Suppose that the light intensity (as measured by photon flux) is at the borderline between "enough" and "not enough". Under such conditions, I assume that increasing the blue to red ratio would be beneficial in reducing leggyness. Nope, it is a myth that internode length is increased by red light and decreased by blue light. Red light, or orange light such as HPS, produces very short internodes (ie. no legginess). The issue with such light is that they produce excessively branched and compact plants and biomass is not maximised on such small plants. There are also other biological problems with a complete lack of blue light. Etiolation is controlled very strongly by the ratio of red light to far red light, but this is rarely an issue with fluorescent lights because they just don't produce enough far red light. Incandescents do and they have even been used to supplement HPS lighting to stretch plants. One of the biggest problems with fluorescent lights is that the main red phosphors have a sharp dropoff in light at the most efficient wavelengths for photosynthesis. This is intentional since the human eye is not very sensitive to those wavelengths. The common blue phosphors do peak right at the best place for plants. Perhaps you have seen plots of photosynthesis as a function of wavelength, in which blue has a effectiveness of ~ 1/2, green ~ 2/3 (green would be about ~3/4, but has a little dip in the plot), and red ~1 (where by definition, I normalized the effectiveness of red to "1"). Such plots result when the light intensity is measured in watts per square meter. When light intensity is measured by photons per square meter (microEinstiens), the plots show that blue and red are both ~1, and the dip in the green is more pronounced. (The dip in green is more obvious with pale thin leaves or dilute algae, as compared to plants with dark thick leaves.) In conclusion, the claim that blue light is less effective than red light in driving photosynthesis is an illusion and not a real issue. You have just pointed out that a photosynthetic plot against power (watts) shows blue light to be half as effective as red light. Similar plots against photons (micro-einsteins) show that a blue photon is roughly as effective as a red photon, but unfortunately it takes more energy to produce a blue photon, hence a 40W fluorescent can produce less blue photons than red photons purely based on physics. Add in that blue phosphors are generally less efficient and degrade more quickly and you have a problem. Remember that you buy electricity and fluorescent tubes by the watt, not by the photon. Actually I am hoping for an imbalance, an imbalance that retards bolting! Now here you have a situation where blue light can be beneficial. Some plants bolt when grown with insufficient blue light. Approximately 10% blue light by photon count is sufficient to prevent this, which approximates to the 25% blue light by wattage in the good old warm white cool white combo. 6500K tubes actually produce more blue light than needed for this, but they are not wildly out of line and they are often made in "wide spectrum" forms that produce a good spread of light in the best red wavelengths. They also often have a high CRI for good colour rendition if you want your plants to look good under lights. The second real issue is whether a red lamp can put out twice as many photons as a blue lamp (given equal consumption of watts). This is a question of economics and enviornmental stewardship. I don't believe that a hypothetical fluorescent tube coated with only red phosphor emits more photons than one coated with only blue phosphor. Again, pure physics says that it requires more energy to produce a blue photon than a red one, proportionate to the frequency, or inversely proportional to the wavelength. Using blue and red phosphor peaks at 420nm and 650nm, you get a ratio of 64% of blue photons compared to red for the same power. Add in the difficulties with blue phosphors and a red phosphor most certainly does emit more photons per watt than a blue one (or even a green one). Remember that one blue photon achieves, at best, the same photosynthetic effect as one red photon. In regards to the UV component of aquarium fluorescents and metal halides, I worry much more about UV-induced degradation of household paint and fabrics than about inhibition of plants. Definitely. Metal halides degrade paint over time. Aquarium fluorescents may or may not produce enough UV to be harmful. Some, such as actinics, produce very little UV. Even some non-actinics produce just a narrow spread of blue and violet light, but others produce a wider spread including quite a bit of UV. Coral lamps in particular tend to produce a higher proportion of UV than is good for plants. Try a coral lamp on surface plants at an intensity comparable to sunlight and let us know what happens :) Maybe nothing, maybe crispy plants, but why take the risk when a saltwater aquarium lamp offers nothing extra for growing green plants. Well, they are sold as magic lamps! Magic lamps to drive photosynthesis in the dinoflagellate symbionts found in coral. Yes, that's right, they are designed for corals that live several feet under saltwater where they receive very little red light and probably wouldn't know what to do with a red photon if they tripped over it :) Coral lamps are actually designed to produce an excess of violet and UV light to enhance natural fluorescence and make the corals look nice. I have the impression that the phosphor in classic "actinic" aquarium lamps (those that emit blue at a 420nm peak) degrades quickly. Actinic lamps certainly don't have the same listed lifetimes as regular triphosphor fluorescents. I don't know how much of this is just lack of effort on the part of the manufacturers. I started a thread many months ago about apparent spectral changes in triphosphor fluorescents as they age since the blue triphosphor phosphors are the same as the phosphors in at least some of the aquarium lamps. It does seem that the blue phosphors degrade more quickly (and so a triphosphor tube becomes more red) but it is difficult to find hard data on this. Your Clemson link is interesting. It describes the primary spectral effect on plant height, which is the ratio of far red light. They also mention right at the end the possible effects of far red light at particular times of the day. This has been studied elsewhere and it appears that relatively small amounts of far red light have a huge effect at particular times, especially right before or during the dark period.

Applewood Annie, bless your heart for remembering me. I'm still around, though since I lost my DH last summer my time for checking in on GW has not been the same. Used to be that I popped in every single day - sometimes more than once, but I've no time for that any more, and not so much time for my gardens either I'm sad to say. I've tried to make a promise to myself to photograph the gardens more this year, even if only to help me some day remember the beauty I created around a home I no longer can view as being the place I'll stay the rest of my life, sigh. Sorry to hear about your health problems. What a terrible time you have had! I hope you have some beautiful roses anyway this year - and better days ahead. It's fun to see so many people pop in, but sad when I see the names of some very wonderful people I met here over the last 12 years and now so many of them are lost to us all. That's the nature of this way of relating to people. We only see a small window on someone's life and they can close it and turn their backs at any time, leaving us in the dark as to what happened. That's the trouble; never having the end of the stories...

Wayne, here's the headline...Crystal power Palmtop Nuclear Fusion Device Invented By Michael Schirber LiveScience Staff Writer posted: 27 April 2005 01:00 pm ET The nuclear reaction that powers the Sun has been reproduced in a pocket-sized device, scientists announced today. Researchers have for years tried to harness nuclear fusion to power the world. But its cousin, nuclear fission -- the breaking apart of atoms -- is the only method so far commercially viable. The latest invention is not in the same league as efforts to build complex commercial reactors. The new device creates a relatively small number of reactions, and requires more energy to operate than it produces. The Real Deal (AP) - Previous claims of tabletop fusion have been met with skepticism and even derision by physicists. In one of the most notable cases, Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University in England shocked the world in 1989 when they announced that they had achieved so-called cold fusion at room temperature. Their work was discredited after repeated attempts to reproduce it failed. Fusion experts noted that the new UCLA experiment is credible because, unlike the 1989 work, it did not violate basic principles of physics. "This doesn't have any controversy in it because they're using a tried and true method,'' said David Ruzic, professor of nuclear and plasma engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "There's no mystery in terms of the physics.'' -- Associated Press But the configuration is so small and simple that its creators think it may inspire unforeseen applications. "I certainly find it interesting that you can heat a cubic centimeter crystal in your hand, then plunge it in cold water and it will cause nuclear fusion," Seth Putterman from the University of California Los Angeles told LiveScience. Putterman's lay description greatly oversimplifies how the compact apparatus works. Specifically, Putterman and collaborators heat a pyroelectric crystal, lithium tantalite, from minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit to plus 45 in a matter of minutes. This generates an electrical charge -- 100,000 volts -- across the tiny crystal, which is housed in a chamber filled with deuterium gas, a heavy form of hydrogen. The high voltage is focused onto a needle-thin tip, which strips electrons from nearby deuterium nuclei and then accelerates them at a solid target containing deuterium. When two deuterium nuclei collide together at high speed, they fuse to form helium. The Sun also fuses atoms in thermonuclear reactions that create light and heat. The byproduct of the newly discovered lab reaction is a particle called the neutron. The scientists detect about 1,000 neutrons per second. Because neutrons are so penetrating, Putterman said that a hand-held neutron source might one-day be used to do geologic surveys or to look into cargo containers for nuclear devices. "Current neutron generators are extremely cumbersome," Putterman said. "They are about as big as a dentists X-ray machine, so you canÂt carry them into the field." Pyroelectric crystals could also provide a beam of ions for use as a microthruster in a miniature spacecraft. The research is described in the April 28 issue of the journal Nature.

I will need a math expert to sort out my hydro electric bill. From Dec. 9, 2015 BC Hydro is being almost totally used to supply heat to a rather old house, plus all the other perks we all get using clean hydro power. Little wood is being used, saving it for power outages. This winter has been mild. The first 33 days on hydro was total $370. Next 33 days was total $572. The former home gas heat was from a 1994 (96 plus) high efficiency natural gas furnace. So an expert would need to summarize how much hydro power was needed to blow natural gas heat from a Direct Vent Forced Air Furnace, and what hydro power was consumed to supply the rest of my standard electrical needs. You have to be math- kW h -smart to know hydro consumption, or you need to be smart to understand the Smart Meters. Remember, too, this HEF was directly polluting my private lagoon with created acidic water with a pH lower than 5. The Mallard ducks had stopped nesting in the lagoon. When HEFs at 98 efficiency rate were planned to be the wave of the future how are they adding to acidic water problems when no municipality requires them to have a neutralizer on them before discharging anywhere? Year 2016: If I never return to unclean HEF natural gas heat which are being "allowed to dump acidic water anywhere", and go to Solar panel heat, sunny most days, will I be saving? Will there be a Brownie-Badge for saving the environment, too? And will I get a rebate for any unused hydro if the solar system is not battery operated but is better tied into a Hydro grid? Solar Power is where the future should be. Any grant money should be applied for us all to install Solar panels tied into the hydro grids. Imagine every home in the USA and Canada installing Solar panels, under incentive Grants and giving credit back to the homes for unused power. That is Smart living.