Death by Radiation

Wow, I love this experiment. Any chance of a little more information on the light? Color temperature, lumen output, etc.

S-Town

sleepytown said:

Wow, I love this experiment. Any chance of a little more information on the light? Color temperature, lumen output, etc.

S-Town

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High UVB Mercury Vapour Lamps in Zoos - Osram Ultra-Vitalux - ReptileUV Zoo Mega-Ray test results

Here's everything you need to know about the light I'm using. In this test two lights are compared to each other. Mine is the Osram.

NO GROW said:

LMAO, Aww thanks man. Did the movie give you the idea for this thread? That was a pretty good movie.

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No prob's NO GROW.

Yeah it was a good movie, but it didn't give me the idea for this thread.

Day 4 of Vegetation

A familiar feeling arose in my stomach this morning… the feeling that maybe death was in the air. It’s funny how we change our perceptions into feelings. What makes us think that thoughts are feelings?

Anyway, my ‘feelings’ were wrong. The plants are fine… well they aren’t fine, but they’re certainly not dead… yet.

Here’s the picture of both plants, as usual Fatty is the one nearest the camera. Not much that we can see from this picture aside from the fact that the first set of true leaves have grown a fair bit during the night.

Here we have Fatboy. You can see that the translucent sheen I mentioned is now covering the true leaves.

Height: 72mm
Left Leaf Length: 15mm
Right Leaf length: 14mm

Notes: Fatboy has not grown much in height, if at all during the night (my night, of course, as these are on 24/0). The cotyledons are starting to distort. There is still no sign of any secondary leaf growth. I’m led even further to believe that Fatboy is a female due to the lack of stretch during the night.

its like its been varnished. to reflect light.
thick skin.
due to the killer lamp.

havent they got a tan yet.
or would we call the sheen the tan.

Here we have Skinny. As you can see the left leaf is curled over at the edge. I’ve taken this to be heat stress and have raised the light by an inch to compensate. What you can’t tell from the picture is that the leaves and cotyledons seem to be reaching up for the light. This reaching is so bad that the leaves are almost creating a tunnel for the light to travel to the centre of the plant.

Height: 90mm
Left Leaf Length: 16mm
Right Leaf length: 16mm

Notes: Skinny, I feel is a male, and having to move the light away to allow for his stretch will have repercussions for Fatboy who’s inclination to stretch has stopped. The leaves are also of some concern. The translucent sheen or protective skin (as I am now wont to call it) is now covering the two leaves. New leaf growth can be seen… barely. Although to my eyes it looks blackened or purple.

I’ve taken some more pictures in an attempt to capture the ‘tunnelling’ effect of the leaves for your, I’m sure, eager viewing pleasure.

Here’s Skinny. You can see that even the cotyledons are pointing upwards. Usually, when this happens in any other grow I would assume that the plants were very happy indeed. Yet the tops of the leaves tell a different story.

Yes Crazy, I believe the sheen is the tan... The leaves seem to have a purple or black discolouration when the sheen is viewed from a certain angle. Unfortunately this view is impossible to recreate with a camera.

Here we have a shot of Fatboy.

This is so intense. They’re into day 4 of vegetation and never were they genetically encoded to deal with this amount of UV radiation. Whatever protection they have will surely be tested to the limit.

I think these two plants deserve a round of applause for their efforts so far… bravo guys, bravo!


A mixture of feelings from this morning’s results… sometimes I think they’re going to make it, and sometimes I think they won’t. Here they are, take a look for yourself.

Totally excellent thread/read, Skunk

Your Grandfather said:

Totally excellent thread/read, Skunk

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Thankyou... I'd been watching everyone experiment with their UV lights and they were/are being, i feel, too overcautious. So i felt it was about time I released this thread.

As is usual from this over-all picture, everything almost seems quite normal.

Now we come to Skinny… an air-eye view. We can see that the leaves are going a dark green and seem to be curling over in offence at the light. It is not a heat issue. There is plenty of circulation. What is not apparent from this picture is just how much the leaves seem to be cupping in the light. Almost as though they are funnelling it down into the main stem. I’m not holding out much hope for continued survival.

Height: 95mm
Left Leaf Length: 19mm
Right Leaf Length: 20mm
Leaf Width Ave’: 8mm

Notes: The leaves seem to be giving in and the new leaf growth seems to be having a lot of difficulty. Aside from the steady growth, Skinny seems to be struggling.

Fatboy is now likewise showing a good deal of deformity.

Height: 78mm
Left Leaf: 17mm
Right Leaf: 17mm
Leaf Width Ave’: 6mm

Notes: Good all round growth, stem and leaf. Tunnelling appearance of leaves; and translucent sheen is now completely covering the leaves, aside from the very edges.

The new leaf growth of plants seems to be scorched, or in the very least discoloured. I’m not holding out much hope that these plants will last much longer.

Night, night!

theres just a couple things running through my head here. why would you give a seedling 24 hours of light? let them build a strong root system first, and then when they start vegging hit them 24/7. Why would you add perlite to coco coir? coco can hold 10 times its weight in water.

plants don't need UVB this early in thier life. your plants are going to grow slow because the spectrum offers little usable light to the plant, and the excessive UVB will encourage the plant to build thick glossy cell walls to protect the plant, instead of using its energy for growth. keep the humidity up with temps low and you may have a shot. trying to get the plant to eat more and drink less is going to be difficult.

munch box said:

plants don't need UVB this early in thier life.

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Well, my outdoor grows certainly have uv present from the moment the sun comes up over the mountains.

IMHO, plants need uv to 'complete the cycle'. Without uv, indoor weed will never, ever be as good as outdoor. I am not saying that uv is the missing ingredient in indoor vs outdoor. But, I am saying that without uv, you won't get much closer than we already are.

*of course this is my opinion and I could be wrong

Your Grandfather said:

Well, my outdoor grows certainly have uv present from the moment the sun comes up over the mountains.

IMHO, plants need uv to 'complete the cycle'. Without uv, indoor weed will never, ever be as good as outdoor. I am not saying that uv is the missing ingredient in indoor vs outdoor. But, I am saying that without uv, you won't get much closer than we already are.

*of course this is my opinion and I could be wrong

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you're right, plants need uv. UVB is not going to help a seedling much, but moderate ammounts certainly won't hurt it. thats not what i was trying to say. If anything its going to make his plant adapt to it early. I'm NOT sure on this, and I'm willing to bet somebody is going to slam me on it but here goes........ I'm thinking that giving a plant UVB early in its life builds the plants tolerance up. Then when the buds can actually benefit from its stress later on in life, it will not be as effective because the plant has already adapted......... If anybody knows for sure what the deal is on that lets hear it. But if you think it simply sounds dumb so you want to tell me i'm wrong, then don't waste your time. Ed Rosenthal says to add UVB in the final 10 days of flower, just before harvest.

munch box, I hear what you are saying... but I believe that the potency of a plant does not begin in flower, I believe that the realisation or the capacity for potency begins in a vegging plant.

Already the chemicals within these 2 plants will be changing and adapting to a harsher environment than is found anywhere on this planet. I don't know what is going to happen to them... as you can see I originally called this journal 'Death by Radiation.' I didn't expect them to live.

Also munch-box root development is not important.

I always grow the same way, before the seed casing has even been removed my seedlings go on 24/0. Usually MH. Doing it this way my plants usually show sex at around the 28 day mark of veg'. never longer than 35 days. The perlite thing, yes although coco is excellent at water AND oxygen retention, I still believe that aero will give you the biggest plants, so with this in mind... you can never have enough oxygen.