Akisunni Indoor Cold & Hot Grow Zones

[akisunni]

Quick reply, I decided I could go snag it and take a picture or two of it for you in the office. I am not worried about it having a moment of light 2 days into 12/12.

I placed a standard soda can next to the plant for scale. It has spent its life under an average of about 65 watts in the 6500 spectrum hitting it vs total in space of about 100 watts. However the lights are in a series of plugs in a power strip, and some of them basically never get to the plant.

I moved it two days ago to 12/12 ish status in the 36/12 space, as I switched it to 12/12. I haven't touched the plant, from a stress point of view.

Bagseed lifecycle:

Placed in wet moss on Nov 18th,
Root visible on Nov 20th,
Planted in small container on Nov 23rd,
Replanted Mid Dec potting soil (date not tracked, in this journal most likely)
Switched to 12/12 lighting on Dec 26th

Here is Baggy

 

[Jesstar]

Cool, she's almost identical age to my Chocolope:

Soaked in water 17th,
In soil 21st,
Sprouted 25th,
Will be switching to 12/12 as soon I can figure out how to do it with my Purple Auto already flowering and under 18/6. I don't think it's the best idea to finish the last 30 days of purple under 12/12 so I'm not sure. I could put the two auto's in the large side of the cabinet and Choco on flower cycle in the small side but that would mean a lot of moving around and I'm not sure how I'd distribute lighting.. Hmm.

Anyway, here's Chocky. A few days younger than Baggy..

Any ideas, Ak?

-J.

 

[akisunni]

Jesstar,

The following is partial joke, partial truth... You can tease the jest out... This is true for any garden type plant.

Plants have a max moisture & max nutrients level to stay alive, that is, if you give them more water or nutrients they will flat out die. This is why so many early growers kill whole crops at once, from tomato's to corn to weed. The farmer decides the plants need X more inputs. The easiest choices are of water or nutrients. Either of which, can kill a crop quickly.

Now the less easy ways to simulate growth, these are also a lot harder to kill you plant by providing to much of it. Outside of heat burn, or early days, plants cant realistically have too much light to thrive if everything else is at normal levels... If it has access to water with some basic nutrients, if you crank up the light lumes, the plant will grow.

Plants dont need to sleep. They grow 24/7 in Alaska, and in a short period of time, they grow some of the worlds largest vegetables. The reason is direct sunlight. You can burn a plant, but if it has the other necessary ingredients, it will usually thrive not wilt in too much sunlight.

The hardest way to actually boost growth, and the hardest way to actually hurt a plant... is too keep CO2 levels above unhealthy for a period of time. They naturally eat CO2, so a plant with all other factors at optimum, will replace that high CO2 with lower levels if not recharged. However, you can quickly stunt a plants ability to grow via a lack of CO2 but you really have to spent some effort to give a plant too much CO2.

When you hear stories about people singing to their plants, and the plants responding... Its because humans exhale extremely concentrated CO2. When a person sings to their plants, they are pushing concentrated CO2 onto the plant. Indoor growers use fans to push fresh ambient air to the leaves to increase the level of CO2 at the leaf level. Mother nature uses a breeze. If you can boost your CO2 levels, the plant should grow thicker if it is the constricting need of the plant.

The chart of rice growing in different CO2 levels for 21 days is interesting. It stops at 800 ppm, when CO2 natural level for plant growth demand is around 1200-1600 ppm. The last bunch of rice in the picture above shows you what ambient rice looks like compared to 800 ppm.

Disclosure: The above is my own opinions only. I am known to be wrong regularly, just ask my wife.

 

[Jesstar]

Hehe, I think I'm with you.
Basically saying that if you really want to put excess TLC into the plant, focus on the methods that are the hardest to do harm via? Put the effort into light, ventilation, CO2 etc and not into water or nutes as the plant will tell you when it needs them?

I bought a cheap moisture meter yesterday and(if it's in any way accurate, my 2 big girls' moisture levels are still off the chart after a few days drying. I tested the little Diesel to see if it was just showing a uniform result and no, the Diesel is almost dry. Both results sort of make sense so I'm leaning towards believing it. I'm going to leave Diesel for another day or two to hopefully kill all the larvae in the soil. The other girls will be tested daily until dry. It looks like a week-long drying process?? I'm really not ok with that because it means if I need to adjust anything, like I need to flush now, I need to wait yonks before I can.. >

I also got a equally cheap, from the same brand soil PH meter and it similarly told me all my soil PH is the same. 6.3. If it's accurate, I'm stoked!

Have a good day all.

-J.

 

[Khraevyn]

From the top that thing looks so nice. Big and bushy. Are you trimming or is it just growing like that?? Whatever it is you're doing keep it up. And I will be picking through this journal for months to come in an effort to go a little more high tech. I've got some big plans for my backyard, but security is going to be mandatory. Already got me a Pit and training her up nice and good. Such loyal dogs if you treat them good. They are very smart and will let you know when they're upset. Still, the ChiChi is the first line of defense and if his barking doesn't work, her sleek black self will be seen too late for the trespasser. I will be looking to you for help when I setup my surveillance system so don't go anywhere you tech genius. I love seeing the way tech is making growing easier and more productive.

~K~

 

[akisunni]

Khraevyn,

Its great to see you drop by again. The baggy seed hasn't been touched, outside of replanting it. Its the first plant I have grown from a bean, and I wanted to see how a plant responds if you basically just leave it alone, minus water, nutrients and lighting. I will be giving it a going over today, looking for signs of its sex. Worse case, I move it outdoors, and capture some pollen from it, and store that.

 

[Skybound]

Worse case, I move it outdoors, and capture some pollen from it, and store that.

Hope none of our locations are nearby when those grenades open up

 

[akisunni]

with it being the middle of winter and 30 mph wind gusts, it might pollinate the greater NorCal region... lol

 

[Skybound]

A cannabis EMP. I wonder what distance the average pollen cloud would travel?

 

[akisunni]

From Humboldt to Bakersfield... cough cough...

 

[akisunni]

Temp and Light Update:

Local temps are about to drop to sub freezing for the next few nights. Day time temps are still around 55-60 and blue skys, but the night temps are an issue. I went and checked on the girls, and before midnight its 56f in the grow spaces. That is sub optimum. Its 45f outside, meaning my garage is only giving a 10 degree buffer.

Unfortunately due to hardware and home design, my garage is not easily heated for events like this. The only solution I can think of is to call this sleep cycle a short one, and turn on the lights. The plants can be switched to running lights at nights if necessary for the rest of this flower cycle.

 

[Skybound]

This is an issue I am highly concerned about while building my flower room in an attic. The best solution I came up with so far is to use a propane cylinder (from gas grill) and outfit it with a 12v ignighter from SparkFun and a solenoid valve and let the "If" statements determine when it burns. Unfortunately I had to focus my budget on other gizmos from adafruit, but I do at least have the heater and will track down a propane cylinder and manually fire it during my dark period till I can get the burner online.

Last night I ordered that data logging shield with RTC, and also a servo shield with 2 servos. I'm gonna go ahead and build an AC crontol panel with receptacles and light switches, and just throw the switches with servos. This seems to be a safer solution without having to worry about relay ratings and polarity as most light switches start at about 15 amps which is way more than enough per circuit. The servos will flip a switch every 12 hours one way, then the other. If you have any suggestions on how to map out the code, I am all ears. Also will definitely need your help with the Data/RTC and Ethernet Shield if you own one.

 

[akisunni]

Skybound

The burning propane and exhaust fumes in the attic scares me more then an electric heater on manual temp/timer with a built in temp sensitivity setting. Ie set its temp and it should just turn on and off as needed automatically. Here is an example from wally world for $15.

Set the temp, and it will try to keep that minimum level of warmth. I would do this in my garage, but my grow spaces are all self contained already, so the heating of the room vs losses to outside wouldn't do much to help. I need to think of a way to push heat into them. I might even make a small resistance heater for each of them. I think I will prob design a small night friendly LED lamp that I put in the bottom of each grow space. The heat generated can rise up through the canopy heating the plant during cold nights.

Which Ethernet shield did you buy? please post the chip number/design for it?, and I can prob paste some working code to test it with. There are at least 3 primary chips used in arduino Ethernet shields. One of which is cheap, but such a pain in the ass to use, I have spares untouched in my parts bin.

 

[akisunni]

Last night I ordered that data logging shield with RTC, and also a servo shield with 2 servos. I'm gonna go ahead and build an AC crontol panel with receptacles and light switches, and just throw the switches with servos. This seems to be a safer solution without having to worry about relay ratings and polarity as most light switches start at about 15 amps which is way more than enough per circuit. The servos will flip a switch every 12 hours one way, then the other. If you have any suggestions on how to map out the code, I am all ears. Also will definitely need your help with the Data/RTC and Ethernet Shield if you own one.

Here is some code to check the soil moisture of one plant, to record the RealTimeClock time stamp, check humidity & temp, and write it to a SD disk drive and also send some of the data to a serial port for terminal viewing. It also flashes an LED each time it writes to the SD drive, so you know when things are "happening".

I just checked this code base, and it compiles in Arduino 1.0.5-r2, so you should be able to easily mash the code to fit your own settings once you get the hardware in the mail.

//built on open source code. All correct actions are theirs, all mistakes are mine.

#define moisture_input 0
#define divider_top 2
#define divider_bottom 3
#include <SD.h>
#include <dht11.h>
#include <Time.h>
#include <Wire.h>
#include <DS1307RTC.h> // a basic DS1307 library that returns time as a time_t
int moisture; // analogical value obtained from the experiment

int SoilMoisture(){
int reading;
// set driver pins to outputs
pinMode(divider_top,OUTPUT);
pinMode(divider_bottom,OUTPUT);

// drive a current through the divider in one direction
digitalWrite(divider_top,LOW);
digitalWrite(divider_bottom,HIGH);

// wait a moment for capacitance effects to settle
delay(1000);

// take a reading
reading=analogRead(moisture_input);

// reverse the current
digitalWrite(divider_top,HIGH);
digitalWrite(divider_bottom,LOW);

// give as much time in 'reverse' as in 'forward'
delay(1000);

// stop the current
digitalWrite(divider_bottom,LOW);

return reading;
}
dht11 DHT11;
const int POW_PIN = 8;
const int CS = 10;
const int LED = 9;
const int chipSelect = 10;


void write_header()
{
// This function creates the GPS.LOG file and writes out the CSV header to it. This is only done if the file does not exist.

// Write out the GPS.LOG file header.
File dataFile = SD.open("widget.csv", FILE_WRITE);
if(dataFile)
{
// Flash the SD card LED three times
for (int x = 0; x < 3; x++)
{
digitalWrite(LED, HIGH);
delay(50);
digitalWrite(LED, LOW);
delay(50);
} // end for loop


Serial.println("Writing data file header");


// Write the CSV header
dataFile.println("Day,Month,Day,Time,Year,Soil,Humidity,Temp(C),Temp(F),Temp(K),Dew,Dew(fast)");
dataFile.close(); // Close the file
} // end if

} // end function write_header
void setup_card()
{
// This function initializes the connection to the SD card. If there is an error it writes it to the console.

Serial.begin(115200); // Setup the serial monitoring interface for debugging
Serial.println("Initializing Card...");

//Connect to the SD card
if (!SD.begin(CS)) // If there is an error connecting to the SD card display an error and terminate the program
{

Serial.println("Card failure");

return;
} // end if
// Check to see if the GPS.LOG file exists. If it does not then create it and write out the CSV header
if (!SD.exists("widget.csv"))
{
write_header();

} // end if

} // end function setup_card
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(115200);
setSyncProvider(RTC.get); // the function to get the time from the RTC
if(timeStatus()!= timeSet)
Serial.println("Unable to sync with the RTC");
else
Serial.println("RTC has set the system time");
DHT11.attach(5);
while (!Serial) {
; // wait for serial port to connect. Needed for Leonardo only
}
Serial.print("Initializing SD card...");
// make sure that the default chip select pin is set to
// output, even if you don't use it:
pinMode(10, OUTPUT);
// see if the card is present and can be initialized:
if (!SD.begin(chipSelect)) {
Serial.println("Card failed, or not present");
// don't do anything more:
return;
}
Serial.println("card initialized.");
Serial.println("Time,Day,Month,Year,Soil,Humidity,Temp(C),Temp(F),Temp(K),Dew,Dew(fast)");
}
void loop()
{
moisture=SoilMoisture(); // assign the result of SoilMoisture() to the global variable 'moisture'
// Serial.print("Soil moisture: ");
// Serial.print(moisture); // print the analogical measurement of the experiment
// later i will improve here a calculation for derive Soil Moisture in %
Serial.println();
delay(1000);
digitalClockDisplay();
delay(1000);
int chk = DHT11.read();
String dataString = "";
// read three sensors and append to the string:
for (int analogPin = 0; analogPin < 1; analogPin++) {
int sensor = analogRead(analogPin);
dataString += String(sensor);
if (analogPin < 1) {
dataString += ",";
}
}
File dataFile = SD.open("widget.csv", FILE_WRITE);
// if the file is available, write to it:
if (dataFile) {
// Write the CSV header
dataFile.println("Time,Soil,Humidity,Temp(F),Temp(C)");
dataFile.print(" ");
dataFile.print((hour()));
dataFile.print(":");
dataFile.print(minute());
dataFile.print(":");
dataFile.print(second());
dataFile.print(",");
dataFile.print(month());
dataFile.print("/");
dataFile.print(day());
dataFile.print("/");
dataFile.print(year());

dataFile.print(",");
dataFile.print(moisture);
dataFile.print(",");
dataFile.print((float)DHT11.humidity, DEC);
dataFile.print(",");
dataFile.print(DHT11.fahrenheit(), DEC);
dataFile.print(",");
dataFile.print((float)DHT11.temperature, DEC);
dataFile.println("");
dataFile.close();
// print to the serial port too:
//Serial.println("Soil,Humidity,Temp F,Temp C");

Serial.print(hour());
printDigits(minute());
printDigits(second());
Serial.print(",");
Serial.print(day());
Serial.print(",");
Serial.print(month());
Serial.print(",");
Serial.print(year());
Serial.print(",");
Serial.print(moisture);

Serial.print(",");
Serial.print((float)DHT11.humidity, DEC);

Serial.print(",");
Serial.print((float)DHT11.temperature, DEC);

Serial.print(",");
Serial.print(DHT11.fahrenheit(), DEC);

Serial.print(",");
Serial.print(DHT11.kelvin(), DEC);

Serial.print(",");
Serial.print(DHT11.dewPoint(), DEC);

Serial.print(",");
Serial.print(DHT11.dewPointFast(), DEC);
Serial.println("");
delay(10000);

}
// if the file isn't open, pop up an error:
else {
Serial.println("error opening widgets.csv");
} // assign the result of SoilMoisture() to the global variable 'moisture'
// moisture1 = SoilMoisture1();
// print the number of seconds since reset:
delay(1000);
}

void digitalClockDisplay(){
// digital clock display of the time
//Serial.print(hour());
// printDigits(minute());
// printDigits(second());
// Serial.print(" ");
// Serial.print(day());
// Serial.print(" ");
// Serial.print(month());
// Serial.print(" ");
// Serial.print(year());
// Serial.println();
}

void printDigits(int digits){
// utility function for digital clock display: prints preceding colon and leading 0
Serial.print(":");
if(digits < 10)
Serial.print('0');
Serial.print(digits);
}

 

[Skybound]

Wiznet iEthernet W5100
PH211-010
1428

I assume it's the junk one b/c the shield is a clone from China.

The propane comment stems from my frame of mind in that I only have a 60 amp power service to run my household, so adding heavy loads like heaters and HIDs freak me out a bit as I didn't figure what my average load is yet to know how much room I have to work with. I suppose I should get on that and not find out the hard way.

 

[akisunni]

Sky,

Are you using a Mega or an Uno? The code above is designed for an Uno, but to properly add Ethernet to the code base above, you will prob need to use a Mega and tweek the settings.

 

[Skybound]

Thanks man. I'll chew on the code and see what I can make work. Do you know if the DHT11 Library is the same as the 22? Also, why is the void digitalClockDisplay (){ all commented out? Should I remove the // before each line and run that as code?

 

[Skybound]

I am using a genuine Mega with a clone shield, but day after tomorrow I will have 3 shields to get tacked on, well at least the logger and servo shield, but also have a relay shield that I might need to add later. Not to mention all the water sensors I will one day soon want. But with just servos tossing light switches, I can accomplish a lot of control by cheaply building a control panel out of light switches and receptacles from a master feed.

 

[akisunni]

you should be able to change to dht22 in code. The background library should be compatible as is.

leave the clock voided as is for now. otherwise the timestamp that is written to the SD drive gets mad if you dont have a reason it exists. I havent cleaned up the code for this version to remove the other hooks.

 

[SoilGirl]

Baggy's looking awesome Aki and I enjoyed your little rant about focusing on the easy ways to not mess up your plant and really help them. Idk if I understand the rice growth chart, but I definitely agree with your fundamentals there. keep up the good work and shares! Thank you!