I've been reading on this forum for some time now that spectrum doesn't matter. I'm not entirely sure what this means.
I can't be the only one who is struggling with this so I think it would be a great help if we could pin it down to a precise explanation.
Hey Troi,
I believe this is a cleverly constructed trick question specifically designed to see who's been paying attention.
However, I have solved the riddle:
You have in fact, NOT been reading that spectrum doesn't matter, or that there are no effects of spectrum. What you've reading is that spectrum has negligible effects on plant growth rate and overall health.
There are a multitude of effects of spectrum, but those effects have little to do with whether you should worry about or be restricted to only using a specific color for the sake of the health of your plants.
In any case, there is plenty of talking about spectrum ad nauseum, but I notice that there are very little actual
doing. You can answer this question yourself by simply using a specific color bulb on newly bought plants and record their growth with images, say for 8 weeks. Then repeat using a different color bulb. You can even go as far as to weigh the plants at the beginning and at the end of the test period to record the mass increase. Pick an easy plant, and purchase each batch from the same vendor to eliminate effects of inconsistent quality. Then repeat using a different plant. Note the results.
What you'll discover is that the thousands of people who say there is an effect on growth and health are all say this because they saw where someone else said it. The few people who say there is NO effect on growth and health are people who actually have tried it.
As far as any other
effects of spectrum, well the effects can be very interesting, but not vital.
Example of a spectrum effect I quote from another post:
It turns out that as light enters water, different wavelengths with different "energies" will penetrate to varying depths. Red light (630-780 nanometers) penetrates only to about 15 meters, while blue light (420-490 nanometers) can penetrate to as deep as about 250 meters. This is why the ocean appears blue.
Actinic bulbs peak somewhere in the 420 nm range. Any plant can use blue light, not just algae. In general, red light stimulates photosynthetic carbon fixation which is incorporated into glucose, while adding blue light causes a metabolic shift so that the fixed carbon is used to synthesize organic acids, amino acids and proteins. As long as the intensity (i.e Photon Flux Density) of the light is sufficient to fix carbon from ambient CO2 the wavelength within the spectrum is irrelevant.
To give context to the quote, that was taken from a thread where someone assumed that blue light causes algae.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I'll be willing to bet that LFS and online shops sell more so called "ideal color" bulbs (6500K) than any other color. And, I'm willing to bet that because of Matrix programming, most plant growing pre-programmed zombi hobbyist are using 6500K bulbs (because they were told to do so by thousands of other zombies), and yet, whenever a problem thread is posted on any of The Matrix websites, the zomby usually reports that they are presently using 6500K bulbs.
Now, of course it would be totally unfair, and totally inaccurate to blame their 6500K bulbs for their abysmal failure, but my point would be that 6500K did not save their plants from descending into total oblivion. From that I would conclude that a hobbyist is just as likely to have plant problems and algae using 6500K bulbs as he would using any other color bulb. That alone could be used as an argument that indeed, spectrum does not matter.
It's entirely possible that spectrum has an effect in terms of pigment production, and changes in pigment production in the leaf can have an effect on the color of the leaf, so if enough testing is done you might be able to arrive at a color combination that turns certain plants to the color you find most pleasing. A more detailed response on effects in
actinic lighting vs algae growth | UK Aquatic Plant Society
So my message to thousands of test kit lovers is to stop testing kits and start testing the validity of Matrix propaganda.
Cheers,