Elevated UV photon fluxes minimally affected cannabinoid concentration in a high-CBD cultivar.

Ultraviolet photons (UV) can damage critical biochemical processes. Plants synthesize photo-protective pigments that absorb UV to minimize damage. Cannabinoids absorb UV, so increased UV has the potential to increase cannabinoid synthesis. Studies in the 1980's provided some evidence for this hypothesis in low-cannabinoid cultivars, but recent studies did not find an increase in cannabinoid synthesis with increasing UV in high-cannabinoid cultivars. These studies used low UV photon fluxes, so we examined the effect of higher UV photon fluxes. We used fluorescent UV lights with 55% UV-B (280 to 314 nm) and 45% UV-A (315 to 399 nm). Treatments began three weeks after the start of short days and continued for five weeks until harvest. Established weighting factors were used to calculate the daily biologically effective UV photon flux (UV-PFD

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2023 Westmoreland, Kusuma and Bugbee.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. This study received funding from SunMed Growers, METER Group Inc. and Statehouse. The funders were not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication. All authors declare no other competing interests.