LED Grow

[northernlightssmokn]

So what percentage of your flowering cycle was pure LED??

What led you to believe you had a magnisium definciency?

Did you ever experience a "twistig" of leaves or a "taco" effect?


I'm in deep with an LED grow myself...

 

[blancolighter]

Well I put my LEDs in flowering on oct 15, so half of my plants will flower almost entirely on LED. My other plants will have spent al leat the last half of their flowering life in LED light.

I figured I had a Magnesium def. after lookg at my plants as a whole. Some plants had a certain necrosis in common and looked like they had nutrient lockouts in step with what a Mag. def. would lock out. I've been adding epsom salts to the plants diet since and they've improved greatly. No twisting or taco effect, that threw me at first, but then I found more symptoms of the Mg def and figured stuff out...

 

[Thorn]

you got it down blanco! Very nice plants and you are very knowledgeable about your grow, I enjoy reading what you have to say thanks for sharing those fabulous looking plants!

 

[blancolighter]

Whoot, first harvet of this batch! Chopped the Mikado at 36 days with trics at about 15 percent amber, maybe jsut a bit less (I like my a little headier high). I included a couple of pics of the lovely lady. Shes got a nice pungent floral smell to her with a hint of citrus mixed in. With the way air moves in my growroom, I'll hang her for about 2 and a half days then brown bag her for 5 and she'll be ready for the pipe!

I also wanted to kinda put images behind some of the LED concerns most have. Many site canopy penetration as a concern, and rightfully so, LEDs do struggles with that. I;m realizing as I'm typing that I should have gotten a full plant shot, but didn't. Oh well, still have some good stuff. Anyways you can see in one pucs the vibrant top of the canopy, and the not so vibrant canopy interior. Now in this area of the plant, only small popcorn buds would be produced anyways, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Still you can see the plant gets signifigantly less light down there. Also note this is a very busy/leafy strain and this is kind of an extreme example of this...

 

[Cannabiscotti]

Hey looks great! I did a bunch of reading up on the LED thing. Hows the heat in there? Im guessn those LEDs are a lot cooler. I read you could put them about 3 inches off the canopy. maybe check it out and let us know? that could have just been with lower power LEDs. The CREE LEDs in the procyon are pretty potent.

 

[Cannabiscotti]

so my last post i was at work and didn't have time to read through the hole grow. so you moved the LED as close as you could while covering the whole canopy--right on. just to point out, for whoever may be reading this that doesn't know, the intensity of light plays by the inverse square law. in other words, every time you double the distance from the light it is 4 times less intense. but it goes both ways. if your light is 2 feet from your canopy and you drop it down to 1 foot above the canopy your plants get 4 times as much light.

anyways- awesome grow!!
a few questions...
i was wondering what difference in temp you noticed when you switched to the Procyon?
that photo above of the hanging mikado, how many plants was that from?

i wonder what results you'd get from flowering under both the HPS and LED

keep it up they look awesome!!

 

[blancolighter]

Thanks for the questions man, one brings up a good point I wanted to share. Switching HPS to LED in my small flowering box dropped the temperature about 10 degrees. To people with smaller boxes this could really help them out. You would need a taller box though to really utilize the light spread properly...

Yea I try too keep my plants as close to the light as I can, when I can't lower the light because of the spread, I'll just raise some of the plants.

Also those bud photos are from just one plant. It was the Mikado with a bunch of shriveled leave in my previous posting.

 

[i_love_amsterdam]

Nice lookin bud you got there:hubba: Did u say u harvested that after only 36 days?!?!:holysheep:

 

[northernlightssmokn]

Keep up the Great work. As of now, how many days are you in flower and how many of those are pure led only?? I ask this because, I want to know if there are signs that LED ALONE will flower.... 40 to 45 days is my average w/ strawberry under a 600hp. his is my first under all LED light so I am watching your journal for support while I watch mine....Did you say those are 36 days?? All hps or LED or bolth??

 

[blancolighter]

These 36 days were spent about half and half led and hps, with hps coming first. My girls in flowering now still look like they're growing quickly under the LEDs, so no worries. The next couple plants I pull will be a HPS LED mix, then I'll have 4 left that are pure LED flowered.

 

[Cannabiscotti]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

just a few things about LEDs.

first, not all LEDs are created equal. If you were to decided to put in the extensive research to build your own LED--lets say you decided on a specific high power LED a CREE Xlamp. When purchasing not all XLamp LEDs will have the same rating. When a manufacturer does a run and say makes 100,000 LEDs they get sorted into different "Barrels" with a different rating. the most expensive being the most efficient. This does help to cut down on the price as you could imagine if they only sold barrel A and threw out B and C. Also, an LED may be rated for say 160 Lumens per watt. However this efficiency is usually achieved with much less amperage than the LED is rated for. So when you actually use the LED, the amperage that will be going through the circuit we be greater and thus have an effect on the efficiency(in a negative way of course). please ask questions if i seem to confuse anyone--you know how it is when you get to writen then like 15 mins later you're trying to re-read what you wrote and understand it...good times.

other than the increased efficiency in watts when compared to HPS there are still additional advantages. The lights put off much less heat. A more basic/smaller set up can be utilized for exhaust, also using less electricity. because of less heat, CO2 setups can flood the room longer. one of the greatest advantages is how close the LEDs can be to your plants. with adequate ventilation i've read light scan be 3 inches above the canopy! this would increase the light intensity greatly and it would penetrate very deep. The problem i see in this is the very small foot print and much less area to grow. if they were to spread out the LEDs i think it would work better. I also think LEDs would have a great place in a flowering chamber when used as additional lighting. I think this would be a perfect place to add a little bit of lighting but have it so close to the plants that it more intense. (everytime you divide the distance of the light by 2, the light intenisty is 4 times stronger. this effect works both ways.) Not only is the light more intense, but all of the light is in a spectrum that will entirely be used by the plant and less reflective. (given you did your homework and used the correct LEDs and mix of colors in the correct spectrum of light.)

I have even thought of creating a screen with strings of LEDs throughout. Use it to grow a scrog with random high power LEDs within the canopy. LEDs spread out would not get very warm, especially with moving air.

beware cheap LEDs. know what LEDs a product uses before you buy. there is a 1' X 1' LED light with 220-somthing amount of LEDs on it-said to cover one square foot for like 35$ this could be great to stand up around your plants. the cheaper less power LEDs, but the leaves can actually be up against them and not burn, they are very low heat. if selecting a main grow light be prepared to spend some money upfront. the UFO everyones seen doesn't seem like a very good buy IMO. i'd check out the procyon 100. It uses namebrand LEDs. It runs at 100 watts but is supposedly the same as 400 watts HPS. think of cutting your electric bill for your lights into one/quarter.

there is also a 300 and 600 watt LEDs for $1800 and $2500 US dollars. the 600 watt is supposedly compaired to 3000 watt HPS with a 10' by 10' coverage. I doubt the light having the same intensity as 3000 watt HPS when hanging high enough to cover this area. However it has the same capacity to be more intense than the 3000 watt HPS if used in a smaller area and much closer to the plants.

if you want to know how and LED works check out :
howstuffworks(dot)com and search how LEDs work.

all questions are welcome. im read-up a lil bit on the topic. let me know what you guys think. i'm not in a position to grow myself right now, but could help with a DIY correspondance if anyone wanted to try something....

 

[northernlightssmokn]

Hey Blanco, How are things?? Hows the flower coming along??

 

[blancolighter]

Well guys and gals, I'm pulling the LED out of flowering. It just can't penetrate the canopy well enough. The tops of the plants look great, as you can see in some of the bud pics, but the underside not so good. My Mangos and Mikados and Afghans and kinda bushy and spread out, so its harder to tell with em, but my Sensi Stars look like compost piles underneather their canopies. The buds look sick, but the colas seem shorter than before, I'm thinking it's because the LEDs just cant get deep enough to give nice thick AND LONG buds.

From the looks of it, LEDs will be best suited for sog and scrog grows, and vegging (which is what I'm putting the leds back to work on). Also Its a big power saver having the leds on vegging 24 7 and having the HPS on only 12 hours a day.

I'll probably sit down and write up a little more about what I've learned growing with LEDs at a bit later date.

That bit of business aside, more about the grow. I've been fighting some nutrient deficiencies as well as spider mites, so I've had my hands full. I started at the mites with a sulfur based pesticide/fungicide as you read about earlier (if you read this thing, thanks if ya do!) which was a terrible idea and didn't work well anyways. After this I went out and got some pyrethrum aerosol spray and started chasing the mites with that. I kept finding more mites here and there though, so thinking I'm missing spots I went out and got neem oil and made up a spray. I soaked every square inch of my plants with that stuff till they were sopping, then I soaked some more. I did this a couple of times with several day inbetween and will continue to do so. I also started feeding neem oil to my flowering plants because they can't get a hose down like the others can (oh, and i'm feeding it to them too). I'm goin all out for complete extermination here. I'll go get some more aerosol and alternate that and neem sprays as well.

As for the nut. def., I believe they were brought about from me using a soilless promix and not adding dolomite lime. I think I have a Calcium and Magnesium def which have also been affecting the uptake of postassium. This combination explained alot to me about how my leaves looked. I started treating a while ago with epsom salts and just got some hydrated lime to add some calcium. Hopefully things will start looking a bit better. I'll keep the results posted.

Well gotta cut this short, gotta decorate the tree!

Pics are as follows Mango, Afghan, then Sensi Star, buds go in that order too with mango starting the bud pics with two pics in a row.

 

[HydroManiac]

wow if you got thoughs kinda buds from LEDs blanco i applaud you man

 

[WeedHopper]

It would seem to me that CFL's might be a better choice for vegging, when you look at cost and yeild. Right? Are am I wrong? By the way this has been a great thread for learning.Good Job Bro.

 

[northernlightssmokn]

Man now Im realy worried!!!! I dunno man, those still look like good buds. What if you put LED's bottom up and top down!!??

 

[Thorn]

wow if you got thoughs kinda buds from LEDs blanco i applaud you man

Why? You never seen an LED grow before?

Thats a shame blanco, woulda been cool to see these ladies go all the way through with leds. But good job anyway man, its been a pleasure watching so far. What wattage HPS you gonna be using?

 

[blancolighter]

Yea, I'm still bummin about my decision. Gonna replace the LEDs with a 600 watt HPS. Thabnks for keeping up with the LEDs! I'm just gonna finish these plants out then start a new journal.

It would seem to me that CFL's might be a better choice for vegging, when you look at cost and yeild. Right? Are am I wrong?

LEDs blow CFLs away effeciency wise. Ok, maybe thats a bit of an exaggeration, but I can veg about 10 plants (I like to veg them for a good little bit too) just fine with one of my LED lights. I really dont think you could get near the same coverage with the same wattage (100 watts in my case) in CFLs.

 

[Thorn]

I dunno 100 watts in cfls would be say 5 20watters and you can spread them around nice too. I think you could, but thats just me. I vegged my first 3 plants under 1 20watt cfls to start with then added another and they were pretty good

 

[blancolighter]

Hmm, yea, I didn't think about spreading them out, dunno why... I guess I was just talking from a directional standpoint.