What will enzymes do when feeding plants?

A comparison between the light spectrum of sodium-vapor lamp (HPS) and LED module. us how much heat the HPS lamp produces.

LED lights achieved much worse results only because they kept the irrigation program the same. The highest risk is with active automatic irrigation system. With manual irrigation, you can notice the problem right away and I have never come across overwatering problem in good quality passive systems.

There are discussions among growers whether the amount of fertilizers should be decreased when using LEDs. Some resellers recommend lowering the dosage by 30%. Their reasoning is that the slower consumption of the nutrient solution together with the volumetrically smaller plants leads to faster water evaporation from the growing medium and results in higher nutrient concentration in the medium itself. I believe that this generally depends on the medium used, its amount and most importantly on the irrigation system. We already know quite precisely what the ideal climate and growth conditions are. I grow in a passive cultivation system under both LED and sodium-vapor lamps and I feed the plants from one tank. The nutrient solution has the same nutrient concentration and I have never encountered over-fertilization. If the nutrient solution stays in the growth medium for too long, the error is usually in the irrigation method, the amount of the growing medium or its type.

LIGHTING AND CANNABINOID CONTENT

In the beginning of this article, I have mentioned that I was surprised by the amount of resin after the first harvest under LED. I was not the only one to notice that. The light spectrum of LED modules encourages higher resin yield, probably thanks to the increased amount of blue spectrum light. It has been proven that adding UV-B radiation can make plants produce more resin and impact the production of cannabinoids. I have found a link to an interesting research paper on the website of one of the biggest manufacturers of garden lights. It is called The Effect of Light Spectrum on the Morphology and Cannabinoid Content of Cannabis sativa L. and its authors are Magagnini G, Grassi G and Kotiranta S. This Italian-Finnish team of scientists tested three light sources used for the cultivation of cannabis – a traditional sodium-vapor lamp and two LED modules. Each light was tested in its own chamber, so that their light would not mix. The light fixtures were hung in such a way that the PPFD the plants. Thanks to this, it was possible to perfectly compare the real influence light spectrum has on the observed indicators. The results have confirmed that plants growing under a sodium-vapor lamp grew faster, had larger internodal gaps and produced a higher volume of green matter. They also yielded the highest amount of dried flowers by weight. On the other hand, plants grown under LED modules had a higher volume of cannabinoids and also differed in the volumes of THCa, CBDa, CBNa and CBGa. When the researchers added up the total amount of cannabinoids, the yield from plants grown under sodium-vapor lamps and plants grown under LED modules was equal. The test was repeated twice and afterwards, the team came to a clear conclusion: by adjusting the light spectrum, it is possible to fundamentally affect the morphology of plants and the concentration of cannabinoids. The whole research paper is available on the internet for free.

THE FUTURE OF LED

The ways of changing the light spectrum of sodium-vapor lamps are quite limited compared to LED technology. Diodes can be combined in an infinite number of possibilities and the light can thus be changed even during growth. In the future, it will not matter how many dried flowers can be harvested from a plant, but how many specific cannabinoids can be extracted from it. This will play a huge role not only in the pharmaceutical industry, but also in the creation of products for recreational users, who are going to move away from dried flowers, especially if the wave of legalization continues. In such a situation, LED lighting will have a major advantage.

WOKE FOLKS’ DOPE CONUNDRUM

Dr Dee

“Woke” (adjective): actively aware of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those related to civil and human rights. (Dictionary.com).

So, this is something close to the hearts of all the Social Justice Warriors out there, and why not? It’s a righteous thing, and should be embraced, yes? Fair enough, all of the hate stuff, racism, misogyny, homophobia and all the rest of them are clearly a bad thing. Big Pharma is also obviously a bad thing: I’m not quite sure that it should be classed in there with these others, but that’s just a personal view. Anyhow, these righteous folks will boycott products from particular countries, go on marches, demonstrations and suchlike. And it’s a good thing, too.

But of course, “woke” folk can get it wrong too. Recently, a colleague of mine was pretty much forced to make an apology for stating in a lecture that “men can’t have babies”: it’s a “grey area”, apparently.

One wonders what the situation is among the “woke” and social justice communities regarding drug use? I’ll come to cannabis in a minute, but not so long ago, UK citizens were given a pretty stern ticking off by the Home Office drug prevention people regarding their use of illicit substances. In that instance, they were specifically aiming at people who use cocaine (though it could certainly be applied to heroin as well), and the main point of the campaign was that purchasing and using coke was pretty much tantamount to “funding terrorism”.

It’s a fair point, I suppose. However, in the same way that coke and H could reasonably be regarded as funding terrorism, could the purchase of Israeli cannabis products reasonably be seen as funding a terrorist (if you happen to be a Palestinian) state?

Fact: for a number of decades, the Israelis have been at the forefront of cannabis science; Raphael Mechoulam “The Grandfather of Cannabis Research” isolated and identified CBD in 1963, and THC in 1964 (albeit based on the work of one Dr Roger Adams some 20 years earlier). He discovered the endocannabinoid system. As such, we’ve all got quite a lot to thank him for. The effectiveness of the “Entourage Effect” appears to have originated in Israeli work as well.

At the moment, there’s intensive research investigating the effectiveness of cannabis in treating ailments more commonly found in older people, such as dementia.

More recent developments include the Israeli government green lighting the export of medical cannabis products,

And, to digress from cannabis briefly, in the past week, it seems that the Israeli Ministry of Health has approved therapeutic MDMA for PTSD Treatment; bang, just like that.

Essentially, Israel is – and has been for a number of decades - way ahead of the rest of the world in the arena of medical cannabis research. Weird, given it’s an absolute no-no to spark up a joint there for non-medical purposes: it’s all big stuff. It’s all important stuff.

Here’s my problem with all of this. Many people – both “woke” and just generally concerned - of my acquaintance here in the UK, take a pretty dim view of the Israeli State (as opposed to Jewish people per se, let’s be absolutely clear about that, and not conflate the two things, please), principally regarding their treatment of the Palestinians. I’m wondering whether they’ll apply the same rigid set of principles to Israeli cannabis medicine?

All of this may well be a moot point very soon as right now in the UK, we have this, frankly, ludicrous situation unfolding, whereby shadowy vested interests seem intent on turning even the most moderate of protests against the Israeli State into a criminal act of anti-Semitism. And it’s not the same thing. Not in the least. But it’s a problem. Or perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps cognitive dissonance will kick in, the same way it does when the woke folks buy their cocaine.