Indoor McB's Flash Seeds Grow: Chaze + Santa

[Bonzo Mendoza]

Greetings AFN


Lights:
I run three sections
seedling:64w round flourescent 32w 6500k,32w 2700k
Veg:264w cfl,3X45w cool white,3X23w daylight and 3 X 20w warm white
Flower:400w hps(looking into adding some uvb tubes/cfl's for added resin production)

I have used 48 inch 5.0 uvb tubes for MJ and they worked fantastic - I totally recommend them. ZooMed was also advertising a uvb cfl. When I was getting ready to install uvb (as supplemental lighting for a 1000w HID), I called up the ZooMed company to ask about questions about their cfl's. I had read that only a long tube can be properly manufactured for reliable uvb and that the cfl design is a poor design for uvb. The ZooMedn receptionist put me thru to one of their engineers. In short, the ZooMed engineer was a total dickweed and would not answer my questions. He kept telling me that I was asking about company secrets ("proprietary information") and that he suspected that I was an engineer from a rival company (!). What bullshit - I totally got the feeling that he was trying to hide the fact that the ZooMed cfl design proabaly does not work very well to produce uvb. But having said that, I used two 5.0 tubes to grow photos and they worked great (on three different strains; some much better than others). They caused fantastic terpene production. This year, I am very curious to see what uvb will do to autos and which auto strains will respond best. I have nine autos growing in the house (soil almost identical to yours coincidentally) since late Aug. but I cannot start uvb yet because my wife is not going to tolerate the strong smell they cause. I have to wait a couple months to move the grow to an out buliding before I can apply uvb.

 

[MrMcbud]

Awesome,thanks for the heads up Bonzo.
Saved me a couple of bucks on cfl's then,will focus on getting a tube or two.
what periods do you run the uvb for though,as i understand it triggers a defence mechanism which causes excess resin production to enhance chaces of pollination.
Sounds like it can damage your plant if left indefinately?

 

[bh4vn35h]

Looking very nce MrMcbud

 

[Bonzo Mendoza]

Awesome,thanks for the heads up Bonzo.
Saved me a couple of bucks on cfl's then,will focus on getting a tube or two.
what periods do you run the uvb for though,as i understand it triggers a defence mechanism which causes excess resin production to enhance chaces of pollination.
Sounds like it can damage your plant if left indefinately?

It seems that I have read all the same stuff as you on the pot growers internet. I ran two ZooMed 5.0 32 watt t8 for the full twelve hours on the photos I was growing at the time (last year). As I recall, there were no problems with over exposure - to the contrary, I felt that "the more the better". The uvb tubes were very close to the plants - 3-6 inches. As I recall, for a short while one or two of the plants appeared to suffer a lsmall amount of amount of leaf damage, but I remeber thinking that the obvious benefit of the uvb more than outweighed the leaf damage. I remember that the uvb lamps definitely caused some color change on the sides of the plants that were most exposed, and that I rotated them just to be careful. IMHO, it really did not seem to make much difference whetehr or not the whole plant got exposed to the uvb - more likely, it seemed that the whole plant would respond with increased terpene production because one side of it was more exposed to uvb.

Somewhere around here I have some text I prepared for another MJ growing website that discusses the mathmatical calculations of intensity of uvb light from ZooMed lamps compared to the intensity of uvb in sunlight. I will hunt it down and post it here on AFN asap. But I remember seeing that even when those 5.0's are right on top of the plant, it is about the same uvb exposure of a plant (actually an iguana) on an island at sealevel along the equator who is sitting in the shade (she would be getting exposed to uvb that reflects off of rocks). Even so, at those low levels of uvb exposure, I was really happy with the MJ buds - it definitely produced superior thc levels, but also the uvb caused the plant to produce alot more wonderful smelling terpene.

This year, I am going to get ZooMed 10.0's (they are probably only good for about 1000 hours) and really clobber some plants with uvb.

Note: if you run uvb lights, you should not use a fixture with a painted reflector. Paint absorbs uvb so you will lose a full 50% of the uvb (clear glass also absorbs all uvb). Polished nickel or polished aluminum reflectors are probably the best for the money (aluminum foil would work too). Also note that uvb is slightly dangerous. I never got a uvb skin burn from a ZooMed light, but I do believe that - over the course of a few years - the uvb light from ZooMeds creates a real risk of causing cataracts (HID's create the same risk). As a safety measure, I hook up the uvb fixtures to their own switchable power strip - that way I can turn off the uvb's as soon as I enter the room and turn them on just before I leave. The "dangerous" uvb lights are also a good way to keep my wife from interfering with operations in my gro room.

 

[Bonzo Mendoza]

Awesome,thanks for the heads up Bonzo.
i understand it triggers a defence mechanism which causes excess resin production

As I under stand it, MJ plants produce resin to sheild the plant for damaging uvb (it is MJ "sunblock"). I read a study that showed that uvb light is completely absorbed by MJ resin (resin crystals look black under uv light).

 

[Stitch]

very good, u did well brother to plant the Chaze in final containers...

 

[Bonzo Mendoza]

UVB is generally defined as the wavelength band from 290-320nm, but it is the band between 290-305 nm that is most important.

The earth’s climate is determined by the amount of solar radiation that strikes the surface.
Factors like the sun’s position, the earth’s rotation, geographic location, the ozone layer, clouds, air-humidity, elevation, environment, etc. influence the intensity of light. Also within the microhabitat the light intensity of both visual and non-visual light varies, depending on the density of the vegetation or geological conditions.

At this time, the sun’s rays have the least distance to travel through the atmosphere and UVB levels are at their highest. In the early morning and late afternoon, the sun’s rays pass through the atmosphere at an angle and their intensity is greatly reduced.

Maps of the UV index for the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the UV index is highest during the summer months (despite the fact that the sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer only during the Autumnal Equinox).

UV levels in the tropics are very high. High equatorial UV levels are primarily caused by the high angle of the sun, a thinner layer of atmosphere, reduced air pollution, and diminished atmospheric ozone. Ozone is naturally thinner in the tropics compared to the mid- and high-latitudes, so there is less ozone to absorb the UV radiation as it passes through the atmosphere. At higher latitudes the sun is lower in the sky, so UV rays must travel a greater distance through ozone-rich portions of the atmosphere and, in turn, expose those latitudes to less UV radiation. Also, every thousand feet of elevation affects UVB levels by about 3%.

Interested readers should search the internet for “UV index map worldwide”.

UV-B light intensity is usually measured in “milliwatts per square centimeter” (uW/cm2). In an outdoor environment, very large daily variances of exposure to natural UV-B light would be occur due to cloud cover, air pollution, ambient shade, and the time of day. On average for the southern U.S.A., direct summertime sunlight measures about 200 uW/cm2 of UV-B. Tropical sunlight levels may range twice as high. UV radiation output peaks around noon, and about 20-30% of the total daily UV radiation at any point on Earth gets comes between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. - about 75% between 9 a.m. & 3 p.m.

Natural sunlight has a much higher UV-B irradiance than most commercial lamps. The maximum UV-B irradiance near the equator (solar elevation angle < 25 deg.) under clear, sunny skies, is about 250 µW/cm2.

Measurements from a UV-B lamp cannot be compared directly with readings from sunlight. The spectra of the two light sources are different. The Reptisun 10.0 spectrum has a greater percentage of its UVB in the shorter wavelengths than does sunlight. For example, 30 - 32uW/cm2 from a Reptisun 10.0 lamp is equivalent to approximately 40 – 50 uW/cm2 of sunlight.
Flourescent UV-B tubes supply a diffuse, gentle glow with low intensity visible light, very little heat, and a fairly uniform UV-B gradient, resembling natural UV-B "in the shade" on a sunny day.

Dave Weldon, founder of the South Bay Chameleon Keepers group (Los Angeles) reports:

“[A] … a combination of a 10.0 T-8 Zoo Med Reptisun 48” tube for UVB along with a standard 6500K “grow light” for the plants, all housed in a dual tube aluminum reflector shoplight type fixture … measures a safe and effective 31 uW/cm2 at 16”.”
and,

“[A] … a linear [five month old] Reptisun 10.0 and a 6500K “grow light” [were] mounted in a dual 48” shoplight fixture, lined with reflective aluminum foil to direct … the light …. The Solarmeter 6.2 is held 8.5" away and shows a reading of 30 uW/cm2 … “
http://www.chameleonnews.com/10JulWeldon.html

Intensity vs. distance.

Below is a chart that compares UVB readings from two new Reptisun 5.0 bulbs:
Distance from bulb: Irradiance (measured in uW/cm2)

3" 49/59
6" 24/29
9" 14/18
12" 10/12
15" 7/8
18" 5/6

http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Researchmain.html

UV-B Irradiance from sunlight (SEA = solar elevation angle)


Source of Sunlight
Irradiance of lamp/sunlight in µW/cm
Melbourne, Australia (37.8 S) clear, January 29, maximum irradiance,

263​

Kodiakanal, India (10.14 N) sunny, April,

260​

Miami, Florida (26 N) noon, June 21, summer solstice

253​

Lauder, New Zealand (45 S) clear, December 28, maximum irradiance

212​

Midlands, England (53 N), sunny, July 28, peak intensity

178​

Neuherberg, Germany (48.2 N) clear, July 13

175​

Longyearbyen, Norway (78.2 N), sunny, July 15

55​

Vantaa, Finland (60 N), hazy, sunny, July, noon,

55​

Fort Worth, Texas (32.8 N), shaded, diffuse, March 2, 3 pm,

15​

 

[Danny Tanner]

In the case of CHAZE plants, I recommend you to put them till now in the final containers. Do not transplant them never cause this will cause the plants to flower laters then normally.

Good luck

I learned this the hard way with my russian rocket fuels!

 

[MrMcbud]

Thanks guys, got some reading to do
Finalised my cab for veg, tired of moving in and out and the weather is too inconstant

 

[MrMcbud]

Some proper pics of the veg cab,still needs so wiring redone after the change and a fan or two mounted,but temps are perfect and the plants look happy

Confirmed Females and unsexed Chaze

Santa seedlings left and unsexed chaze right

Wierd looking Santa has sexed Male

Middle Santa seedling showing similar stunting to the first

Smallest Santa also showing wierd growth as well,i just dont know,low/zero nute soil,ph is 6.8