Maxibright Daylight UV and Far Red Supplementary Strips

Push Your Maxibright LED to New Levels with a Supplementary Lighting Strip

Maxibright Daylight LED Supplementary Strips push performance rates to new levels by adding in areas of the spectrum that aren't usually covered by regular LED grow lights. You can hang them up in an area of your choosing or you can use the supplied brackets to fit them between the bars of a Maxibright LED. There are multiple versions to choose from, with UVA, UVA & UVB or far-red models available.

UVA

Adding UVA light to your set-up can deliver dramatic improvements in terms of quality and quantity. UVA light is found at varying levels in natural in sunlight, and it sits in the area of the spectrum that's responsible for giving you a tan. That's because it has relatively short wavelengths, putting it in a higher frequency range than visible light. This property causes UVA to have a damaging effect on biological lifeforms. Humans adapt to this issue by ramping up the production of melanin, becoming darker in the process. Interestingly, plants respond in a similar way, but instead of producing melanin, they ramp up production of RVR8 proteins, which then work to increase levels of essential oils, toughening up plants and making them more resistant to stress. Adding UV brings an array of beneficial effects, adding weight to the harvest while improving flavours and aromas. Concentrations of active plant compounds are also greatly increased, giving you a better end-product.

UVA & UVB

This model is similar to the above-mentioned lighting strip, but it also comes with extra UVB. UVB light sits at an even higher frequency range than UVA, giving it more potent effects, so it needs to be used with more caution. Daylight UVA & UVB LED strips are ideal for those wanting to improve plant quality while killing bacteria / mildew spores in your grow room. Bacteria and spores find it much harder to form colonies in high UV environments.

UVB also creates more compact and denser flowers, stopping stretching and keeping your plants at the ideal height for increasing yields, allowing them to focus all energy into fruit production rather than stretching upwards.

Far-Red

Far-red light can also have highly beneficial effects when used right the way through the light period, due to a phenomenon known as the 'Emerson Effect'. Emerson discovered that adding 700nm light to regular red light had a dramatic effect on rates of photosynthesis. Greater levels of photosynthesis mean increased growth rates, and in turn, bigger and better harvests.

There's also another interesting way to utilise far-red light. Adding short 15-minute bursts of far-red light to the beginning of the dark period can help to speed up the flowering process, shortening the time it takes for plants to transition to the bloom phase and reducing the overall flowering time. Using far-red in this way can 'fool' plants into thinking that dark periods are longer than they actually are, so it is possible to run slightly different lighting patterns and keep plants in flower. For example, 13 hours on and 11 hours off (with the first 30 mins of the dark period being far-red light only). This gives plants more time to photosynthesise, increasing overall productivity and reducing the time it takes to reach harvest time.

Though far-red light has been shown to increase yields, in some instances it can also slightly increase stretching, so this is something to be mindful of. Maxibright Daylight LEDs, however, contain plenty of blue light that will counter the issue, so it shouldn't cause a problem if you're using the right equipment.

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