door Hesi Plantenvoeding

By: Siglinde from Hesi

Plants enjoy harmony and they enjoy routine. Every plant possesses a genetic pattern of what is agreeable and which situations are acceptable. Plants that possess a light regulated blooming period, such as Cannabis, know that they must bloom when the day/night light ratio reaches a critical limit.Cannabis plants start to bloom once there is a cycle of twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of nighttime, because in the original areas (often at great heights) they would have just enough time to produce their seeds before the onset of winter. This message is genetically imprinted.

Aside from their genetic programming, plants are capable of variety and can adapt themselves to almost impossible situations. The hemp plant is so flexible that it can adapt itself to thrive in almost any part of the world, except where there is permafrost, like in the tundra. And despite the fact that hemp has been cultivated since time out of mind, (the first reports date from China in 8000 BC) the basic genetic program (time coded blooming period) is still firmly in place and unchanged.

In the meantime, there are multiple strains and varieties that are now known. Strains that have long thin leaves, strains that have coloured leaves and kinds that have short squat leaves. Some grow quickly while others take their time. One kind will grow wildly with branches all over the place whilst another will grow straight up, like a tin soldier whose only interest is the blossoms. With some strains, the makeup of the resin is so specific, that the smell associated will remain with the plant regardless of where it is grown, for example; skunk, white widow or haze. Depending on the grow technique used, the taste will be more or less intense, but the strain will remain recognisable by it's taste too.

Cannabis is one of the most successful plants known to us. Despite more than 10 000 years of constant cultivation, the genetic structure of Cannabis is as strong today as it always was. It is a very easy plant to grow and by following a few ground rules, it will certainly bring benefits.

The major differences lie between the growers themselves. Why does one farmer always have success while others struggle constantly?

This phenomenon has been called having green fingers, simply because we do not have another explanation. And when someone with green fingers actually has no clue concerning technique, then it's easy to get pissed off and imagine it is all just a case of a thick farmer blessed with the largest potatoes.

One possible explanation is that those who have green fingers often look at plants without changing them much, just giving them the water and food they need. Those of us who want to create optimal conditions (theoretically) are perhaps guilty of disturbing the harmony for the plants by being too busy with them, plucking off dry leaves, moving them around for the best light etc.

However, this explanation does not cover the problems the same successful farmer can have in another room.Do you suppose that this indicates that green fingers are bound to location?

But that only leads to more questions!

Are the only influences that effect plants, water, food and climate, or can we provide more? Do plants like music? Are they aware of our presence?

How do plants observe their surroundings? How does a plant see?

Ears, eyes and noses can definitely be ruled out. But plants do read more of the light spectrum than we can. They are capable of using light from the spectrum that we can't even see. Light is not only a source of energy to plants (comparable to our food) but brings in information as well. It is believed that a seed lying in the ground is subjected to minuscule flashes of light, which informs it where the upper surface is, even when this upper surface is not necessarily above it. These minuscule light flashes(several light particles = several photons) are so faint that we humans have to amplify them in order to be able to measure them.

Before we go any further, I would like to give you an idea just how limited our senses are and just how difficult it is to be an observer on other levels. We assume the world exists the way we see it. We forget how much of what is actually surrounding us, we cannot see, hear or feel.The image marked 'How we see colour' shows how only small a section of the whole spectrum can be perceived by humans. The scale of this drawing is not completely accurate, as it does not show exactly how large the unseen section is.

What do we see

Our retinas retain the incoming light information and send it to the eye nerves. The highly complex nerve centre of the brain makes images from it that it can compare and interpret. After that follows a chain of complex commands, such as,' It's a lamppost, walk past it.'But our eyes can be deceived all too easily. With the help of trick images like this one with the blue squares and the question which two squares are 100% the same shade of blue? It's immediately obvious just how limited our visual perception is. The answer is that the second and third are the same. If in doubt, print this image and fold the page in half so that the squares meet.

In order to bring contrast into the images retained by the retina, our eyes use three light 'flares', that each covers an area of the complete light spectrum. These separate light flares see colours that overlap and we see the result of the combination. Some people have impairment in one or more of these light flares and then we speak of colour-blindness. The colour a person cannot see is seen as grey.

A test for colour blindness

First look at these images and note which numbers you can see...

People who are blind to one colour or another will only often realise by means of such a test. They do not know that they cannot see a certain colour so they do not expect it.Someone who is not colour-blind will not be able to see the number 5 in test image C.A person with a deficiency in red/green will not be able to see the number 8 in image A or that the number 74 is to be seen in image B. A variety of information can be read out of the small differences in observation that these images reveal.

What is really difficult to perceive is how, for example, a snake sees. Snakes can see infrared light. We can only feel infrared light as warmth, but it gives a snake a clear picture of its surroundings, even at night. They can immediately recognise how large something is and can follow a warmth track in the same way dogs can follow a smell. We humans have managed to harness infrared light into equipment for night sight, but we still have to transform the signals to our visual range.

A plant can take in an even broader spectrum of light. Not only can it see infrared, it can also see ultraviolet. To what degree plants are able to sense signals other than light, such as radio waves, will be the theme of my next article.

Test

A: A person with normal colour perception will see an 8, a person with a red/green deficiency will see a 3 and someone who is totally colour blind will not see any numbers at all.

B: Normal sight will see a 74; colour-blind people will see 21 and someone who is totally colour blind will not see any numbers at all.

C: Both colour-blind and non-colour-blind people will not see numbers but a person with a red/green deficiency will see a 5.

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