been a while since I posted. My first crop is now far enough into fruiting that i am able to determine sex. killed two males today, all blueberry. I also killed a blueberry that just never really thrived. From the very first it was struggling and fragile. Never grew much. I kept hoping it would take off in time, but it never did. So i killed it. Didnt even go as far as determining sex. It's just so frail i can't imagine it would produce any decent potency, so why bother to waste more nutes on it. i started out with 5 blueberry seeds. Killed 2 maies and one indeterminate, so statistically speaking, the remaining two should be female.
there are still some afghans where the sex isnt clear yet, so i'll keep an eye out.
I had hoped to do the fruiting under the solar storm, but bad planning on my part made that impossible this time around. I hope to fruit under solar storm in the new crop though. The new crop has a couple of cheese, some feminized kosher kush and some bubble kush. They are vegging under the Solar Storm now and doing fantastically well.
I can't provide any input yet on the SS performance in fruiting, but it kicks ass in veg! It really encourages a depth of growth up and down the stem, making for fuller, more bushy plants that are both vibrant and robust. Not sure i'll ever veg under anything else. compared to the hindus i vegged under the metal halide, the afghans and blues under SS are fuller, leafier (is that a real workd?) and healthy and strong.
i've got more picks but its 4am and i dont want to wake the fam with my bumping around and searching in the dark. so i'll post the piks when i wake up.
One interesting side note. I'm not a botanist and don't pretend to understand all this fancy light science. But i put 6 "Confederate Jasmine (
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0041F ... 00_s00_i00) under the Solar Storm. Three died and the remain three were well on their way there. So i pulled them out of the SS and put them under the HSD and the three remaining ones are doing much better. So it seems some plants really thrive under the SS spectrum while others do not. Which is fine with me. I don't care if it doesnt do miracles with every plant strain on earth. What it does well, it does very, very well. Just need to be watchful for plants that don't seem to like all that blue spectrum light.
Oh, and one last thing for tonight. We are running our lights at night too keep the room cooler and to save on electricity (prices cheaper in the off peak hours). The SS runs a bit hot inside the 4x4 tent if run during hottest part of the day. But by running the lights at night, the heat problem seem sot have dissipated. I should mention tht as of now the only ventilation we are running in the SS tent is are the SS built in fans. We're going to install an inline fan and ducting to move more air in there before we hit our summer desert temps. But these are all minor tweaks. Bottom line is, at least as far as veg goes, the Solar Storm is fantastic!
(pictures to come tomorrow)