Do You Really Know the Effect of UV Light on the Growth of Cannabis ?

UV light , an invisible light people often associate with bodily harm and sterilization,Is one of the components of sunlight and one of the light that people like to study in recent years.

The purpose of UV light research is to make use of its advantages or avoid its harm as much as possible.Both to the effect research on human bodies and to that on plants,seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages is a general tendency. In the same way that short-wavelength UV light is used to make sterilizing lamps, now UV  light is also used to make led UV grow light for use in cannabis cultivation. But do you really know the effect of UV lighting on the growth of cannabis.

With that said, let's take a moment to generalize some common knowledge about UV light, and hopefully we'll be able to come to a consensus on these basics and lay a solid foundation for further understanding the effect of UV lighting on cannabis cultivation.

as you can see above ,UV ray is an electromagnetic wave with a wavelength of 10-400nm. generally, the range of 200-400nm UV light is main application field.According to the different wavelength and biological function, it is mainly divided into three wave bands, longwave UV-A, mid-wave UV-B and shortwave UV-C. In nature ,UV ray accounts for about 13% of the sunlight. UV ray is only part of the entire electromagnetic spectrum, to the left of visible light. According to the annotation on the diagram,UV ray has a shorter wavelength than the visible light, but a higher energy.All light is invisible except for the light that is at a wavelength of 400 to 700nm. The reason we don't see separately the color of light is because all the lights are mixed together forming white light. 

The lights plants absorb most are visible lights ,But please don't have such misunderstanding-plants only absorb visible lights, as a matter of fact , plants are capable of absorbing light at wavelengths other than visible light, such as UV light and infrared light. Here they are not so much light as electromagnetic waves.since they are beyond human color description of light. 

Back to the subject of the effects of UV light on cannabis cultivation . firstly we need to find out what ingredient do the final users really want to get from cannabis ? cannabinoids with good taste seems to be a obvious answer currently. so for growers , the cannabis plants with high flavorful cannabinoids content are what they want . 

Research, suggests that the generation of cannabinoids stems from a type of natural defence mechanism . Cannabis plants, to protect themselves from the harm of UV light, synthetic cannabinoids protect themselves. So the cannabinoids content can be improved through stimulation (with right amount UV light)

Though different plants species show different responses to UV light, what is known now is that cannabis has positive responses to UVA and UVB light exposure. experiments have further justified that UV light has the effect of enhancing flavonoid/ antioxidant production alongside other natural sunscreen compounds through photomorphogenic processes.

Indoor cannabis growing ,in order to get the same benefits of growing marijuana in natural sunlight , is now commonly suggested to realize by artificially adding the right amount of UVA and UVB to led grow light or use specialized UV led grow light (Horti-UV).

cannabis can produce up to 15 different defense proteins when exposed to UV light. These proteins show not only the enhancement of the UV light defense of cannabis, but also the improvement of the disease resistance of the cannabis plant, and the influence on the smell of cannabis to varying degrees. 

Why are there so many different flavors of dried marijuana on the market? In addition to the variety of marijuana plants chosen at the beginning of the growing, many clever growers have been working on ways to improve the flavor of cannabis and make it more popular with their users. By experimenting with measures like defoliation, changing the photoperiod, changing the spectrum, they found that UV exposure can induce changes in the taste of marijuana.

In addition, UV light also improves the ability of cannabis seedlings to adapt to higher levels of light. It is well known that plants transplanted from low light intensity to high light intensity may be impacted and grow slowly. If you need to separate the seedling from planting when you cultivation, it is good to provide a small amount of UV light exposure for a period of time before transplanting. This way, when the cannabis seedlings are transplanted into another environment with a higher light intensity, the seedling won’t feel uncomfortable and need to develop an environmental adaptation period.

UV light of 200-400nm also has certain bactericidal and microbial decomposition effects. UV light radiation creates an environment unsuitable for some microbes so as to reduce the damage of parts of microorganisms to the root system of hemp. As for the problem that the lower canopy can't get enough light due to the luxuriant branches and leaves after the flowering of hemp, in fact, there is no need to worry at all. The higher the energy of the light, the more penetrating it is.

how do you provide UV light for your indoor cannabis cultivation? obviously ,the UV light that come from natural sunlight isn’t really an option for indoor cultivation. do you know how much UV light should be included in led cannabis grow light ? Want to give your indoor cannabis cultivation the UV light it needs? contact us [email protected] to know more and buy UV led grow lights for your indoor cannabis garden.