Week 7 1/2 -- examined trichomes and on a couple plants they are beginning to turn amber, maybe 10-20 percent. I'm planning on perhaps cutting the blue dream on Sunday, mostly because the leaves are unfortunately dying and I don't think it's going to get much bigger. The buds look fine and very frosty but are getting red hairs prematurely as growth is slowing to a halt. I am mostly blaming heat stress which i fixed but too late. May have given rise to a nutrient imbalance or deficiency of some sort. Honestly I got a little stumped by that plant. Everything else looks pretty good though and is just getting more and more massive
Access in the tent is very tough so I'm having trouble getting pics of everything but I will make an effort to do more on the next update.
I definitely see nutrient or environmental issues but I think you'll do better on your next one. New systems take a little time to fine tune and get used to.
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.
Yes I think the next one will be better now that I have a better handle on my system and light. I actually am replacing the UFO with a clw light and I am planning on possibly doing another journal solely with clw led, we'll see .
There definitely have been issues with this grow, I believe the environmentals were mostly to blame. Led was too close coupled with not enough air mixing/underwatering. I invested in an additional fan to keep the canopy cool, and also remounted my carbon filter so that I could raise the light several inches. I now have it around 18 inches from the tops. Overnuting and stressing the plants by moving them also contributed to problems, as well as a newbie roommate who takes care of things when I'm away (a factor I can't control as I have a busy work schedule).
Despite all the issues though, I am surprised with how fat some of these buds are. This is a testament to how well led works ( while perhaps not as good as hid), and also that organic can work reasonably well without bottle nutrients! The headbands in particular taste and smell fantastic, and even without curing the blue dream that I harvested tastes very smooth and has a good buzz. Maybe I should wait to talk more about the results until the whole story is evident. The blue dream only yielded 35 grams but it was my smallest plant and was sick. I estimate the other 3 plants have at least 2 o's each but we'll see.
Here are pics from week 8, the only thing being given now is r/o water.
Yes, there is no doubt that the right LED lights are capable of flowering decent plants, in the future they may even exceed HID. It appears that LED can keep up during veg already, if they're not vegged too tall of course.
If you (or your roommate) ever have questions, always feel free to ask, I'll always try to help if I can...
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.
Thanks Sme, your help and that of others on this site such as beefxer have made a real positive impact on my results. It would not have turned out as well without your input and what I had learned from looking at other led journals.
The remaining 3 plants were cut today, and with a surprising amount of weight which had bent a few branches, but I would say these strains seem to have sturdier stems than others I have seen. A surprising amount of bud grew hidden from view on the understory (not altogether good but hard to avoid with sativas) and its interesting how it has a different light green color than the more dense, hardened darker green tops. U can see the changing color and density along the length of the bud in some of the pics. Might be a little early to say but I don't think my gram/w numbers will be too shabby... This looks like a lot.
Thanks man. Right now I have a pretty large chemdog plant that's been flowering about a week. It's in my 3x3 which is also filled with boxes of drying buds. ill have some pics up after I get those boxes out. I also have some clones I took from blue dream and headband which will be moved in at some point. I was able to get a mother going for each strain, and I'm eager to do a grow from clones which I'm hoping will help yield. I'm a bit new to that as I haven't been in one location long enough to get that really established. I was checking out pics of your scrog setup, I'm thinking of giving that a try perhaps since it seems it would do well under led.
Would you or Sme have any recommendations for strains that you especially like or that are well suited to led grows? I'm thinking I should try something more indica dominant anyway since the ones I have are more sativa oriented although I really love the headband.
Without ever growing SCROG or LED I'd guess that indica and indica dominant genetics would be best because they stretch less...generally.
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.
The numbers are in! Not the .9 g per watt I was hoping for, but not so shabby either considering this was a first run with new equipment.
271g total yield
310w ss + 150w UFO = 460w
~.59 g /w
So there it is. Maybe a bit worse if u dont count some of the lower stuff. I'm sure I can do better, especially since ill Be using all 5w diodes in the future. The ufo is now in my mother/clone chamber. The largeish diamater of the UFO meant that I couldn't put enough space between it and the Solarstorm, thereby sacrificing a little coverage. Using the compact solar flare should fix that.
Also I took Sme's advice with my chemdog plant and used smaller pots. It began in a 1 liter, then I went to a 7 gal and when that got root bound I put it in its final 10 gal just today. I think it has had a favorable effect on growth, and will get more yield this way. I believe this because gradually increasing the pot size encourages more feeder roots to develop while minimizing taproot and support roots, which are pretty useless for yield. Anyway, for this next run the tent isn't filled wall to wall there's just the one plant which is using the coverage of the SS alone. I am holding the solarflare bloom in reserve until it fills up more. It looks very healthy but I'm going to postpone pic until it gets over transplant stress in a few days.
Thanks for the update, I think you'll do better once you get everything dialed in and some genetics just don't yield as much as others...
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.