Keynote speaker Bruce Bugbee, the director of the Crop Physiology Laboratory at Utah State University, kicked off the two days of HortiCann presentations. He began with the basics illustrating what he calls the nine cardinal parameters of plant growth (Fig. 1). Above ground, you have light, temperature, humidity, wind, and CO2. Below ground, you have root-zone temperature, water, nutrients, and oxygen. “This is a simple concept, but with profound consequences,” said Bugbee.
Keynote speaker Bruce Bugbee described the nine cardinal parameters of plant growth. Image credits: Photo and illustration courtesy of Bruce Bugbee, Utah State University. Bugbee said light is at the center of the plant growth process. If you change the light input, he observed, “The optimum level of all these other parameters changes.” And light can vary over an enormous span — which Bugbee referred to as a ten-fold range. “If we turn up the light, the flux of water through the plant increases,” he noted.
“There is interest in using UV to increase cannabinoid synthesis in cannabis,” said Bugbee. And his lab is studying that possibility. He also said while some researchers and growers have stated that such increases have been proven, that actual case is not so clear and there is more work needed to learn the effectiveness of UV.
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