LED Grow Light Forum

Sorry for the delay over the last two weeks. My wife and I were on an outing.

The plants are doing really well. To answer you question, yes I have always done 12 plants at a time.

As you can see the plants are doing really well. Some observations -

Buds are very very dense. I can not articulate how much denser these buds are vs the HID lights

Yield seems to be a shot lower so far but they are not done yet and weight will tell in the end

The plants also seem like they will be ready about 2 weeks earlier than the HID

The plants require a LOT LESS water. I assume this is from heat reduction. They also seem to need more nutrients however, but not by much. It is difficult to say as this is ot something I counted on measuring. I just have a "feeling" it is taking more. When I run my tests on the soil I get lower retention then I did with the HID. this does not make a lot of sense to me but I also dont care.

Anyhow, Cheers!

I'm confused...

I assume that you started them flowering before you joined here and that you've been catching up since there are 5 weeks worth of growth in less than 3 weeks. Are you caught up to present day now?

You said that you grow 3 strains but the pictures only look like one sativa strain. Can you fill us in so we know which is which? How do you stagger everything since the 3 strains have different flower times? Do you put some in early so they all finish at the same time or do you throw them all in at the same time, rotate them around and harvest as they become ready? Maybe you have separate flower tents for each strain?

OK, so now we know that you grew 3 strains and got about 3oz each from 12 plants under 2kw, now we can do the math on the old setup.

12x3oz = 36oz = 2.25# = 1044 grams / 2kw = .52g/w

.5g/w isn't bad for newer growers but you've been doing it for 20 years so I'm trying to figure out why the old HID yield is so low. Any ideas? My first thought was maybe the strains aren't big yielders but I doubt that's it.

I'm also confused about the early finish compared to HID. A day or two I could wrap my head around but two weeks early? On a 8, 10 or a 12 week strain?

I'm also not sure how the flowers could be so much more dense than HID when all of our journals show smaller/less dense flowers at the end but time will tell...

To me less water and nutrients makes sense but maybe the spectra of LED can help them metabolize more efficiently. Are you feeding the same ppm as you did under HID? You might adjust your formula if you think it'll help. As long as they're not showing signs of nutrient toxicity then more food MIGHT equal more yield or it might equal burnt leaves.

If they're healthy and happy, that's the most important thing...

SisterMaryElephant wrote:I'm confused...

I assume that you started them flowering before you joined here and that you've been catching up since there are 5 weeks worth of growth in less than 3 weeks. Are you caught up to present day now?

You said that you grow 3 strains but the pictures only look like one sativa strain. Can you fill us in so we know which is which? How do you stagger everything since the 3 strains have different flower times? Do you put some in early so they all finish at the same time or do you throw them all in at the same time, rotate them around and harvest as they become ready? Maybe you have separate flower tents for each strain?

OK, so now we know that you grew 3 strains and got about 3oz each from 12 plants under 2kw, now we can do the math on the old setup.

12x3oz = 36oz = 2.25# = 1044 grams / 2kw = .52g/w

.5g/w isn't bad for newer growers but you've been doing it for 20 years so I'm trying to figure out why the old HID yield is so low. Any ideas? My first thought was maybe the strains aren't big yielders but I doubt that's it.

I'm also confused about the early finish compared to HID. A day or two I could wrap my head around but two weeks early? On a 8, 10 or a 12 week strain?

I'm also not sure how the flowers could be so much more dense than HID when all of our journals show smaller/less dense flowers at the end but time will tell...

To me less water and nutrients makes sense but maybe the spectra of LED can help them metabolize more efficiently. Are you feeding the same ppm as you did under HID? You might adjust your formula if you think it'll help. As long as they're not showing signs of nutrient toxicity then more food MIGHT equal more yield or it might equal burnt leaves.

If they're healthy and happy, that's the most important thing...

3-4 oz per plant is quite a bit. My plants are never more than 28-36" in height. Growing indoors usually yields people 1-3 OZ whereas I have seen upwards of 4 lbs come off outdoor plants. Anyone that does closet growing that states they are getting 5+ OZ are either full of it or are not growing in a closet like I am. Of course, we are not all trying to grow quantity, some, like myself, are more concerned with quality.

As for the pictures, I named them all, I am currently on day 35 = 6 weeks. I may not have posted one the first week but I am not going to go through this thread and count the pictures I posted. The trichomes are turning way earlier than with my HID lights. My plants that usually take around 8-11 weeks will be done in 7-9 weeks. As for how I do them, they are all placed in flowering at the same time so that they finish at different times so I am not trying to harvest everything at once. This also allows me to top them and give the lower flowers a bit more time. I am not a scientist so I do not have the ability to speak as to why they seem to be finishing sooner. My only assumption is the lights as that is the only thing that has changed.

-Cheers

There's quite a bit of difference between 3oz and 3-4oz per plant, especially when you have a lot of plants. One reason most growers don't use oz-per-plant measurements. A more accurate measurement (grams) allows a grower to fine tune his/her system and hopefully quantify results more definitively when trying something different. Of course you can't just go by total grams because it doesn't allow for different lights and different numbers of lights. Using g/w isn't perfect, but it's more accurate than oz/plant when comparing different grows. There probably is a better formula for determining *total* grow efficiency but g/w isn't a bad start for flowering at least. Try it!

There are also a lot of differences between growing styles (and closet sizes) and I've personally pulled nearly 2 pounds from one indoor plant (I used to grow tree style) so your "either/or" statement needs a rethink. 5+ oz from one plant, indoors, is not only possible, it's done often. SCROG growers often get high (no pun intended) oz/plant scores with low g/w scores. SOG growers might yield less per plant (more plants) and have the best g/w measurements.

I wasn't going by the photo names; you started off saying day one of flower and, 3 weeks later, now we are at day 36. In fact, you were up to 21 days of flower in about a week so you started more than 1 week before you joined. I'm just trying to clear up my confusion and find out if your last/next pictures are current or still behind a few days. Which strain is the one that's coming in early? The photo name doesn't say.

Yeah, there are a million ways to skin a cat and there is no, one, "right way" to grow. That doesn't mean we can't improve our skills, techniques and results though. I'm always trying to help...and learn.

At the risk of sounding dumb, I just have to ask... why are these light purple? From everything I have read, for veg, we want 450nm.. which is a blue color and we want 660nm for flowering. This purple is more like 420 nm. What's with that? Is this because there aren't any bright blues or red LEDs near these wavelengths? I see this in most of the pictures of LED grow lights, orange-red and purple LEDs. What am I missing

Thanks in advance!

baguak wrote:

SisterMaryElephant wrote:Welcome to the forums!

I'm not sure how to approach this one; normally I would research a new light that I haven't heard of before and give my opinion on what I find but this one is so bad, with so many red flags, I'm not sure that you want to hear it. For your sake, I hope the light is better than the website. I certainly wouldn't pay 1000.00 each on one of those so I hope you got a better deal at your hydro shop too.


SME

Like I said, I did a vast amount of research on all LED lights available on the market. Being a guy who has been doing this for 20 years I do not go into things blindly, nor do I spend $2000 on a whim. Research on the internet turns up next to nothing on these lights (like many other brands) but when you look at the actual specs this one came out on top. Plus there is a 90 day warranty and I know the man that runs the shop I bought them from so if, after 12 weeks I am not happy I can always return them and go back to my HID lighting. Currently, the results are phenomenal though.

Sorry, exactly what brand and model of LED light are we talking about?

newtothis wrote:At the risk of sounding dumb, I just have to ask... why are these light purple? From everything I have read, for veg, we want 450nm.. which is a blue color and we want 660nm for flowering. This purple is more like 420 nm. What's with that? Is this because there aren't any bright blues or red LEDs near these wavelengths? I see this in most of the pictures of LED grow lights, orange-red and purple LEDs. What am I missing

Thanks in advance!

Blue + red = purple. The all red/orangy-red ones just lack the blue diodes.

The topic name is the brand and model, they obviously didn't pan out too well.

I guess these lights were a bust no posts in a long time

No need to dig up dead topics either...