I agree. I think the cheap meter is inaccurate. I calibrate before every other watering so about once a week. I believe the Hanna meter is spot on. I have the 1413 calibration solution as well as the TDS calibration solution. My EC figures are making a lot more sense now. I think I need to disregard my old method and embrace the readings I get with the new meter. I want to thank SME for helping me work through this problem.
Time for the weekly update. Everything has been riding steady. The plants seem to respond well to the new light.
There are a couple things I did not disclose earlier. Since I am a perpetual grower I always have plants in flower. This means my plants were partially flowered under a 400w HPS. I know this fact dilutes my ability to lend credit solely to LED performance. With that said the plants are only a couple weeks into flowering. I plan to follow through with the 90 days by reporting beginning progress on some young plants.
I will foliar feed on Sunday since the plants got watered tonight. I have been feeding at an EC of 2.6 - including all additives. I think its a little hot so I will back off some the next feeding. Water leaves show slight downward curl - I attribute this to over feeding. I will post pics so others can confirm my diagnosis. I feed slightly heavy because I supplement co2.
My feeling is LEDs are less powerful. My plants seem to use less nutrients and water. To me, this can only mean the plant is getting less light. I am really considering buying a solarflare to up the w/sqft. I believe the heat savings will have a big impact on final product. Even with an aircooled hood I have to vent somewhere. Leaving a window open during the winter is not an option. Remember - I am only a closet grower.
High temp at canopy is 82F. Nighttime low is 70F. Humidity stays between 45% and 50% during lights on and a high of 60% at night.
I will likely post pictures before foliar feeding on Sunday. Hopefully I will have money for a solarflare 200 soon. I forgot to mention how often I've been using the UVB floros. I follow the old saying "water in the morning" for when to use the light. I turn it on for the first 2 hours when lights flip. I feel like this gets the plants amped for rest of the day. That's if they work. Two weeks into pistil production leaves are fairly crystalline.
I don't like more than 50% humidity once flowers form to help prevent mold/mildew so keep an eye on them...
CLW suggests using the UVB for the last 2-4 weeks but I doubt it would hurt to use it the whole flowering cycle.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
It has been a pretty humid summer compared to other years - in my location. I made an order for a 5 lifer dehumidifier made by evedry. Its small and cheap so I believe it will work perfect for my coverage area. I will place the unit between my two plants. My only concerns with adding a dehumidifier are that humidity may be decreased too much. Also, the system only has an off/on button so I'm not sure if I should run power through my atmosphere controller. If it runs during fans on or off it may make a difference. It is only 5 litters so I don't expect it to be as efficient as a larger unit. Any insight would be appreciated.
SME, I would appreciate a link to your method of water curing.
I'm somewhat ashamed that I didn't consider this. I won't be able to post pics for a couple weeks - until I get a new laptop. I have been using my kindle to make these updates. What a PITA. In a stoner moment I thought I still had my netbook which is capable of the task. Regardless, I have taken pictures and will upload them first chance I get. Thank you for your understanding. I will continue my weekly text updates.
Dropped the EC down to 2.4 over the last week. Fan leaf blades have gone back to normal although some water leaves remain curled. I expect another week and things should be looking right. Growth has been very good despite the slight toxicity. I will continue to feed at this rate until any problems show - then adjust accordingly. This strain seems a little sensitive to Nitrogen toxicity compared to the last strain grown.
Humidity has been a little bit of a problem again this week. I received my dehunidifier and returned it the next day. It was not very effective. I contribute it to the size of my room and how fast air is expelled. I turned the humidity control off and set the temperature at 84F. Since higher temps hold less water my new strategy has worked alright. Fall and winter are very dry in my area but summer is wet. Summer is almost over so I'm going to let it ride for now and deal with it next year.
Continued my schedule for foliar feeding. I increased PH to 6.1 this time. I read the plants like foliar feedings in the low 6's so the dude abides. When I mix nutes for this method of feeding I use PBP bloom at 150ppm, calmag at 75ppm, and liquid karma at 75ppm. I use the same mix to hydrate clones.
I will have my laptop on Thursday and plan to upload photos next weekend.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
8-11-2013 - Plants are about two weeks into pistil production. Included are pictures of my tent and setup. Also a close up of my leaf curl and nutrient toxicity.
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8-19-2013 - Third week of pistil production. Strain is KushBerry, I have two phenotypes expressing themselves. One is packing on much more weight than the other.
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I didn't update last week because there wasn't much change. I got my humidity down to below 50% again. plants seem pretty happy, I just need to figure out their nutrient requirements under these lights. I ran out of PBP Bloom, so I decided to feed them GH 3 part nutrients using the lucas formula (which SME introduced me to). I modified it slightly because my plants don't seem to use as much nutrients under the LED light. I used a ratio of 7:14. not a whole lot less, but just a little. using this ratio gave me an EC of 1.5 - this seems kind of weak, but I have never used General Hydro. I mixed some liquid karma with this solution for a total EC of 1.8. I will see how this goes. I stopped foliar feeding because of my high humidity but will probably pick back up sometime this week.
included in this post are pictures from 08/26:
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