Rider509 First Grow - Indoor Soil - White Widow Journal - 2017

I have up to 80W sq/ft with the LEDs compared to 75W sq/ft with the 600W HID, but have to dial the LEDs back to about 40% because they are so efficient.


Some say that the HID's loose an amount of efficiency when they are dimmed. Do the cobs stay at their rated efficiency whether at 50% or 100%? What about temps? Gotta say, you tweeked my curiosity with those, they look pretty slick. Hmmmm...
 
Some say that the HID's loose an amount of efficiency when they are dimmed. Do the cobs stay at their rated efficiency whether at 50% or 100%? What about temps? Gotta say, you tweeked my curiosity with those, they look pretty slick. Hmmmm...

Mybestadviceisto...damnitalltohell...whydoesitdothistome!? Fanleaf's 42 COB journal is the shit as far as learning what these LEDs are capable of from a non-electrical engineer's point of view. From playing around with them and a lux meter I can tell you that it's amazing to watch the power draw (watts at the outlet) drop considerably without a commensurate drop in luminosity output. I've been diving into another learning bender to better understand these crazy beasts and light in general. I'll get my hand slapped again for this but check out this link for another grower's forum with some guys who speaka d lingo. Fun stuff.
(replace the stars)
https://www*rollitup*org/t/math-behind.868988/
 
See all those chips mounted on the board? It's a bit like that, isn't it?

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Cross posted from here, Late flower and now this! for those that aren't following that thread.

Talked to my local cute grow guru today. She took one look at the photo of the top plant and without hesitation said it's a phosphorus deficiency caused by pH. She correctly estimated that my pH (runoff) was closer to 6.8 (it was at 6.86). So I'll be flushing with pH6.3 water until the runoff matches, and then feed with 1/4 strength nutes without the nitrogen component. She also suggested pulling the badly damaged lower fan leaves as they are a burden to the plant. I've heard it both ways with regards to pulling/leaving severely damaged leaves. I'm going to trust her. Hell, she got everything else right!

She concurred with my decision to high phosphate foliar feed the underside of the leaves at lights out with a fan running as a temp fix while the deeper issue is corrected.

I'll report back in a few days.
 
They're about 66 days from germ and they're an auto that I topped once and LST'd so they're running short at about 18". You can really see the phosphorus deficiency in that photo. Supreme bummer.
 
Without doubt my bud growth has suffered. It's way behind the other two and it was the plant that showed the most promise.

Also, my cute grow girl was dead wrong. Her diagnosis made the problem worse by dropping the pH below 6.4. It is most definitely a molybdenum deficiency. I've always said that if you say something with enough authority, people will believe you. I fell into that trap.
 
Do you have a soil probe on your meter? 6.8 isn't really a bad range for soil to be at so if your run-off was 6.8 and your soil was 6.8 (though I'm kind of dubious of the whole testing run-off thing) then that shouldn't have been a pH lockout.

Other nutrients in high concentrations can lockout Phosphorous uptake though. I'm not saying it doesn't look like a Molybdenum deficiency, but Molybdenum is something that's very rarely deficient.

When you flush with Sledgehammer do you follow up with a super mild base nutrient solution? Flushing is pretty much exhausting the soil, so you have to saturate it back with a low level of nutrients or it can kind of shock the roots when there's suddenly nothing to eat. Not to mention, flushing a lot can really compact your soil.

Ever use Mycorrhiza? I'd recommend trying a little bit of that to give your roots some TLC and recoup some of the living ecology in the soil, it will help the roots uptake nutrients better. Make Captain Jerry order you some Whiteshark, that stuff is like sterroids for plants.
 
@TheFertilizer, thank you! I was just at the grow store yesterday to expand my RDWC system and looked at the mychorrhiza products. WhiteShark it is.

And yes, I mixed nutes at 1/4 strength to flush the Sledgehammer with. Even now I'm keeping the FF nute strength at half of their recommendations. I don't have a soil probe but read about doing a saturated media extraction soil pH test. I'm going to do that just out of curiosity.

When watering or flushing I go slowly to try to ensure complete saturation with no dry pockets and to avoid compaction though I'm sure that's going to happen regardless. The plant seems to have responded favorably as new growth isn't turning pink.
 
Buds are still fattening up and getting firmer, some of the pistils are getting brown, but the trichomes are still clear. I want it to keep going! Get fat and frosty my pretties! LOL

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