heady's maine adventure: gavitas, blumats, and the wicked lobstah soil mix

[Essential Maine]

Astounded with every post Heady, miles and miles ahead of the curve. Love your new portable enails.

Question: From your experience, would I be pushing it if I used 6 gavitas at 1000-1150 in a 10x20x10 room?

I am psyched to see the worm bin/mix that KONY is making from your advice. 2016 Worm Power pricing is through the roof!

 

[heady blunts]

a 10 x 20 room with 10 foot ceilings?

i'd probably try to put 10--12 gavitas in there skip the tables and grow some big girls

assuming you have the environmental controls in order, the major restriction is distance from bulb to canopy. the DE's throw out even more IR heat than traditional HPS. keeping the plants at least 36" away at 1000w should prevent irradiation stress.

if you need to get closer you can dim the lamps to compensate. we've been pushing it a bit and you can see in the flowers above the safe level a bit of stress in the form of fresh pistils and foxtailing on late flower plants.

 

[barletta]

Loving those wormy roots & that gumby hash looks awesome, heady!

 

[Buddah Watcha]

Nice stuff in here! That s1xc99 looks like a beast!

 

[Bmac1]

Awesome stuff heady. Those portables look like the bees knees. ABout how much does one cost to make? Nice root porn too. I think I am going to get a worm bin going here soon.

 

[Essential Maine]

a 10 x 20 room with 10 foot ceilings?

i'd probably try to put 10--12 gavitas in there skip the tables and grow some big girls

assuming you have the environmental controls in order, the major restriction is distance from bulb to canopy. the DE's throw out even more IR heat than traditional HPS. keeping the plants at least 36" away at 1000w should prevent irradiation stress.

if you need to get closer you can dim the lamps to compensate. we've been pushing it a bit and you can see in the flowers above the safe level a bit of stress in the form of fresh pistils and foxtailing on late flower plants.

Thanks Heady! After seeing RB's rooms, I am going with slanted floors and no tables. I think my AC is vastly undersized for 10 gavitas. I have 8 1000 HPS in my current sealed 10x20 with 1.5ton AC untested in Maine summers. I was hoping to get away with 6 gavitas (supposedly bigger footprint than standard 1000hps) but will start with 8 minimum now and lean towards 10 if the AC can handle. I understand that my cooling system maybe undersized to begin with.

 

[heady blunts]

EM---

ah yea well that was the worst limiting factor last summer. we had two portables, one 11,000btu, one 14k, and they fucking SUCKED could hardly keep us running on four lamps dimmed all the way down to 500w. also cost a ton to run, but we didn't have the start up capital to buy a nice mini split and we had inherited these so we had to make due.

by our calculations we need *at least* a 4.5 ton mini split for the 6 lamps and the 1200w of veg to get through the hottest parts of the summer.

good news is that the plants grew pretty well under that weak ass four lamp situation. 2000w total on a 10x10. definitely had a low yield, but the room stayed full at least.

i kick myself when i think about how we should have started with the flip rooms. it solves so many environmental problems, certainly has been awesome for the anticipated winter problems, but i realized it would have allowed us to run way more efficiently through the heat of the summer as well. fml. oh well, live and learn!


bmac---

the portable dab machines are amazing! they have revolutionized travel for me. these ones cost $150 for the box mod (controller), RDA (mouthpiece), and battery. you can save some money by ordering parts online, but i wanted to make these for my friends right away, so i got them at the store.


b and bw---

thanks for the love friends!

 

[Avinash.miles]

so....what were temps holding at with 4 x 1000kw DE all at 50% making it 2kw per 10x10? and how hot was too hot with them cranked up?
im curiuos if you think you mighta done better with more light but higher temps... i've often wondered this myself - when building out knowing there isn't quite enough cooling power and considering lighting wattages and arrangement. personally never used DE's and my digi SE 1kw i usually never dim.

 

[heady blunts]

so....what were temps holding at with 4 x 1000kw DE all at 50% making it 2kw per 10x10? and how hot was too hot with them cranked up?
im curiuos if you think you mighta done better with more light but higher temps... i've often wondered this myself - when building out knowing there isn't quite enough cooling power and considering lighting wattages and arrangement. personally never used DE's and my digi SE 1kw i usually never dim.

the room never got above 89* even on the hottest days of hte summer.

we prefer to keep it at 84* or lower.

seems like at 2000w we run about 12* above lung room temp with our rate of air exchange.

the DEs throw even more IR heat than regular hps bulbs, but of course turned down to 500 the intensity drops dramatically. even now with the enviroment in check and ambient temps at a comfortable ~82* at canopy height, i'm extra careful about letting the plants get too tall. they could actually handle being closer to the bulbs in the hotter rooms with the lamps at 500 than they can now in the more comfy rooms with the lamps at 750 or 800.

i'm mostly concerned with leaf surface temperature. i just wanna keep everyone breathing and growing. i like to see no more than 87* on the top most leaves when i temp with an IR gun.

next upgrade in the garden is a mini split. we're not fucking aroudn this summer.

 

[testymctester]

Consistently killin it and droppin knowledge.

 

[Scrappy4]

Heady, what kind of increase in yields did you notice over conventional hps lights/hoods?

I wouldn't mind running some gravitas, but I really don't want to go the mini split route. Especially if yields were not increased significantly.

The last couple summers I have had to turn down my 1k lights to 750 maybe 15 days or so around late August. That seemingly minor adjustment knocked an oz or two off yields, but a real hot summer would kill me now. I do live in a area that typically doesn't have real hot weather. Maybe a week at 90.

What do you think? Doable?

 

[heady blunts]

thanks testy


scrap---

i can't really say cause i jumped from a hot closet with a 400w to this 6 light room haha.

they have excellent penetration and seem brighter and more intense than a traditional HPS bulb of equal wattage. they are hot tho. the ballast is fixed so you can't relocate those btu's elsewhere.

sounds like they'd be a PITA in august, but maybe could work out the rest of the year? hard to say...

 

[RustyShcklfrd]

Mornin' Heady, all this talk of temps and humidity, do you have any wisdom to share on VPD, HD and leaf surface temp to humidity ratio?
The "ideal humidity" ranges seem seriously, high as the temps get up into the 80s. Just wondering if you were applying VPD theory, or if you care, or if you think its very important at all.

 

[heady blunts]

i was just introduced to the term VPD (vapor pressure deficit) and the idea of plant steering recently, in the thread here.

i think VPD is a very elegant way of describing something canna growers have been practicing for years. it's old knowledge to dial down your rH in late flower for dense indicas, that 55%+ rH helps veg faster, and that controlling heat and humidity are essential for rooting cuts.

it does explain why 55%rH is enough for condensation to form in a 60* room, while the same level feels relatively dry in an 80* room.

i'm not familiar with the abbreviation HD, please enlighten me!

i'm still operating a lot by observation and intuition, then trying to back that up with research. my observations tell me that everything is healthier, lusher, and fuller if i keep temps between 74--84* and humidity between 54--64%.

since our garden is designed as a lung system, these ranges work best for all rooms to function well. if i could control veg seperately, i might keep it 80--90* and 65--75% rH.

the clone tent functions best at 80--90* and 90%+rH.

 

[heady blunts]

how about a gratuitous cush 1 pic

 

[Avinash.miles]

great looking cush, HB
my GF is over here saying "that's altered, right, i don't believe it looks like that",
i'm like "believe it"

 

[RustyShcklfrd]

Heady,
HD is humidity deficit, I only heard about this last summer (VPD) so im green as can be, but HD and VPD both measure lack of moisture in a given space, but VPD is measured in Pascals and HD is measured in grams per cubic meter. I totally agree, when I first heard of it, it definitely felt like a conformation of intuition.

Avinash,
That last post made me laugh, I needed that big time tonight, thats awesome, thanks!

 

[Twisted pleasur]

great looking cush, HB
my GF is over here saying "that's altered, right, i don't believe it looks like that",
i'm like "believe it"

lmao...

 

[Twisted pleasur]

the room never got above 89* even on the hottest days of hte summer.

we prefer to keep it at 84* or lower.

seems like at 2000w we run about 12* above lung room temp with our rate of air exchange.

the DEs throw even more IR heat than regular hps bulbs, but of course turned down to 500 the intensity drops dramatically. even now with the enviroment in check and ambient temps at a comfortable ~82* at canopy height, i'm extra careful about letting the plants get too tall. they could actually handle being closer to the bulbs in the hotter rooms with the lamps at 500 than they can now in the more comfy rooms with the lamps at 750 or 800.

i'm mostly concerned with leaf surface temperature. i just wanna keep everyone breathing and growing. i like to see no more than 87* on the top most leaves when i temp with an IR gun.

next upgrade in the garden is a mini split. we're not fucking aroudn this summer.

fuck yes!! (double post) sorry Im a backwards reader lol...

 

[Useful Idiot]

Yo Heady....man not sure what to say other than . sad thing is a bunch of folks have the same seeds that you ran ...and they have not popped them.....they may never. I honestly wish I had kept some of them for myself...LOL. I went through the vault and see that
most of what you tested is gone now. DAMMIT!!!

Gonna need to speak with you about that Nutella stuff.....looks VERY tasty.