UV and finish times...?

[Humanrob]

I'm wondering if anyone who is using supplemental UV has noticed that the plants tend to amber up quicker?

A few year back I played around with "lizard lights" for a couple of grows, but those were CFLs so it was hard to maintain good distance and get good coverage. Other than the logistical issues, I found that they did seem to increase frostiness, but also might have caused the plants to finish faster. At the time I was growing lots of photos and didn't mind tightening up the schedule between grows.

Now I'm doing limited grows, and this run I introduced an HLG UVA30 XL when they started to flower. HLG recommends this light for a 4x4 run 12 hours @24" above the canopy. I'm in a 2x4, it's hanging below my DIY COB light at about 18", so I'm only running it for three 30 minute 'bursts'. I think it's causing my plants to amber up early. We hate couch lock and avoid more than 15% amber. I just took down a RocBud Vanilla Scoop at day 69 because even though it still had a lot of clear trichomes, it was starting to push around 20% amber top to bottom (I'm schwazzing, so maturation is pretty consistent throughout the plant).

Anyone else notice changes in harvest times? The downside is that I feel like the plant could have fattened up more if it had finished more slowly.

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Great topic! I'm following along as I currently might be in the market for a UV supplemental light. The thing is, the science for it is there, but there's so much trash out there which uses the wrong wavelength, I'm not certain what if any will be the right one...

 

[Humanrob]

Great topic! I'm following along as I currently might be in the market for a UV supplemental light. The thing is, the science for it is there, but there's so much trash out there which uses the wrong wavelength, I'm not certain what if any will be the right one...

I was in the same boat, and decided to trust HLG to pick the best UV range.

I've been using the same DIY COB light in my tent for years, there really is no reason to upgrade it and I can't really move to QB's because I need the heat my old COBs generate to keep the tent warm enough. I decided to try and go the supplemental route with my existing lighting... mostly to mix things up a bit, see if I could squeeze a little more THC out of the plants.

A few weeks after adding the HLG light, RapidLED got there photo/far red supplemental bar back in stock, so I really went to town and added one of those as well. I suppose this question could be asked of far red also... could that be causing early or premature amber trichomes? That's one of my problems, I don't do enough grows to try one new thing at a time, each grow I tend to make a bunch of changes concurrently and often a bit randomly...

 

[Talonxracer]

I have used uva/uvb supplemental lighting and I have not noticed an appreciable quickening of trichomes ambering up, but then again I was merely trying to get them thru to harvest, lol