UV-C And Trichome Production

[Nathan Mccollum]

Has anyone tried micro dosing a plant with UV-C light during flower to try and increase Trichome Production? My thought is if trichomes help protect the plant from ultraviolet radiation, would giving small doses of UV-C increase Trichome Production? Has anyone researched this before?

 

[cardgenius]

From the bit of reading I’ve done on UV recently, UVC is quite dangerous to both humans and plants or any living organism for that matter. Just a little can do permanent damage. The only use of UVC I’ve seen is in intake/exhaust systems to kill mildew and other nasties. Haven’t actually seen anyone use it directly on their plants. But I’ve only been reading up on it in the last couple weeks so I’m by no means an expert.

UVA (365nm-400nm) or Near UV (400-420nm) seem to be the wavelengths people are using to increase trichome production and the plants resiliency as they can be ran for much longer times without the risk of plant and human damage. I just bought a UVA led puck to mess around with since I like learning about the different light spectrums and what they do. I plan to use it use it here in a week or two as my plants just hit day 30 of flowering.

UVB has the same effect as UVA but has to used more sparingly as it can easily damage your plants and you.

 

[Nathan Mccollum]

Correct. But I am trying to find if anyone has done tests or anything with the UV-C spectrum in particular. Possibly at different distances with just 1-2 second doses at different intervals.

 

[stinkyattic]

Nathan you have excellent grow technique already and the more practical approach would be to give your plants more available carbon, either as sugars (sweet, molasses, etc) or straight available carbon (as CO2). Combined with one of the many seaweed derived hormones on the market (I'm partial to snowstorm) that will encourage plants to metabolize carbon into surface resins.
It's pretty old school but it works, and you're not messing around with potentially harmful light wavelengths.

 

[cardgenius]

Correct. But I am trying to find if anyone has done tests or anything with the UV-C spectrum in particular. Possibly at different distances with just 1-2 second doses at different intervals.

I did come across on another site that a guy used it to deal with his spider mite infestation. Said it worked but also nuked his plants.

I don’t think there’s much out there because most people agree that it’s just too damaging to use.

 

[stinkyattic]

CG I think that's a very interesting tidbit. An application of uvc for sanitizing an empty room between runs.

 

[cardgenius]

CG I think that's a very interesting tidbit. An application of uvc for sanitizing an empty room between runs.

I wasn’t sure if that was his intention or not but that’s an excellent observation! I’m gonna have to look into that, seems like a great alternative to wiping down with a bleach solution.

 

[Honest al]

I wasn’t sure if that was his intention or not but that’s an excellent observation! I’m gonna have to look into that, seems like a great alternative to wiping down with a bleach solution.

Ask political name he would know . Lol

 

[stinkyattic]

I believe it's been tested with robotic application to sanitize locker rooms in schools that have had outbreaks of legionnaires disease (norovirus) amongst members of the sports teams. So its not farfetched. And has some science behind it lol.