VerdantGreen's quarters - 205w LED Organic Mod. ScrOG

[unclefishstick]

no kidding VG,it seems even relative beginners are able to recoup the cost of the lamp pretty quickly compared to what the market would charge.

I have the two grow threads going in the Dutchgrown forum,so i haven't felt the need to start another grow diary,and since the kitchen thread became more of a chat room anyway,its more appropriate in the tokers den

 

[VerdantGreen]

great to see you bootz!

unc - of course i coud have just looked at your siggy links! im such a creature of habit on the forums and i miss out on loads of stuff in the places i dont check out regularly

VG

 

[VerdantGreen]

hi all, i have am update and some news for you

first the plants

Deep Chunk at 30 days - looking happy and getting frosty

Kentish Creme 1 at 13 days - canopy filled out well, managed to encourage some sidebranching. it may stretch a bit more too

KC2 is ok too, this is the one that the branches are extra brittle on, but there is good regrowth where they snapped. canopy not quite so full yet

Power Blacks are starting to show sex and will be wittled down to (hopefully) 4 females soon.

and, i have set up my first supplemental lighting experiment you all are going to think i have gone bonkers, but here it is

yes, GREEN! i've been doing some reading and having a few discussions about spectrum recently and green light is supposed to drive photosynthesis rather well in the presence of bright white light (any light that is made up of different colors is regarded as a white light) so i thought i'd give this a try - the green light is also supposed to penetrate the canopy better than red/green - we will see. i should thank Gojo for some of the links he has posted. the fact that the tubes are hitting the canopy at an angle should help them penetrate, i may need to fiddle with the reflector (which is a standard aquarium type one cut in half lengthways.

for the geeks the 2 tubes are 24w high output Narva t5's that peak at 525nm and each emit 2500 lumens - which is quite a lot for this type of lamp. the standard t5 of the same type gives out 1750 lumens so if the green works it will be an efficient light.
they are being driven by an electronic ballast.

so here is the cab with just the LED for comparison

and with all the lights on

cheers

VG

 

[WizeWizo]

Super sweet VG! Really interested to see how this works out for you...

 

[unclefishstick]

she blinded me with science!! nice set up,cant wait to see what happens with this one

 

[WizeWizo]

she blinded me with science!!

who dat?

 

[b00m]

That's looking awesome VG, I think the supplemental lighting is a great idea with the LED, the cab looks extra bright and you should notice some growth improvements pretty soon, here's hoping you do bro.

 

[VerdantGreen]

hey wizo thanks

hey unc who's she? - the cats mother?? LOL

b00m - thanks mate, tbh i love the way the plants grow under the LED's already - but the fact that it uses so much less power than the 250 makes me feel i can mess about with some extra lights what i am looking for is a bit more weighty buds further down the colas - and green light is supposed to help this. i'll post a couple of links to papers if anyone is interested... but basically as long as the 'white' light is pretty bright, (and the LED is) then green is supposed to be a very efficient way of driving photosynthesis

cheers

VG

 

[WizeWizo]

i'd love to read the articles you are referring to vg. thanks in advance mate!

 

[yesum]

You are always pushing the limits Verdant, glad to see it. I am thinking of pll tubes in the corners, just plain ole 2700k tho.

I see you were vegging in small black pots and starting flower of Power Blacks? I have to sex some of my plants in 2/3 gallon pots before putting them in 2.25 gal for finish. Was wondering if that 1 week or 2 in little pots hurts the yield? I put as many as I can into bigger pot before flower just in case, but do not know for sure about yield.

 

[unclefishstick]

oops sorry VG,i was referring to the thomas dolby song... i had read an article about using one wavelength of blue light to keep the plants lit through what would be the dark cycle as it is apparently the red wavelengths that the plant uses to regulate the flowering clock,this will be interesting to see develop

 

[VerdantGreen]

hey wizo here are a couple of links that talk about green light that gojo posted somewhere else.
http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/50/4/684
http://ncr101.montana.edu/Light1994Conf/1_3_Tikhomirov/Tikhomirov text.htm

unfortunately the ballast/controller doesnt seem to work very well so i only have 1 tube lit atm - hopefully i'll get that sorted on tuesday

yesum, i think if you get the sexed plants repotted asap after you know sex it shouldnt hurt the yield too badly - generally the more sativa genes in a strain, the longer the roots will grow into flowering. i could do with perfecting the mini sog really because it gives a bit more capacity when trying out plants and phenos for the first time without commiting a whole quarter of me cab to an untested plant in the scrogs.

unc - ah, thomas dolby gotcha

---

the power blacks are showing sex and i have selected a few for the making f2's with.
here are 5 males - im hoping the other 4 are female but not 100% yet

these are the 3 i have chosen.

this one is my favorite, actually the shortest plant of the 9 with great sidebranching and nice neat internodals. its tempting to just use this male but because this may one day be an ibl (long way to go ) and i dont have the space to run proper numbers, im going to try and keep a more genetics in the line to give more variation to selec from in future generations. mr greengenes gave me a bit of advice on this a while back and he knows his stuff

cheers

VG

 

[ft100]

Hey vg first and foremost thank you for the inspiration and great grow logs. I tried to follow as best I could but I think I missed what happened with the lemon Thais? Also with the defoliation thread heating up I wanted to ask you if you ever thought about it? Performing a scrog with LEDs seems like defoliation would be logical if you buy in to it benefitting yield. Just wondering what your thoughts were. Keep it up man I love what you are doing. Peace smoke love and respect.

 

[killerweed31]

absolutely appreciate the efficiency of your grow bro vg!!
very cool grow and nice plant i like also the small cabinet for do scrog , i think i can try like this next time in my small homebox..great+++ man!!

 

[hazy]

Great idea with the t5s. Just what I was thinking the leds needed.

 

[MeanBean]

I hope it's worth the heat. i tried supplementing a cab with t5 before, the four foot bulbs got way to hot for the cab and so I got all 2 ft ones. The 2ft ones did help a bit but if you ask me they have to be really close to the plants to get good buds from them, like 3-4 inches. Then it made the side branching all wacky.

Never did try it from above, wonder if it will effect the stretch??

Thanks for sharing V, something cool to watch tell I come up with something to play with myself again!!

 

[oldbootz]

that short power black looks like a sexy beast

 

[VerdantGreen]

ft100 - the lemon thais - i put two in this cab and two in my microcab with the 63w unit. of the two in this cab, one turned hermi and was chucked, the other yielded 0.85 gpw and although a pleasant smoke it wasnt a keeper for me, especially with the lowish yield. the two in the microcab yielded a little better and were much better smoke so i have kept a mum of each of them for now. very potent weed actually. i also crossed them all with some Deep Chunk pollen i had in the freezer

as for defoliation, its a great thread and it looks like k33 does well with it, but i think my modular scrogs actually remove the need for a practice that i must say im dubious about personally. i know that a bud gets most of its energy for growth from the leaf/leaves that it is attached to. the actual bud does also photosynthesize a little too. so removing the leaves seems illogical to me unless it is shading a bud site. here are the reasons why k33 does his defoliation and why i dont feel i need to
1. yield - he gets good yields but mine are just as good or better - there is more than one way to yield well.
2. it stops 1 plant taking over a grow - my modules do exactly the same thing - keep the plant in it's allotted area.
3. gets light to the lower buds - scrog gets all the buds up top so again no need.
4. some strains dont like defoliation - i run new strains all the time.
no dis. to k33, i have repped him for his plants and we have swapped pm's about each others methods too, but defoliation kind of goes against the grain for me and my ethos. i believe that the plant knows best in most cases and try to let it make the decisions as much as possible.

killerweed31 - thanks, glad you like it

hazy - hope you are right, gotta try these things.

MeanBean - the idea of the t5's is more about bouncing light into the lower canopy rather than getting the buds up close. the LED is fine as a primary light source. these t5's are remote ballasted so dont give out too much heat and my cab can take it (i hope) as i have a temp controlled fan. i just noticed that these green t5's are brighter than white t5's so i thought that, if the plant can use the light and it penetrates the canopy, then it might be the ideal partner for the LED's.

bootz - yeah, amazing that the shortest plant was a male. i'll probably try and keep the pollens separate or use just this male for a labelled bud or two so i can see the difference in the offspring

cheers

VG

 

[VerdantGreen]

today is 5 weeks for the Deep Chunk Scrog, i managed to get a couple of slightly better photos. i have never seen or heard of someone scrogging a hashplant before as their growth habit is kind of the opposite of scrog.

as you can see i managed to get some height over the screen which always helps with yield although this is by far the lowest yielding plant that i have grown, its one of the nicest smokes, the act of smoking isnt usually a pleasure for me, but tbh i would happily smoke this even if it didnt get me high - it tastes wonderful

nug, im expecting to chop this n 2-3 weeks

VG

 

[Marijuanasaur]

wait, i thought most green bounced off the plants? is that not true?