Anyone have any experience with the Cirrus Reflex UVB?
Was wondering if anyone has thoughts on this supplemental UV bar, quality, LEDs, and whether it can be controlled external (0-10V dimmer, for instance). I see marketing stuff but a detailed manual / specification is nowhere to be found. No real-world reviews that I could find. Anyone use one?
Reference: https://cirrusledgrowlights.com/product/reflex-uvb-grow-light/
i’m not sure about that one specifically but i remember growmau5 used UV (just a small ~12" or 18" tube) on one of his builds and ended up frying his plants a bit and reducing his yield… fucking youtube holocaust so i can’t find the specific video now so i don’t know how powerful or if he was even running it for the entire 12 hours. pretty sure his wasn’t a horticulture bulb though so maybe thats why.
Thanks. Am mainly considering this option to give some plants a “flash” of UV at strategic times through the use of an external controller. Not considering running UV with the same timing as the other spectra because, yea, that doesn’t sound like it would be a good idea.
Fluence has an UV purposed lamp that can be controlled but these guys popped onto my radar while I was looking at some various options. I hadn’t heard of them before this and the lack of specification information gives me an uneasy feeling. But, I could be entirely wrong and they could be the best ones out there…
Oh please no, like you said they don’t even tell you how much UVB it emits. You can get a one bulb t5ho fixture for like twenty thirty bucks, and then a reptisun 10.0 bulb for another twenty or thirty. There’s a deal on reptisun right now I’ll get you the link
Addendum, the bogo sale is over but still. Reptisun has been making the same fixtures forever for tanks with much higher value than our weed crops, so are more trustworthy imo than a brand new led fixture
I tested UVB back before the hype train even left the gate. I found the difference nominal at best, and ran en entire lab only using it at the supposed optimal times. I will note it was with HPS as the main lighting which means this was done prior to 2012. I no longer have any of the notes as my partner at that time was taken early by cancer. We did do a side by side up against the LED’s I designed in 2012 and visually the LED’s created far more visible tric development.
I have not tried it with LED tech nor do I feel it necessary going forward.
Much more cost effective to find someone who breeds quality instead of quantity and grow good genetics.
There are a great many compounds a plant creates to filter uv light, and the plant is stronger as a result. Even in veg I don’t have any hard data to claim the buds produced under uvb are better, and especially in a commercial situation the cost would probably be more than the roi. In a home grow situation though, I like to use uv through the whole grow, minus seedling stage.
I compare it to silica. If you’ve never used silica, it might not make a big enough difference to justify a large scale change, but it does clearly make a difference
of course!!! uv makes a ton of difference! I am sorry that I don’t have any info on the Cirrus Reflex uvb but uv when used correctly in the grow room will make a visible difference.
Thanks folks for the thoughts both for and against.
@Worcestershire_Farms, your rationalization is enough to sway me away from that product. Thanks for the push. There are too many unknowns and it would take some effort to characterize the light source which, as consumers, we shouldn’t have to do. There is practically zero effort required by the OEMs to publish data on there products. But, as we see, in the LED market there is whole lot of specsmanship and handwaving from the marketing folk. This is likely due to something being inferior about their product that would be revealed by publishing such information. In this case, these folk seem to be hiding a lot of information on their product while having spent time on a flashy marketing brochure.
Yes, @LED_Seedz has made a wonderful point and like many things in life it pays dividends to consider what’s actually important. Step back for a moment and re-prioritize. I understand that the overriding factors in growing are genetics and talent. Thank for keeping me on track. That being said, I will be bringing in UV at some point but it’s more for experimentation than anything else. To your point, there are many more important factors that I should be experimenting with first and should consider sidelining that test. I am also very saddened to hear the plight of your business partner (RIP).
@Viva_Mexico, thanks for the report on the use of UV. I’m building something of an atypical test system that is bit over-instrumented in order to experiment with a variety of variables. Small system. Much of which will be for my edification. I intend to bring UV in although I’m starting to realize that I may be getting ahead of myself a bit and probably need to baseline things first. So, I guess for the UV, I probably should hold off on buying a fixture right now and instead first try to understand some of the real-world experiences further. Could you give us some thoughts or experiences on how your are implementing UV in your past grows?
So, if I could expand this discussion a bit on the use of UV in general to the OG community:
Any thoughts to the type or combination of UV (A/B)?
Thoughts as to how much photon power/intensity at the canopy?
How long and when?
Thoughts on vendors / technology?
General experience, yes do it / no not worth it?
Peer reviewed journal with a variety on interesting results including amount of UV-B radiation:
Zhang WJ, Björn LO, “The effect of ultraviolet radiation on the accumulation of medicinal compoundsin plants, Fitoterapia (2009)”: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.542.2383&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Abstract
“A review is given of how the production by plants of compounds useful as medicines or raw
materials for manufacture of medicines is influenced byultraviolet radiation, particularly by UV-
B radiation (280–315 nm wavelength). The compounds considered in this review are flavonoids
and other phenolics, alkaloids (especially indole terpenoid and purine alkaloids), essential oils
and other terpenoids, cannabinoids, glucosinolates and isothiocyanates, and compounds having
human hormone activity. A short account is also given of ultraviolet signalling in plants. The
review concludes with a discussion of the possible evolutionary mechanisms that have led to the
evolution of UV-B regulation of secondary metabolite accumulation.”
Conclusion:
“We have seen that the contents of medicinal substances of many kinds in many plants are increased by exposure to ultraviolet radiation, and in particular UV-B radiation. This effect is not always regarded as a stress phenomenon, as in many cases the increase in the secondary metabolites can be achieved by radiation so low that they do not negatively affect growth, and do not result in any visible damage. Thus, in order to make the production of medicinal plant substances efficient, it may be advisable to try exposure to ultraviolet radiation also in cases which have not yet been investigated. In some cases UV-A or UV-C radiation may be more suitable than UV-B.”
Interesting results from a grower, elsewhere, testing for THC/CBD only:
Commercial blurb on UV-B, specifically:
“UVR8 is a protein molecule which senses UV, and then “tells” plant cells to change their behavior. Exactly how UVR8 molecules sense UV was recently discovered and is pretty interesting. UVR8 is what chemists call a “dimer,” which simply means that it’s made of two structurally similar protein subunits. When UV light hits the two protein subunits in UVR8, their charge weakens and they break apart. To help visualize this, imagine rubbing two balloons against one another. The balloons will stick together because of a static charge. Now imagine the balloons get rained on. The water takes the static charge with it and the two balloons fly apart. In this example, the balloons are the two protein subunits and the rain is UV light cascading down on the plant cell. After the protein subunits break apart, they head to the cell nucleus to deliver their information.”
