you should be able to see a pattern with so any different seedlings.
I got mixed feeling about the outcome of your experiment. In one way I want it to fail so I don't have to spend more money running a UV lamp in both veg and flower. But in the other way who don't want more trichomes.
How long are you exposing them to UV?
Don't know yet. And I don't know how much.
I have UV and red buttons built in to my overhead 240 w light. And I have two more of those lights that I will use Veg and flowering as well. Plus I have assorted other light bar lights. I have about a dozen of those bars and I think they run 45 watts a piece.
None of these are sold anymore. The bar lights included a dedicated red/uv additional light bar in each of the three x 4 lights I bought.
The UV that comes with my quantum board overhead will put out the same power at whatever percentage that I put the light on in the first place. The additional UV Light bar will give me some strength juggling as well, but that will allow me to peak a lot higher as compared to whatever my current default light level is when using the overhead light.
So I have to map out what these dials mean. I will put a line on percentages of their what draw is and I'll measure it bit by bit. Then I'll figure out how many watts at full, half, third, etc.
I'm not sure how many watts the one built into my overhead draws, I can't separate it out from the regular light. I'll put up some type of reflective shield between them when I fry the experiment group with the UV and not use the one built into the main light
I should be able to do early veg for the next month or so under a single 240 light plus the extra UV on one side that gets blocked by the separator. Then they'll get moved into the shed and I'll have two of these 240s over them, UV on one side, but at that point I'll also use the UV coming from the 240s above on the UV group.
My power monitoring/control plugs have scheduling ability which means I can set up on off cycles if I want to for individual additional lights. The additional UV bar lights will be controlled with those. They will even track the amount of power it uses so I can tell exactly when I fry something and with how much.
At that point I have an ability to turn them on a specific amount at a specific distance and then see if there's any immediate reaction. Does it wilt? Does it curl up? Does it change color? Have I damaged it?
Let's say 30% at 1 ft for 1 hour at noon. Do it for a week on the test plants.
Do any show a problem? Do all show a problem? Do none show a problem?
If none, increase length of time or power or both.
Document everything in my little notebook.
Run through this loop until we're at full power for full-time grow or we found a problem. I don't expect to ever go to full power at full time. I expect those plants to get damaged and react. On the other hand, this is a plant that evolved on the steppes of Asia. Harsh conditions with lots of UV.
If only one plant shows a problem, separate that out, back off time or power for that plant, but keep on exposing the others. Run the increase and figure out which strains are tolerant.
Hopefully it will be like I've topped it as far as damage and recovery time frame. It takes about 2 weeks for a topped plant to recover and start showing growth. In this case there's going to be damaged cells that will have to be discarded and regrown.
Hopefully anybody I damaged is given low or no UV time and recovered in a week or two.
This process will go over the entire veg.
When we go into flowering at first hit it with the UV. Hit it hard for a week during the change. Not burn level necessarily, keep in mind how the previous reactions were, but try to fry what was most tolerant.
During flowering do daily UV. Do matching daily UV with the non- UV inoculated plants. If anyone stresses from it back off but expect the final 2 weeks to be uv full strength (stress or not) as the final ripening happens and final production hits.
I might not hold to this simply because I will be having a mixed plant environment that will be ripening on different schedules and I'm really not sure how it will all come together in the end.
Use knowledge gained on next cycle. I've got lots of plants that I can take clones of as part of this and I will have veg clones of anyone going under this experiment if I can. That will allow me to go full blast UV next cycle with the maximum number of UV tolerant plants, assuming it did anything other than damage the plants.
I'll probably end up with around six mothers for next generations depending on what seeds I got going. Keep in mind some of them are autos which means I'm not going to clone just to have them flower on me and die.