
  • Visible range or light spans 380 to 780 nm. As the name suggests, it is this range that is visible to the naked eye. It is also the strongest output range of the sun's total irradiance spectrum.
  • Infrared range that spans 700 nm to 106 nm (1 mm). It is responsible for an important part of the electromagnetic radiation that reaches the Earth. It is also divided into three types on the basis of wavelength:
    • Infrared-A: 700 nm to 1,400 nm
    • Infrared-B: 1,400 nm to 3,000 nm
    • Infrared-C: 3,000 nm to 1 mm.

Sunlight in space at the top of Earth's atmosphere at a power of 1366 watts/m2 is composed (by total energy) of about 50% infrared light, 40% visible light, and 10% ultraviolet light.[3] At ground level, this decreases to about 1120–1000 watts/m2, and by energy fractions to 44% visible light, 3% ultraviolet (with the Sun at the zenith, but less at other angles), and the remainder infrared.[4]Thus, sunlight's composition at ground level, per square meter, with the sun at the zenith, is about 527 watts of infrared radiation, 445 watts of visible light, and 32 watts of ultraviolet radiation.[5]

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Hi

I used 2 x 40w reptiglo 10.0 . The first run i ran the uvb light with my light cycle and ofc this hermied my plants , lesson learnt lol the next run i ran it on a 2h on 2 hours ofs during the light cycle which also hermied the ladies but later only at about 6 weeks into flower were as the full uvb hermied at 3 weeks.

I believe that uvb should be added at the last 2 weeks in 2 hour cycles but i haven't tested it yet as i am sick of hermies for now.

A hermie normally late in flower isn't that bad as it will be harvested soon but as i run a perpetual grow hermies are really not fun , another reason why uvb for me personally is hard as i have ladies of all ages in my cab

 

 My next question is a bit of topic but on topic at the same time. 

As we all know feminized seeds are made by stressing a lady to a point where it hermies either though CS  , STS or old age as the preferred methods. What do you guys think of the outcome of seeds from ladies hermied from uvb?

Cheers 

Reaf

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Enviromental stress from  UVB  seems to behaving an effect on the plant.

It is getting stong UVB and it feels under threat, It hasn't been pollinated but fears the end may be near. It panics & throws out some nanners so to seed its self & spread its genes in the next growing season.

I wonder if the wattage was too high and or if UVB tubes were too near.

Problem is we haven't enough data to know and not enough people experimenting. Most people like to play it safe so as to get a good sensi (no seeds)

CS -coloidal silver i'm guessing you mean, for the moment I an not getting sts, remind me what it si.

If you make a female cannabis produce seed in the method you mention it is called selfing and the resultant pollen is used to polinate other femals of the same strain to produce female seeds.

There is more too it than just that, I have added some examples how enviromental conditions affect sex in cannabis seeds.

I added these because I though you would find it interesting.

 

Dutch pasions method to make female seeds

From literature and our own findings it appears that the growth of a male or female plant from seed, except for the predisposition in the gender chromosomes, also depends on various environmental factors. The environmental factors that influence gender are:

• a higher nitrogen concentration will give more females.
• a higher potassium concentration will give more males.
• a higher humidity will give more females.
• a lower temperature will give more females.
• more blue light will give more females.
• Fewer hours of light will give more females.

It is important to start these changes at the three-pairs-of-leaves stage and continue for two or three weeks, before reverting to standard conditions.

To produce our feminized cannabis seeds, we start with selected female clones. Under standard conditions these female clones do not produce any male flowers. By the method we found, we are able to have these female clones produce abundant male flowers and pollen
. The pollen thus produced we use for the production of our "feminized" seeds.

copied and pasted from dutch passion.

 

RODELIZATION: SOMA'S WAY TO FEMALE SEEDS

 

Story by Soma

grow_strdiesel_200.jpgCreating feminized cannabis seeds is an art. Just like art, there are a few different methods of application. I have written about some of my different methods of making seeds in previous HIGH TIMES articles. I have used gibberellic acid, pH stress, light stress, and fertilizer stress to force my female plants to make seeds. All of these methods are harsh on the plants, and some, like the gibberellic acid, are not organic. In my search for cleaner, more earth-friendly ways of working with the cannabis plant, I have found a new way to make feminized seeds.
Feminized seeds occur as a result of stress, rather than genetics. All cannabis plants can and will make male flowers under stress. Certain strains like a higher pH, some a lower one. Some like a lot of food, some like much less. There is quite a lot of variety in marijuana genetics, and you can’t treat every plant the same way.

 

It takes many harvests before you really get to know a particular strain. Just like getting to know human friends, it takes time. I have grown the same strains for close to a decade, and am truly getting to know every nuance the different plants exhibit. I can recognize them from a distance. I must say that I get a lot of help from my friends, both in making seeds and in learning new and better ways of working with this sacred plant.

 

I named this new method "Rodelization," after a friend who helped me realize and make use of this way of creating female seeds. After growing crop after crop of the same plants in the same conditions, I noticed that if I flowered the plants 10-14 days longer than usual, they would develop male "bananas." A male banana is a very slight male flower on a female marijuana plant that is formed because of stress. Usually they do not let out any pollen early enough to make seeds, but they sometimes do. They are a built-in safety factor so that in case of severe conditions, the plant can make sure the species is furthered.

 

To me, a male banana is quite a beautiful thing. It has the potential of making all female seeds. Many growers out there have male-banana phobia. They see one and have heart palpitations, they want to cut down the entire crop, or at the very least take tweezers and pluck the little yellow emergency devices out. I call them "emergency devices" because they emerge at times of stress.

 

In the Rodelization method, the male banana is very valuable. After growing your female plants 10-14 days longer than usual, hang them up to dry, then carefully take them off the drying lines and inspect for bananas. Each and every banana should be removed, and placed in a small bag labeled very accurately. These sealed bags can be placed in the fridge for one or two months and still remain potent.

 

For the next phase, you need to have a separate crop that’s already 2 1/2 weeks into flowering. Take your sealed bags of pollen out of the fridge, and proceed to impregnate your new crop of females. To do this, you must first match the female plant and the pollen from the same strain in the previous crop. Shut all the fans in the growroom down. Then take a very fine paintbrush, dip it in the bag of pollen, and paint it on the female flower. Do this to each different strain you have growing together. I have done it with up to 10 different kinds in the same room with great success.

 

I use the lower flowers to make seeds, leaving the top colas seedless for smoking. This method takes time (two crops), but is completely organic, and lets you have great-quality smoke at the same time you make your female seeds. If you’re one of those growers who’s never grown seeds for fear of not having something good to smoke, you will love this method.

 

You can also use this pollen to make new female crosses by cross-pollinating. The older females with the male bananas can be brought into the room with the younger, unpollinated females after they are three weeks into flowering. Turn all of the circulation fans on high, and the little bits of pollen will proceed to make it around the room. Do this for several days. Six to seven weeks later, you will have ripe 100% feminized seeds; not nearly as many as a male plant would make, but enough to start over somewhere else with the same genetics.

 

As a farmer who has been forced to move his genetics far away from where they started, I know very well the value of seeds. My friend Adam from ThSeeds in Amsterdam has a motto that I love to borrow these days: Drop seeds not bombs.

http://www.hightimes.com/read/rodelization-somas-way-female-seeds

 

Peace

Lams

 

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When I was using HPS I only ever used Philips Son T Agro.

 

This was the one of the first bulb dedicated to horticulture & Philips are a quality manufactuer.

 

 

 

 

Phillips Agro for growth combined with one or two Metal halide from Phillips or GIB.

For flowering Phililips Son T Master or GIB Flower Extreme.

 

That is the best I could find all over the years. Way back Lucalox 600 W was amazing but I don't know now.

And I don't know about that UV stuff, I doubt buds can get up to 23% THC with a HPS bulb when UV lights are so important. But I wish you all happy researching and I am waiting for your results.

 

Skol

Firefighter

 

 

 

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First we should make straight what plants want. We know they want much blue in veg. Also much N. Than comes the flowering. Some like to raise the ratio of P a few days before flowering. So we could say, the second stage starts right before flowering, and for appr. 3 weeks. In this stage, they still grow and sometimes stretch a lot is placed under a standard HPS from MH. Less if enough blue spectrum is available. This makes me think that in this period blue is still critical, but green, yellow, and red spectrums are also needed to trigger flowering. Untill this point i think hps bulbs with blue spectrum are very benefitial. From the 3rd week of flowering, the plants nutrient uptake is changing a lot, much less N needed, and i think the best used flower spectrum also. This means going for 640 nm is the best from this point for fruiting. The resin will only appear at this stage, so i see no point in using the uvb any time before. The last 2-3 weeks the hps could be completed with uvb, but i would suggest to do it only in the peak hours.

Peace

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  • 4 years later...

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