my experimental LED setup

As with everyone else interested in LED's, I've found that there is a lot of stretch and veg growth, I mean, I noticed upwards of 3 - 4 inches of growth over night and this was STRICTLY in flowering mode!!! Which i found this information:

Tons of VEG, in LED's

However, it's understandable after i did my research on the actual flowering phase...

Stretch Phase (early flowering) The stretch phase is a period of time during early flowering where rapid extraordinary outward growth takes place. Some growers have reported seeing 5 inches of growth in a single day during the stretch. This phase is characterized first by the extraordinary growth accompanied by longer than usual internodes, then the explosive outward growth slowly tapers off as internodes shorten. The end of the phase is signaled when growth tapers down to approximately 1/2 inch or less per day. This coincides with a time span equaling 40% of the total Days Spent Flowering. At this point growth shifts from outward to building bulk on existing growth, otherwise known as late flowering or the fattening phase.



Fatten Phase (late flowering)
The last 60% of the inductive phase is a period where outward growth is less significant. In fact, it can appear as if growth has stopped completely due to the very short internodes. During this phase a more complex set of growth activities occur. It's not much different from an apple tree that stopped producing new apples and is now devoting its remaining time to maturing or ripening the apples it already has. With female cannabis, flower production accelerates, floral clusters begin to grow wider or fatten, resin production increases and peaks, sinsemilla calyxes plump, pistils start to wither and change color, and not long after that the plant is ready for harvest.

Pics below are what my setup currently. I will be adding a warm white, green, and amber/orange colors in the form of PAR38 LEDs later this evening. It's interesting to note, that though there are a lot more red led's than blue, the visible color you see most when they're turned on is NOT the red led's but the blue. It tends to illuminate the room more than the red.

This could be because the blue's are brighter or whatever, but it definitely plays a large role in growth.

STRAIN: Unknown, # of plants 3, pot size is a 6" pot, and there are 6 par38 blue/red LED lights directly above USING ADJUSTABLE flood fixtures so I can aim the light where it needs to go. Absolutely NO heat, tons of light.

I've found that there is a lot of stretch and veg growth

Click to expand...

I have NO stretch. Mine are bushing out but growing very slow.

Hiya MD looks very intresting, good fact find. where did you get the led bulb's and what is the power rating

purchased through an ebay seller, each bulb uses only 13watts. I have 5 more that are not hooked up, 2 blue/reds and I am going to be hooking up the amber, warm white, and green in a few minutes. I will get some pics and post back when completed.

I am going to remove 3 of those bulbs and put in these spectrums to see if it does anything interesting in a matter of a week or so. I want to see if the spectrums really make a difference. If not, I can always use these for veg since they obviously grow. I must say I came home tonight and did notice a lot of pre-flowers on the plants, I will try and get pics of that as well.

md.apothecary said:

As with everyone else interested in LED's, I've found that there is a lot of stretch and veg growth, I mean, I noticed upwards of 3 - 4 inches of growth over night and this was STRICTLY in flowering mode!!! Which i found this information:

Tons of VEG, in LED's

However, it's understandable after i did my research on the actual flowering phase...

Stretch Phase (early flowering) The stretch phase is a period of time during early flowering where rapid extraordinary outward growth takes place. Some growers have reported seeing 5 inches of growth in a single day during the stretch. This phase is characterized first by the extraordinary growth accompanied by longer than usual internodes, then the explosive outward growth slowly tapers off as internodes shorten. The end of the phase is signaled when growth tapers down to approximately 1/2 inch or less per day. This coincides with a time span equaling 40% of the total Days Spent Flowering. At this point growth shifts from outward to building bulk on existing growth, otherwise known as late flowering or the fattening phase.



Fatten Phase (late flowering)
The last 60% of the inductive phase is a period where outward growth is less significant. In fact, it can appear as if growth has stopped completely due to the very short internodes. During this phase a more complex set of growth activities occur. It's not much different from an apple tree that stopped producing new apples and is now devoting its remaining time to maturing or ripening the apples it already has. With female cannabis, flower production accelerates, floral clusters begin to grow wider or fatten, resin production increases and peaks, sinsemilla calyxes plump, pistils start to wither and change color, and not long after that the plant is ready for harvest.

Pics below are what my setup currently. I will be adding a warm white, green, and amber/orange colors in the form of PAR38 LEDs later this evening. It's interesting to note, that though there are a lot more red led's than blue, the visible color you see most when they're turned on is NOT the red led's but the blue. It tends to illuminate the room more than the red.

This could be because the blue's are brighter or whatever, but it definitely plays a large role in growth.

STRAIN: Unknown, # of plants 3, pot size is a 6" pot, and there are 6 par38 blue/red LED lights directly above USING ADJUSTABLE flood fixtures so I can aim the light where it needs to go. Absolutely NO heat, tons of light.

Click to expand...

These are the most uniform normal looking plants I have seen under L.E.D. light. Is it 100% L.e.d. throughout the WHOLE grow? That would be very impressive to me at least. Anyway nice grow and keep them pictures coming.

Thanks,

Stunzeed..

Yeah, outta all the other led grows i have seen this one does look the most uniform? What's the trick,lol. I was just discussing how it seemed that the leds are good for veg and not so hot for flower, then i remember than alienbait flowered pretty good with the leds, i better go find his thread and check it out again. I am curious to see how this turns out with the "white" lights you've got.

Okay, upon closer inspection it seems that I had more preflowers than I thought with this LED grow.... I just changed out some of the LED's to the colors mentioned above in my last post. This will go on for a week to see if there is a significant difference. If not, then I will add the other 4 blue/red LED's back into the mix, maybe below aiming upwards to stimulate growth below. I think the LED's are having a problem penatrating through the foliage of the plants.

What has got me beat to all hell is that these plants are growing so tall, when I KNOW that this small pot is totally rootbound!! 3 plants in a 6" - 8" pot and still growing!!???!!???

Pic 1 - my favorite.. that green LED makes MJ look so beautiful!
Pic 2 - new color array
PIC 3/4 - Pics of some of the lower pistils coming out of the preflowers...
The rest are MISC. PICS

maybe the uniformity is because of the type? I believe these are all sativas, which to my recollection I thought were to be slow growers, but they seem to be hauling butt.

The two larger ones grew faster and taller than the smaller greener one. The greener one is from a different bag. All three of these plants came from bag seed, and they're all females. However, these were under a CFL before going under the LEDs. The total time under a CFL was about a couple weeks to get them established to the soil, and temps. They were seeded and planted under the CFL, then when they could handle transplanting, they went under the LEDs.

I get a lot of PM's about the pot for some reason, but the pot (planter) is actually a stone material that I had purchase in bulk from the maker. I painted them black to reduce light at the roots and make it more moisture friendly. It does restrict airflow to the roots by painting, but it's all good.

The "Bat Cave" (flowering chamber) is sealed with a 6mil poly reflection material. Timer is set at 12/12 for flowering. Temps are currently around 75f
area is about 15"x39" and I have passive air holes at the bottom along with a 55cfm fan at the top to pull air through nicely.

From what i can tell, that is a three gallon pot or so, i bet they are pretty bound in there. And is it just me or do they look to be stretching?

they are stretching... this is why ive changed the colors of the bulbs to see if I can reduce stretching. The stretch COULD be because of the 40/60 phenomena that occurs in early and late flowering. However, if you notice, it's only the two taller plants that are stretching, and they are the same strain, where as the greener one is a different one all together. All sativas I believe. But... again, this is why I was suggesting that these lights would be good for vegg'n because the upward growth was impressive, it's just the flower phase that I was hoping to use these lights for, so I am trying to tweak it just right.

This is the most interesting thread i have read ever!!
I have always been interested in Leds, and have Researched alot, but this is really interesting.
Thank you MD. for a great thread.
Its really impressive that the plants are doing so well. this makes me wonder how LST_ing a plant under LED would turn out.
I think you should add in some LEDs under your plants, if the leds affect the parts it does reach, like this; then the parts under the foliage should react the same, and it should fill in.

just looking at the pics again...

notice in the first set of pics with ONLY the blue/red led's... even though there is more RED leds, the visible color is still BLUE!! IMO, this means that the lights are picking up blue spectrum. Which is for veg.... even in the second set of pics... the GREEN, and warm white are mostly noticeable, you can still see blue, but the amber is still hardly visible just like the RED.

This could be part of the problem with flowering. RED led lights might just simply be a weaker spectrum for this type of lighting, people using ONLY red seem to have a similar problem with flowering. There must be something to this.

Does anyone know how to get a color spectralgraph of the lighted source somehow? Some digital cameras can get this kind of data, mine can't...

hmm.. this will show you were exactly the color is at on my plants. Notice the amounts and notice what colors they are!

UGH... still not enough red spectrum!

BTW, this was done in photoshop to show me where the color was at... and it also will show you how far the light is penetrating the canopy.... NOT much at all!

get some all red ones then.

i almost just wanna try this kind of grow because the lights look so damn cool on the plant?!?!

md.apothecary said:

hmm.. this will show you were exactly the color is at on my plants. Notice the amounts and notice what colors they are!

UGH... still not enough red spectrum!

BTW, this was done in photoshop to show me where the color was at... and it also will show you how far the light is penetrating the canopy.... NOT much at all!

Click to expand...

Nice shot...very interesting.

i was impressed... i noticed that the orange/amber puts off more of a RED color than does the RED/BLUE combo bulbs. However, I don't have enough facts to prove this as of yet. It will be interesting to see what happens in a weeks time.

IF you look at that weird color spectrum pic i took, the WARM WHITE does in fact show almost all the colors needed AT the bulb itself, which should translate into a white spectrum on the leaves, so so far it looks like warm white and amber/orange are the ones to investigate further IMO.

Warm white probably has the same specs as any warm white cfl bulb. You could probably use warm white alone...but you wouldn't have the pretty purple colors from your grow room.

bombbudpuffa said:

Warm white probably has the same specs as any warm white cfl bulb. You could probably use warm white alone...but you wouldn't have the pretty purple colors from your grow room.

Click to expand...

That's true, but as far as penetration, a CFL would still be better, as far as energy costs and temps, LED hands down. If you did a SCROG or LST you may see awesome results!

Really good job! I've been wanting to try different colors in my LED grows.

I'll be wathcing...