Hello all! I am being paid by a friend to journal his grow because he doesn't want to but he does want to stand by his word with George, the owner of California Lightworks and inventor or this beautiful machine.
I am verrrrry knowledgeable and will be under constant update through this exceptional trial as I feel this trial alone will set the bar for what kind of potential this light has. He has been an HPS user for years but felt as soon as he saw this product and that George was confident enough to offer the GFP that it was finally time to give LEDs a try.
He has used canna coco and entire nutrient line in the past top feeding by hand with fewer larger plants which is more condusive for HPS penetration. he liked drain to waste and had the time to do the watering. Now that he has the solarstorm he feels that it would perform optimally in a SOG setup where the uniformity will allow the lights to stay closer to all plants and short plants in close quarters should produce the heaviest, best yield for this light....theoretically right?
So now is where the experiment gets taken to the next level. He used r-matte board (which has an almost foil/mylar finish on one side and is like a half inch thick insulation type material that comes in 4'*8' sheets for like $8. In other words, almost every garner should know about it.) To divide his 4'*9' tent into a 4'*4' for the solarstorm experiment. Then he bought another sheet of it and u can see for youself what genius he deployed with it.
Setup is 25, 2 gallon cloth pots filled with conditioned hydroton and the full line of canna aqua including all additives as the schedule reads. 15 white siberian clones and 10 dutch cheese all one from mother which he received as clones and vegged into mothers using the solarstorm and this thing has already established itself as a vegging MACHINE.
On with the pics...
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Last edited by theProgressoR on Sun Jun 03, 2012 10:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Oh and its an ebb and flow system. His first time using this technique but he is a very smart guy so it won't be a problem. He created a capsule of almost complete reflectivity to use every bit the solarstorm has to offer and I think this garden has the potential to produce one of the best yield to energy consumption ratios ever. I'm excited...
You'll want to resize your pictures, next time, so they'll fit better.
How tall are you planning on switching to flower? How much yield are you expecting with the SOG? I was considering switching to SOG but it's just too much work for my bad back.
SME
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.
Yeah I don't know if I can resize the pics on my phone but if I can I'd live to know how. They just got put into hydroton a few days ago and are starting to grow so he will swap em before a foot and train the tall ones to stay spread or move em to the exterior. I'm just excited about containing the light in such a small space both above and below are blocked off and relected plus it keeps algae at bay in my tray . He also sat the board low enough on the light so the exhaust and intake are in the upper compartment of the tent where the vent fan is so he can exhaust it out. I think an ounce a plant is possible but I also think two might be. So hopefully one and a half but more wouldn't suprise me. We will see...
I'm not sure about resizing phone pictures, I assume there are settings (or an app) for that but every phone is different.
Wow, even 1oz/plant x 25 would be 725 grams which would be a bit over 1.1 gram per watt. 1.5 oz/plant would be over 1.6g/w which would beat the yield of a finely tuned 1000w HPS grow at 1g/w. That would be quite impressive, indeed. 2oz/plant would be over 2.3g/w but I'd have to see it to believe it.
I can't wait to see the progress!
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.
I will keep u updated... He is using a couple of supplies from my aquaponic produce company and I'm helping consult him so ill be in the know if anyone has questions. He is using a 3'*3' botanicare tray with a 40 gal botanicare res. and is flooding to the verrrry top for seven minutes. It only takes about 5 mins to fill with the 400 gpm pump but he floods for 7 for extra circulation and it takes another 7 mins to completely drain. This happens 9:00-9:07 am, 1130-1137 am, 200-207 pm, 430-437, 700-707, 1000-1007pm, and the last one 130-138am. The last one of the night last an extra min since the res will be stagnant all night. The lights come on from 9am til 3am right now and he only has seven timer settings for my flood so that's why they slow in frequency at the end of the day.