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Now, I don't have the interest to grow plants in a very scientific way, compiling data for 4 years on pepper plants, but it would be interesting to see the effects of lasers on plant growth. There haven't been many studies on it published online.
Yamazaki
UCSB
Those are literally everything I could find on the subject.
Here's my serrano peppers (at least I think they are, I put a lot of different seeds in there because it's too cold to sprout anything). The one under the blue 420nm LED light was being irradiated for more than 24 hours before I found the second sprout, and started feeding it 650nm laser light. Not stating anything here as science because there's only 2 plants and everything I ever grew my whole life up until now died before growing up; I'm a terrible father
Here you can see that the first plant is pretty much starting to rot, but that started happening 2 days prior. You see I pulled up the seed because it's pretty much dead now and I was curious. This photo was taken 1 day after the first, with one reasonably long night cycle in between.
There's a great thesis in here somewhere. You could grow 5 plants per pot and shine on them with equal power under one laser, and grow 5 other plants in another pot and shine another wavelength on them, and then get groups with regular LEDs, then groups with incandescent lamps, and whatever. The experiment would take years. Maybe you could get plants to grow faster by saturating them with more light and increasing the frequency of light cycles. Maybe you can influence the plants to produce more chlorophyll a or b.
There's no way I would commit to it, but I will be growing some plants under lasers in a leisurely manner. I'll probably continue with this little 10mw 650nm, then grow more with a 405, 445, 635, and 680. This pepper looks like it's reacting nicely to my laser. Who needs sunlight anyway. I suspect I'd get less fruits if I continued with this one wavelength.
I guess I'll update the OP / add posts if I note anything interesting, in a completely non objective manner of course.
Log1_1; 20 Feb 2016
I switched my plant to a 405nm 80mw for a day. During the second day I noticed the plant was curling up. The leaves have an apparent sunburn, white to beige discoloration where the light was hitting the leaves. Immediately switched back to 10mw 650nm laser. It still seems alive 2 days after switching back. I advise much less than 2200J/cm^2 of violet light daily [25mW/cm^2] for plants containing a high amount of chlorophyll a compared to (b), but this is just speculation based on attachment #3 in post #1. I have yet to expose a healthy plant to blue laser light >410nm.
Log1_2; 21 Feb 2016
Filled another jar for sprouting.
The pepper formerly named Pepe (the sunburned serrano) is now under a 100mw 650nm laser to compensate for reflection.
100mw red laser burned out. It was out of a pen on ebay. What am I doing with my life. Will have to switch to LEDs for the time being. This will give Pepe time to heal if his sunburn isn't terminal.
Log1_3; 22 Feb
Found another working 200mw 301 660nm lying around. Implemented at 115mw/cm^2. Contemplating dimmable laser build. Probably cost $25. Pepe looks like he's stabilizing; I'm hopeful.
Log1_4; 25 Feb
301 burned out. I think the driver spiked when I just unplugged from 5v instead of turning off the power from the strip. Pruned Pepe. He's now under the 420nm LED until he grows a second leaf.
Log1_5; 27 Feb
Maybe I'm exposing my plant to too much light in general. Backed off my LED from Pepe. His remaining leaf looks a little brown/beige. I'm unsure at this point if it's an effect of wavelength or just light exposure.
Log1_6; 5 March
Every seed I planted is sprouting strongly. I have my secondary jar under my desk lit by my LED mood lighting (~640nm, 445nm). My first pot has now been under a 445nm LED, seeing as the 480nm LED I used earlier had no effect on Pepe's growth. Pepe is still alive, but I'm certain his growth is permanently stunted, like Nemo the fish. His one leaf is folded upside down, utilizing the unburned side; a new leaf is sprouting from where the first one left. I have my reservations about starting a new laser build at the moment. I just spent all Thursday from 8am to 10pm at school working on my project, and Friday from 9 to 6 with no sleep in between due to insomnia. Once I'm done with the electrical systems, I'll be much more free to set up a variable output 660 or 445(A140). I'd use an LM317 with a 100ohm potentiometer between the adj and out pins with a limiting series resistor to limit to 350mA. No PWM though, because I've got that going on with the 445nm LED, and the plants don't seem to prefer PWM to CW or versa versa. Now that my new seeds have sprouted I have more reason to implement laser lighting. I was also going to replicate the heating chamber I made at school so that I could bump the temperature up to a more native 90 deg Fahrenheit.. but to be honest, it's 90 in my room during the summer, and it'd probably only be beneficial when I move to an apartment and me wifey wants the AC on. The room temperature at the moment is varied from about 67-70 deg F (I'm using Freedom Units because literature I've found on plants used it).
Log1_7; 13 March
Pepe is dead. The plants under the blue light are growing much faster than the ones in the mood lighting. I hope eventually the strongest pepper will survive and kill the weaker ones. I have to think about transplanting them into a larger container soon.
Yamazaki
UCSB
Those are literally everything I could find on the subject.
Here's my serrano peppers (at least I think they are, I put a lot of different seeds in there because it's too cold to sprout anything). The one under the blue 420nm LED light was being irradiated for more than 24 hours before I found the second sprout, and started feeding it 650nm laser light. Not stating anything here as science because there's only 2 plants and everything I ever grew my whole life up until now died before growing up; I'm a terrible father
Here you can see that the first plant is pretty much starting to rot, but that started happening 2 days prior. You see I pulled up the seed because it's pretty much dead now and I was curious. This photo was taken 1 day after the first, with one reasonably long night cycle in between.
There's a great thesis in here somewhere. You could grow 5 plants per pot and shine on them with equal power under one laser, and grow 5 other plants in another pot and shine another wavelength on them, and then get groups with regular LEDs, then groups with incandescent lamps, and whatever. The experiment would take years. Maybe you could get plants to grow faster by saturating them with more light and increasing the frequency of light cycles. Maybe you can influence the plants to produce more chlorophyll a or b.
There's no way I would commit to it, but I will be growing some plants under lasers in a leisurely manner. I'll probably continue with this little 10mw 650nm, then grow more with a 405, 445, 635, and 680. This pepper looks like it's reacting nicely to my laser. Who needs sunlight anyway. I suspect I'd get less fruits if I continued with this one wavelength.
I guess I'll update the OP / add posts if I note anything interesting, in a completely non objective manner of course.
Log1_1; 20 Feb 2016
I switched my plant to a 405nm 80mw for a day. During the second day I noticed the plant was curling up. The leaves have an apparent sunburn, white to beige discoloration where the light was hitting the leaves. Immediately switched back to 10mw 650nm laser. It still seems alive 2 days after switching back. I advise much less than 2200J/cm^2 of violet light daily [25mW/cm^2] for plants containing a high amount of chlorophyll a compared to (b), but this is just speculation based on attachment #3 in post #1. I have yet to expose a healthy plant to blue laser light >410nm.
Log1_2; 21 Feb 2016
Filled another jar for sprouting.
The pepper formerly named Pepe (the sunburned serrano) is now under a 100mw 650nm laser to compensate for reflection.
100mw red laser burned out. It was out of a pen on ebay. What am I doing with my life. Will have to switch to LEDs for the time being. This will give Pepe time to heal if his sunburn isn't terminal.
Log1_3; 22 Feb
Found another working 200mw 301 660nm lying around. Implemented at 115mw/cm^2. Contemplating dimmable laser build. Probably cost $25. Pepe looks like he's stabilizing; I'm hopeful.
Log1_4; 25 Feb
301 burned out. I think the driver spiked when I just unplugged from 5v instead of turning off the power from the strip. Pruned Pepe. He's now under the 420nm LED until he grows a second leaf.
Log1_5; 27 Feb
Maybe I'm exposing my plant to too much light in general. Backed off my LED from Pepe. His remaining leaf looks a little brown/beige. I'm unsure at this point if it's an effect of wavelength or just light exposure.
Log1_6; 5 March
Every seed I planted is sprouting strongly. I have my secondary jar under my desk lit by my LED mood lighting (~640nm, 445nm). My first pot has now been under a 445nm LED, seeing as the 480nm LED I used earlier had no effect on Pepe's growth. Pepe is still alive, but I'm certain his growth is permanently stunted, like Nemo the fish. His one leaf is folded upside down, utilizing the unburned side; a new leaf is sprouting from where the first one left. I have my reservations about starting a new laser build at the moment. I just spent all Thursday from 8am to 10pm at school working on my project, and Friday from 9 to 6 with no sleep in between due to insomnia. Once I'm done with the electrical systems, I'll be much more free to set up a variable output 660 or 445(A140). I'd use an LM317 with a 100ohm potentiometer between the adj and out pins with a limiting series resistor to limit to 350mA. No PWM though, because I've got that going on with the 445nm LED, and the plants don't seem to prefer PWM to CW or versa versa. Now that my new seeds have sprouted I have more reason to implement laser lighting. I was also going to replicate the heating chamber I made at school so that I could bump the temperature up to a more native 90 deg Fahrenheit.. but to be honest, it's 90 in my room during the summer, and it'd probably only be beneficial when I move to an apartment and me wifey wants the AC on. The room temperature at the moment is varied from about 67-70 deg F (I'm using Freedom Units because literature I've found on plants used it).
Log1_7; 13 March
Pepe is dead. The plants under the blue light are growing much faster than the ones in the mood lighting. I hope eventually the strongest pepper will survive and kill the weaker ones. I have to think about transplanting them into a larger container soon.
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