The pursuit of sunlight by South African succulents and their love for sunlight
The web tells everyone about the content of South African succulents, the pursuit of sunlight by South African succulents and their love for sunlight. Next, the editor will introduce.
1. The role of sunlight
Everything grows with sunlight; it feels stuffy without sunshine for a day. Ancient people liked to lock prisoners in dungeons and deprive them of the right to bask in the sun, which shows the importance of sunlight to living things.
Compared to animals, plants are more dependent on sunlight because light helps plants perform photosynthesis and produce nutrients. Someone might say that plants have roots, and it's the roots that absorb nutrients. Please find the junior high school biology textbook. The roots of plants absorb only raw materials, which are transported to the leaves and then undergo photosynthesis through the catalysis of chlorophyll, carbon dioxide, and light to ultimately produce sugar for plant consumption. It's like the blood flowing in your veins is not rice.
Sunlight refers to full-spectrum natural light. Full-spectrum light reflects 7 monochromatic visible lights after passing through a prism. Natural light includes not only visible light but also UVA, UVB, UVC, and other invisible wavebands. The visible spectrum's red and blue light, as well as UVA, UVB, and UVC, play a major regulatory role in plant growth. There are now high-tech red and blue plant growth lamps on the market that are said to work well, but their cost is likely much higher than the price of ordinary home-grown plants. Knowing about this is enough; don't take it too seriously.
Old ginger thinks that visible light is easy to understand, but the role of invisible light is often overlooked. Old ginger shares personal thoughts for reference only.
2. Introduction to invisible light in sunlight
UVA, with a wavelength of 320-400 nm, is also known as long-wave black spot effect ultraviolet light. It has strong穿透力 and can pass through most transparent materials, destroy the epidermal cells of organisms, promote cell aging, and tan human skin. This is what MM's prevent day and night. For succulents, this band of light can promote epidermal cell aging, making the shell hard and thick, not as watery, but at the same time, the plant's resistance will increase significantly, and its resistance to external physical damage will also increase, especially in good community environments where plants placed outside can greatly improve their resistance and survival rate under the trampling of birds and squirrels. More importantly, moderately aged epidermal plants can avoid sunburn from sudden increases in sunlight, so giving appropriate and moderate UVA exercise is essential for home cultivation.
UVB, with a wavelength of 275-320 nm, is also known as medium-wave erythema effect ultraviolet light, with moderate penetrating power. Only about 2% of this band of ultraviolet light reaches the ground through the atmosphere. This band of ultraviolet light helps animals with mineral metabolism and vitamin D formation. We are actually exposing ourselves to UVB when we sunbathe, so old ginger likes to call it life rays. For plants, UVB is part of promoting photosynthesis, but its promotional effect is opposite. It can cause plants to become dwarfed, thereby accumulating a large amount of nutrients in the roots and stems of the plant, ultimately aiming to improve the plant's physique through the accumulation of nutrients and promote flowering and fruiting. Without UVB, all plants in the world would become soft and weak, like韭菜秧子. From the perspective of home cultivation of South African succulents, UVB exposure can make plants dwarfed and compact, which is more aesthetically pleasing and increases resistance. The long-nosed king mentioned earlier is a negative example.
UVC, with a wavelength of 200-275 nm, is also known as short-wave germicidal ultraviolet light. Its main function is sterilization. Excessive exposure can cause massive cell death, which can lead to skin cancer in humans and scorching or withering in plants. I like to call it the灭杀 ray. Fortunately, its penetrating power is the weakest, unable to pass through most transparent glass and plastic, and most of it is absorbed by the ozone layer during its passage through the atmosphere (therefore, protecting the ozone layer is important). For home-grown South African succulents, since drugs are generally used in small amounts, it is necessary to receive appropriate UVC exposure for the health and sterilization of the plants. It can kill harmful bacteria on the plant's surface or in the surrounding environment and also promote the metabolism of epidermal cells, similar to the principle of UVA.
3. The pursuit of light by plants
So, what are the characteristics of the pursuit of sunlight by South African succulents in a home environment? If you are smart enough, you should already have an understanding after reading the "physiological characteristics" and "sunlight" sections above. If not, it doesn't mean you are slow, it just means you are eager to learn. Since you are so keen on learning, let's continue.
In a home environment, as mentioned earlier, due to shading, there is no direct sunlight most of the time, and even the light that comes in is lacking in invisible light (such as UVB, which can be lost by up to 80% under single-layer glass filtering, mainly due to the lead element in ordinary glass), and excessive刻意 strengthening of sunlight can cause excessive UBA and UVC, causing originally watery plants to either get sunburned or become old and crispy. It can be said that the environment for growing succulents at home is a pathological environment, a congenitally deficient environment. This has nothing to do with how much fertilizer you use or how much water you浇. This is congenital. Unless you are willing to knock a hole in your ceiling, but I don't think your neighbor upstairs would agree.
This congenitally deficient environment can lead to many adverse consequences, such as plant etiolation, reduced resistance, fungal outbreaks, bacterial spread, or sunburn, sun death, drying like a mummy... We often hear people say when growing flowers that flowers should be grown outdoors, indoor plants don't thrive, and so on. These sayings, although from the common people, actually have scientific reasoning behind them. The key issue is this "light" word.
In fact, there are solutions, besides breaking the ceiling, there are many other ways to correct or compensate for the unfavorable conditions of insufficient light, such as drugs, controlled watering, lighting methods, increasing temperature differences, and treating differently according to seasons, and so on. "Drugs" are not my forte and must be abandoned.
(1) Tips for effective use of sunlight by balcony gardeners
Most balcony gardeners should have a balcony (I admit this is a redundant sentence, if you don't have a balcony, what's the point of growing flowers?), and most balconies are enclosed. Enclosed balconies have good lighting conditions, but as mentioned earlier, glass can block ultraviolet light, so I suggest opening the windows for as long as possible under your control. This is a very good method, especially for Aizoaceae plants, which are much better in full-spectrum scattered light environments than in spectrum-deficient direct sunlight. I have experimented at home, and the living stones grown in scattered light on the balcony without obstruction are明显矮胖 and solid, and the epidermis ages comfortably, not as watery as those grown in the bedroom window with glass. Moreover, they do not show obvious dormancy in summer. After repotting, it becomes even more evident that the former has a clear main root, thick and not highly lignified, with well-developed lateral and fibrous roots, taking out a large clod of soil, while the latter is much weaker, although also healthy, but it looks like a greenhouse-raised child, unable to withstand the wind and rain.
If you are growing Haworthia, you also need to note: if the balcony has windows on three sides, place the Haworthia plant on the east side, and place enough tall green plants or hang shading nets on the west side of the window. If the balcony only has a window on the south side, it needs to be placed on the west side, the reason being that Haworthia needs moderate short-daylight. The early morning sunlight that can shine into the balcony just meets this requirement. As for shading, if your balcony has a canopy, then you don't need to consider it at all. Because the angle of sunlight changes with each season, the more summer it is, the more direct the sunlight angle is, and at noon, when shading is needed, often no sunlight can shine into the balcony. If you like your plants to be watery in summer, a single-layer 50% shading net is enough. If the plants still look dry after shading, then congratulations to you, because you can repot and play with mud again.
(2) Light selection for different seasons
Based on the characteristic that South African succulents are all winter-growers, home cultivation should fully utilize the growing season, because the climate in the south has distinct seasons, and the low temperature in winter and the high temperature in summer are not something that Haworthia or Aizoaceae can bear, so during these two seasons, most plants in people's homes are in a state of dormancy, with the difference being that Haworthia is in a shallow dormancy in winter and deep dormancy in summer, while Aizoaceae is the opposite. There are a few students with good conditions who will use heating or homemade cooling curtains to artificially adjust the temperature, allowing the plants to continue growing. However, I believe that most students can only do as I do, let it be and let the plants naturally go into dormancy (a few students who still fertilize and water heavily in summer or winter are not included in the discussion). In this way, the growing season of the plants is only spring and summer. From my observations in Hangzhou, the general growth peak is from October to December and from early April to the end of June.
How to use these few months most efficiently determines the growth rate of your plants. Some people often envy others' plants growing fast, but in fact, others' conditions are not much different from yours. The difference is that they have utilized these few months well, while your plants have spent all their energy on root growth during these months.
To use this time well, it is essential to give the plants sufficient natural light. Taking Haworthia as an example, after a continuous rainy and cold winter, the plants are in a state of shallow dormancy, accumulating a lot of toxins in their bodies, and the bacteria and eggs in the potting soil begin to stir. At this time, it is necessary to gradually increase the light, and the windows that have been closed for months should be opened. On one hand, the natural warming of the potting soil in the sun can stimulate the plants to secrete growth hormones, and on the other hand, the ultraviolet light in the sun can kill harmful bacteria and eggs in the potting soil. However, it is important to note that you should not suddenly expose the plants to strong sunlight, as mentioned earlier, before the epidermal cells have time to age, UVA and UVB in sunlight can be fatal to the plants. The same goes for autumn, except that in addition to paying attention to the intensity of sunlight and the plant's adaptation level, it is even more important to pay attention to the plant's condition in the fall because the intensity of ultraviolet light in the south is much higher than in summer. Generally, the amount of sunlight in the fall is adjusted so that the plant leaves are no longer green. If the leaves turn red, it means that the light is too strong. For plants just waking up from summer dormancy, more shading is needed.
What we mentioned earlier about etiolation does not include the temporary divergence or stretching caused by rapid growth of plants in spring and autumn. The best time to control etiolation is not during the peak of growth but before the dormancy period, that is, at the end of December and the end of June in the south, because during this time, the day-night temperature difference is large, and the plants are just entering the period of nutrient accumulation. Increasing the light intensity during this period helps the plants to become dwarfed and compact and also speeds up the accumulation of nutrients, both controlling (or correcting) etiolation and preparing physiologically for dormancy.
The above is a sunlight plan that maintains the fastest growth speed while maximizing the plant's shape. Plants grown this way may appear slightly watery, not very strict in compactness and dwarfing. This may not be suitable for those who追求 extreme shapes and do not consider growth speed or the longevity of plants, but it is enough for ordinary home hobbyists who enjoy keeping plants alive and healthy, and occasionally taking photos to share on forums for新手 appreciation.
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