#56 And then there was light!
Channel: Cerriscapades
Date: 11/03/2018

LET'S PLANT! 
EP 56 - And then there was light!

After waiting for months, I can finally tear the shades down. By doing so, I am exposing my plants to more ultraviolet light.

The UV cloth I was using had a rating of 50-60%, which meant that more or less halves the UV exposure. With those out of the way, the plants on the ground will be receiving full power. Hopefully I have already given them enough time to harden up so this is sort of a gamble at this stage. However I am prepared to take the risk. I really wanted the shade out of the way already!

Now speaking of sunlight and acclimatisation, this has to be a gradual process. Plants that have been growing in shade will not have enough farina to protect themselves against the full power of the sun. By gradually increasing the sun exposure, this allows the plant to catch up by putting out new leaves with thicker farina, and will eventually outgrow the older, less protected leaves.

A general guideline passed around is that one should start with about 1-2 hours of direct sun exposure and increase that by an hour every week or so. Maddie of Maddie in Wonderland has an ingenious way of doing this by invoking the principles of a sundial. She uses the shadow casted by her house to mark out the time of day.

https://www.facebook.com/MaddieInWonderlandOz/posts/2061367557434316

This works really well for her because she lives in the tropics, where there is minimal variation of the length of day throughout the year.

Check out Maddie page at
https://www.facebook.com/MaddieInWonderlandOz/

In places far from the equator, this can be inaccurate since the length of day varies through the seasons. In this case, relying on shadows can be very rough and imprecise so maybe we should think in terms of actual units of measurement.

One way to measure light is to use a lux meter or a light meter. Getting one might cost you depending on the features set it comes with. However this is probably the best way to measure light.

An alternative is to use your camera, and figure out the exposure level by using the builtin metering (I will be putting out a separate video on the matter). Knowing how the exposure triangle works is vital here.

Lastly, a very crude and slow method is by actually using plants. All you have to do is to place a plant in the areas you intend to use and see how they respond. Within a week or two, you will see physiological changes which will help you figure out if they are in a good spot or not - e.g. if there is not enough light then you'll see etiolation and discolouration, too much then there's burning, so you'll want to hit the sweet spot in the middle.


Title and ending music:
"Open Those Bright Eyes"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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