MMS says the bulb has been tested from 280nm-2540nm.
The plant receptor at 285nm, is strongly affected by the 280nm band. But the Solacure bulb, has its most power from, 280nm-305nm. I combine Halide/HPS, and UVA/B, with UVA/B specific bulbs.
Here’s an example comparing LED to MH. Most LEDs have the same spectrums with slight variations in how much blue or red spikes are added. A big component is what they are missing, full range UV and Infrared. UV goes from 280-400nm. Infrared is going to be 750+ and spans past 2000nm and beyond on a MH and sunlight. Newer research is proving what we already knew, these longer wavelengths are important for plant metabolic function. They influence the way it uses nutrition and the genetic expressions which will translate to healthy plants and better, more complex flowers.
There’s also new research proving that far red photons drive a heavy amount of photosynthesis. Previous flawed research only looked at isolated wavelengths and their effects, but light should not be isolated, for it all works in tandem together when you have the full spectrum present! Emerson effect is one example. We need to stop destroying light by removing parts of the spectrum including invisible IR, and start moving toward true full spectrum light, as close to sunlight as we can get. UV is important too, the LED UV are missing a majority of the UV spectrum and are often very low power and insignificant. Our MH follows the same UV ratios as the sun!
Infrared gets far too little attention these days. Yet it is responsible for some of the most drastic differences between traditional light sources (HID, Sun, Fluorescent, even Incandescent) and LEDs. LED light lacks these infrared wavelengths. When they use a special IR LED to supplement, they only hit a very narrow wavelength, for example 800-830nm, and are still missing the entire rest of it, so it’s just not the same. This causes a drastically different metabolic function in plants, as many growers see nutrient issues and have to adjust a lot. Humans also benefit from infrared energy from the sun and even from artificial light sources as well. It’s seemingly more harmful to our bodies to have light without infrared compared to light with infrared. This is not stuff I’m making up, it’s all from the latest research from various scientists and doctors. Never before has light without infrared even existed, and now some of us are exposed to a lot of it. While infrared is invisible to our eyes, it does a lot, just as light does. Light influences various processes within our bodies, and it grows plants. But it doesn’t stop at visible light. Some creatures can see UV or IR in the way we see visible light. If we saw IR we would probably understand it’s importance more intuitively. Instead we have to think outside the box. If you want to see the difference between IR and no IR, try two identical grows, one with any LED and one with Metal Halide, and see how your plants respond. Under MH, plants can easily stay healthy in a big range of temperatures similar to how they do outside. Roughly 62-95 degrees f and they’ll stay happy. Under LED, the plants need a very strict 78-85 degrees f environment or you will likely see metabolic issues and deficiencies. You’ll also see much different expression in the finished flowers.
Our lab results show additional cannabinoids and terpenes are only produced under Metal Halide, the most similar to sunlight spectrum for indoor growers!
UV range from 280-400nm but a UV LED is like 365-390nm or similar slices. IR LEDs may be 830nm but the full IR range is a wide span of wavelengths from 800nm past 2000 nanometers. So if you only have a tiny emission that is part of the spectrum, it’s kind of incorrect to call it the full thing. It’s a small percentage of a big picture. If it was painting with colors, it would be like having one shade of a color rather than being able to use all the shades of the color. It’s part of it, not all of it. Ideally, wavelengths wouldn’t be isolated and separated to begin with. When we are dealing with artificial light, things start getting tricky. That’s why a MH bulb is useful for indoor gardening, it’s a super hot mixture of gasses which emits light in a similar spectrum to sunlight, much more similar than any LEDs are currently capable of producing. This includes a lot of Infrared energy, which LED manufacturers think is “inefficiency” but the latest science shows is a fundamentally important part of the light spectrum, and turns out we need it, and plants need it, otherwise things start changing metabolically, and not in a good way.
http://instagr.am/p/C6VIOtDMX8h/
