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Emerson Enhancement Effect
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Posted by struwwelpeter 5 (My Page) on Sun, May 31, 09 at 18:48
| Although not a popular topic, this is important to growing plants under artificial light and it behooves you to know and study it. Basically, it is a synergistic photosynthesis effect between visible light and far red to near infrared light (FR-IR). Alone, FR-IR is nearly invisible and produces negligible photosynthesis.
Incandescent (especially Halogen) light bulbs and HPS (especially extra high pressure sodium) are good sources of FR-IR. Typical metal halide lamps are deficient (I suspect some special metal halide bulbs might be good). That is why you should supplement regular metal halide lighting with FR-IR.
Sylvania Growlux Wide Spectrum fluorescent lamps had a phosphor that emitted just far red light, but, this phosphor deteriorated much faster than the other phosphors. Thus, these lamps were noticeably less effective after about two weeks of use, even though there was no visible change in light intensity. Too bad, because these lamps were exceptionally effective for the first week.
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Emerson Enhancement Effect
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This is one more reason to use Ceramic Metal Halide.
CMH has a beautiful spectral output and is STRONG+++ way out into the red and far red. For more information, lermer is the resident expert in this type of lighting. I use it too, and possibly this explains why I get such beautiful results with it, and also why the HPS works so well despite the so-called "deficient" spectrum. Probably also explains why sun light is so good too. |
RE: Emerson Enhancement Effect
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| Thanks for the tip on Ceramic Metal Halide. Some special HPS bulbs have more plasma pressure than regular HPS and this widens the spectrum producing more blue and far red. For example, see
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/Philips SDWT50.htm |
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