Luckily I have financial limits, the ideas I have floating around my head are costly!
Particularly hard to maintain both high and low temps due to extreme weather, gone is the cool outside air used to help "cool" during nighttime lights on, real-life daytime is running 95+ degrees which is making it hard to get to 60's lights off inside tent, it's better to keep the day/night swing within 10 degrees if possible as regular large transitions hot to cool can cause undue stress and disrupt the photosynthetic process.
I shall do my best to keep a 70-80 range day/night, weather permitting.
The potential is there, the hard part is providing the conditions for said growth to occur, every single day/night cycle. So that potential can be reached.
The countdown cycle begins as soon as the photoperiod is switched to flower, tick tock, each stage that passes dependant on the progress of the stage before it to dictate its development to the next.
Week 1-3: The Flowering Stretch
Flower growth requires much more "light" than veg growth, the plant initiates "stretch" to seek out possible future construction sites suitable for the higher requirements of flowers.
Week 3-4: Formation of “Budlets”
If the light was water and the bud sites were buckets, how many buckets would I need to fill the water? Ok, make that many.
A plant isn't going to start to develop high-density clusters of budlets if the conditions/intensity of light does not exist in the first place to make use of it, it will develop dictated by the environment, no more no less. Nutrients are the spectrum pool of elemental resources, the materials from which all things are made of. Water is the universal solvent used to mix, combine and transport these elements
Week 4-6: Fattening of the Buds
Week 6-8: Ripening of Buds
Light has information stored as energy, blue holds almost 2x the energy in a blue photon as compared to red, cutting back on the intensity of full spectrum light and replacing it with high blues, gives me a idea 💡
Photosynthesis is driven by the energy input of light.
A photon of Blue light holds 2.75 eV potential
A photon of Red light holds 1.65 eV potential
PPAR is driven by photons of light over a given m2 space per second.
PPFD During Flowering Phase
(12 hr daily light cycle):minimum light needed 463 μMols, maximum light needed 925 μMols
But μMols do not distinguish the type of particles being used and are based on full spectrum "sunlight".
925 μMols of Blue photons in 1m squared every second the potential energy supplied to plant 925 x 2.75 = 2543.75eV
925 μMols of Red photons in 1m squared every second the potential energy suppplied to plant 925 x 1.65 = 1526.25eV
The energy held within a photon of blue is roughly 2.75eV, it gets even higher in violet / UV range reaching 4.42eV per photon at 280nm. If this isn't being absorbed to drive photosynthesis, then what's going on with all that juice?
Wavelengths between 400-700nm drive photosynthesis.
Photosystems, large complexes of proteins and pigments (light-absorbing molecules) that are optimized to harvest light, play a key role in light reactions. There are two types of photosystems: photosystem I (PSI) and photosystem II (PSII).
Both photosystems contain many pigments that help collect light energy, as well as a special pair of chlorophyll molecules found at the core (reaction center) of the photosystem. The special pair of photosystem I is called P700, while the special pair of photosystem II is called P680.
In a process called non-cyclic photophosphorylation
PAR or photosynthetic radiation are waves in the spectral range (wave band) of solar radiation from 400 to 700 nanometers that photosynthetic organisms are able to use in the process of photosynthesis.
UV-B resistance 8 (UVR8) also known as ultraviolet-B receptor UVR8 is an UV-B – sensing protein found in plants and possibly other sources. It is responsible for sensing ultraviolet light in the range of 280-315 nm and initiating the plant stress response. It is most sensitive at 285nm, near the lower limit of UVB. UVR8 was first identified as a crucial mediator of a plant's response to UV-B in Arabidopsis thaliana containing a mutation in this protein. This plant was found to have a hypersensitivity to UV-B which damages DNA. UVR8 is thought to be a unique photoreceptor as it doesn't contain a prosthetic chromophore but its light-sensing ability is intrinsic to the molecule Tryptophan (Trp) residue 285 has been suggested to act the UV-B sensor, while other Trp residues have been also seen to be involved (Trp233 > Trp337 > Trp94) although in-vivo data suggests that Trp285 and Trp233 are most important.
UVR8, previously described as an ultravioltet-B (UV-B, 280-315 nm), in sunlight functions both as an ultraviolet-A (UV-A, 315-400 nm) and UV-B photoreceptor. Although UVR8 presents maximal absorption at the boundary between ultraviolet-C (UV-C, <280 nm) and UV-B, the shape of the solar spectrum in the ultraviolet region, characterized by a very steep slope, allows the UVR8 protein to absorb nearly as many UV-A photons as UV-B photons, and obviously no photons in the UV-C as they are not present in sunlight at ground level.
The longer the wavelength the less energy photons carry, and this may limit their ability to drive photochemical reactions, such as the activation of a photoreceptor. We show that somewhere near 340 to 350 nm there is a transition, with photons at longer wavelengths, even if absorbed not leading to monomerization and activation of the UVR8 photoreceptor.
Plants have other photoreceptors capable of absorbing ultraviolet-A radiation: cryptochromes (cry1, cry2), phototropins (phot1, phot2) and proteins in the Zeitloup family (zl). In sunlight, cry1 and cry2 , are mainly activated by blue light (BL) and they seem to play a smaller direct role in the UV-A region of sunlight. However, the action of cry1 and/or cry2 very strongly down-regulates responses to UV-A and UV-B mediated by UVR8.
UVR8 should be in the future described as a UV-B/UV-A photoreceptor. When studying plants, for measurements and treatments to be informative need to divide the UV-A range into two regions UV-Asw and UV-Alw with a split at 350 nm as we have used, or following CIEs definitions of UV-A1 and UV-A2 with a split at 340 nm.
Mechanism
Upon UV-B irradiation, light is absorbed by one or more Trp residues which are situated adjacent to Arg residues which form salt bridges across the dimer interface. It is thought that this light absorption induces the disruption of the salt bridges and thus leads to the molecule's monomerization. Following monomerization, UVR8 accumulates in the nucleus where it interacts with a protein called constitutively photomorphogenic 1 (COP1). COP1 is known to act as an E3 Ubiquitin ligase that targets key transcription factors for ubiquitination and proteasome-mediated degradation. However, in the case of UVR8, it has been shown to act as a positive regulator of UVR8-mediated UV-B signaling. Upon UV-B illumination, UVR8 interacts via a C-terminal 27 amino acid region with the WD40 domain of COP1 in the nucleus, which triggers the induction of ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL 5 (HY5)
Circadian clocks are gene networks producing 24-h oscillations at the level of clock gene expression that is synchronized to environmental cycles via light signals. The ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL 5 (HY5) transcription factor is a signaling hub acting downstream of several photoreceptors and is a key mediator of photomorphogenesis. Here we describe a mechanism by which light quality could modulate the pace of the circadian clock by governing the abundance of HY5. We show that hy5 mutants display remarkably shorter period rhythms in blue but not in red light or darkness and blue light is more efficient than red to induce accumulation of HY5 at transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. We demonstrate that the pattern and level of HY5 accumulation modulate its binding to specific promoter elements of the majority of clock genes, but only a few of these show altered transcription in the hy5 mutant. Mathematical modeling suggests that the direct effect of HY5 on the apparently non-responsive clock genes could be masked by feed-back from the clock gene network. We conclude that the information on the ratio of blue and red components of the white light spectrum is decoded and relayed to the circadian oscillator, at least partially, by HY5.
Resetting the circadian clock by light involves modulation of clock gene transcription, but the molecular details of this process are poorly understood. We know transcription factor HY5, a key component of general light signalling cascades, binds to and affects the transcription of several core clock genes. Demonstrating that blue light is more effective than red light to increase HY5 protein levels, revealing a potential mechanism by which light quality could influence the clock.
Daily rhythms in physiology are common to all organisms that are exposed to the succession of days and nights. Most of these rhythms are driven by endogenous timekeepers, called circadian clocks, so that they can persist even under constant conditions. However, the most important biological function of circadian clocks and overt rhythms is to schedule molecular and cellular processes to the most appropriate time of the day. Having these processes shut down at times when they are not needed saves considerable amounts of energy and resources that confers a competitive advantage to organisms possessing clocks resonating with environmental cycles.
Pretty neat if we could trick plants into extending stages endlessly Muahhahahah! *Evil laugh*
The fact that enzyme photolyase crystals responsible for accelerated DNA repair take the shape of perfect pyramids.
Tiny enzymes are shaped to the same and exact mathematical dimensions as all the gravitational forces of the universe combined into a singular point.
HY5-YFP and HYH-YFP proteins accumulate to a higher level in Blue light compared with Red light of identical photon fluence rate and that Blue stimulates HY5/HYH accumulation at both transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels.
If you are interested in the plant's circadian clock, then check out Far-Red photons:
"The R:FR ratio of direct sunlight is about 1[.]5 during most of the day, but it approaches 0[.]6 or so during twilight when the atmosphere preferentially scatters blue light and the sky turns yellow and red. This only lasts for half an hour or less, but it is important because plants use these changes to synchronize their internal circadian clocks both with the24 hour day and the seasons. This involves a burst of gene expression activity that is controlled by phytochrome.”
“Far-Red Lighting and the Phytochromes”, Ian Ashdown, Maximum Yield, maximumyield․com/far-red-lighting-and-the-phytochromes/2/17443
@Ultraviolet, Sometimes I forgot to plan out the best photoperiod schedule and suddenly find myself dramatically shifting the timer once flowering begins. I wonder if hitting them with sunrise/sunset R:FR would alleviate any circadian confusion.
@Natrona, this was my 2 year old dragon willow bonsai, I placed it outside a few weeks back on a sunny day, forgot and it got smoked in a snow storm, thought I'd lost it. Plonked in a copper rod and she came back to life, frankentree.
@Metatronix, Well that's optimistic :)! Every little helps. I found with such a big pot it would allow for unrestricted growth of rootzone, but the water was sitting deep in medium and with the pot taking up so much space it was very hard to keep the medium warm & with very little air getting to where the roots needed it. Prime breeding ground for some bacteria & fungi.
Always been fond of the idea of automating a grow tent for the entire grow, start to finish, the challenge with auto watering was over-watering, this could also dry the medium enough within a timeframe to prevent the conditions for the bacteria n fungi in the first place.
Originally had some ideas for regular-size pots with airstones but then I got stoned and bought a 100-gallon fabric and here we are.
@Ultraviolet, I 💚 the idea ...it really could increase the yields IMO. It would revolutionize the flowerpot industry kind like the Autopot but for soil.