Does Supplemental Far-Red DECREASE Cannabis Yields?
June 07 2023 – Danielle Daly

This is a ongoing Blog Post originally created from Instagram. We will add more shortly.
Far-Red Cannabis Research. Not looking great 👀 for 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. We posted similar research a couple of months ago
Before we start…. Mammoth does have Far-Red and will 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞 to use far red in our spectrum. 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞
As explained below and before…we are research based and could never find a benefit for supplementing far-red (think separate channel) either at the end of day or during flower only. Therefore we never launched a Far-Red supplementary bar or a spectrum tuning fixture
𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡:
* End of Day Far Red does NOT put plants to sleep faster - Bugbee video attached
* Supplemental Far Red decreases yields (more is worst)- research attached (although only sativa plants and not many trials)
* Cannabinoids/THC do not improve and a possible negative - not conclusive
𝐏𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬:
* 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 far red has been shown to improve plant growth from seed to harvest
* We and others have observed the right balance of additional BLUE + Far Red (to balance the far-red stretch) can increase yields and potentially reduce flower times slightly
* If you are looking to control the morphology of the plant - then far-red on separate channel could work
Let’s us finish with: We are all for experimenting of spectrum and 1 or 2 studies is not conclusive…but the evidence we have: supplemental far-red is an added expense to avoid
𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬:
A decrease in yield was an unexpected outcome and the cause of this is unknown. An increasing amount of leaf senescence was observed throughout each treatment. Leaf senescence has been observed as a symptom of far-red light and the shade avoidance response by several authors including Rousseaux et al., 1996; This senescence could have caused a reduction in overall photosynthetic potential leading to a decrease in yield. Though this is only the speculation of the author based upon current literature, it would seem to explain our result. A yield reduction would obviously be a negative outcome for any producer especially considering we did not see any significant differences in cannabinoid or terpenoid
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