Cheap LEDs & Bag Seeds

[Scottsquatch]

The seeds are going on 20 hours in the distilled water. Some are starting to pop. After dinner is done and the kid is in bed, I'm gonna put them on wet paper towels on a plate in a zip loc bag.

 

[Scottsquatch]

So the seeds got dunked last Tuesday. I believe that was the 22nd. They were all soaked for 24 hrs and then switched to the wet paper towel method. Once on paper towel, 4 of them popped in about 16 hrs. A couple more popped the next day and two more yesterday. Out of 15 seeds 8 are planted and one more needs to get her tap root out a little so that I can plant her too. I will give the remaining seeds another week to see if any more will pop. Here they are today. 6 are already above the soil and sprouting leaves. The other two aren't above the dirt yet

 

[Scottsquatch]

Ok folks time for an update. The 3kings finally stuck out a tap root, so she got planted tonight. The other 8 seeds are doing well. The 6 that were planted first have tripled in size since I posted pics. Of the two that were under the soil when I took the last pics, one has a set of leaves now and the other is just poking through the soil now.
I expect the 3 kings I planted tonight to be poking out by tommorow night. I'm really enjoying this so far. I am really looking forward to working with these plants.
On another note, the 6 remaining seeds are not gonna make it. One got all mushy a few days ago, and the rest seem to be headed that way. The purple ass kicking indica seed got all moldy and mushy today so she is gone for sure. She was the one that I was the most excited for in this batch, but whataya gonna do?
Im thinking the three kings will be a good high. Its 85% sativa, and 15% indica. It is a cross between sour diesel, head band, and OG kush. I'm pretty sure it will rock but it has been a very long time since I've had anything with much more than 10 to 15% sativa, so it will be interesting. I do look forward to having a strain that I can occasionally partake in during the day instead of waiting for my nightly knockout provided by the indica I usually smoke. Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. Later peeps.

 

[Scottsquatch]

Ok my peeps, here is a little update on the girls progress. Basically, they look good as far as I can tell. They really started to take off the last couple of days. @Emilya, as my unofficial mentor, can you tell me if they look ok so far? I think they look fine, but seeing as this is my very first grow, I have nothing to compare them to.

 

[Emilya Green]

looking good so far, but you need to wean them away from all that water soon... these are weeds, and they don't really like being that wet

 

[Scottsquatch]

Eek, my basement is so dang dry. Should I uncover them and then check on them every couple of hours in case they start wilting? Or should I just take them off and let them do what they will? Not sure how they will respond to the dryness. Should I put a vaporizer in there with them?

 

[Emilya Green]

You need to slowly wean them to be able to handle normal humidity... it is called hardening off... please google the term.

 

[Scottsquatch]

I know what hardening means for sunshine, so I get the general drift. Will do. Thanks.

 

[Gulfcoastjoker]

Looking good man, I'm gonna follow along. I'm on first grow as well, one of them being a Power Africa sativa. The other two mostly indicas. Except I almost fried my sativa seedling and had to wait almost two weeks for it to turn back around.

Looking forward to watching your ladies grow.

 

[Scottsquatch]

Welcome Joker. Glad to have you along! Yeah, my first grow hasn't been perfect either. Two of my nine girls dont care for how hot the soil is and are not very happy with me right now. They'll pull through, but Ive'd pissed them off a bit. My other issue was that I used humidity domes after they broke the surface of the soil because of how dry it is in my basement during the winter. It was a major PITA to harden them off and get them used to the humidity levels. As oon as they are ready to upsize, I can transplant them into better soil in 1 gallon pots. Hopefully these little set backs are not gonna be an issue for them. Good luck on your grow.

 

[Scottsquatch]

Ok @Emilya what did I do now? I let them dry all the way out till they were just starting to droop a tad and then gave them a big drink of distilled water. Could the lack of buffering capacity in distilled water screwed up the Ph? It seems mobile starting at the bottom so it's not light burn. The tips aren't brown so it's not nutrient burn. I'm just not sure what it is and want to fix it. I knew I wouldn't get it perfect out of the gate and that there is a learning curve, but geeze! I'm sucking so far! LOL

 

[SgtKiLLx]

Ohnos. You has some sick babies. Nice lookin green though. You can do eet.

 

[Emilya Green]

That is just old damage from before... lets call them beauty marks. I like the lift of the leaves and the deeper color. Keep doing what you are doing, it is working.

 

[Scottsquatch]

I went downstairs to check on the girls tonight and boy were they dry. Leaves were starting to droop a tad. The soil was so dry the solo cups felt almost empty. So I spent half an hour bonding with them as I gave them a nice long drink. The roots must be doing ok because it was not even three days since I watered last. It appears that they have all adjusted well to the big light and it looks like growth is picking up a little bit. So now that things are in order I can breath a bit easier. It was a bit of a rough take off but we're off the ground now. Not too long and I'll get to start working with them and getting them all ready for flower. Its gonna be really cool to start LST. Anyway, pics in the morning when they are done drinking and ready for a couple of pictures. Happy smoking.

 

[Growingasmile]

Ahh, enough said. I know what lights you have. 3 of the 900's huh? Well just fyi the 2700 Watts that all three put together are rated to does not mean that they are equivalent to 2700 Watts of HID lighting. What it does mean is the light contains for instance 300 3 watt LEDs so if they ran all the LEDs on full power that would be 900 watts per light. What it actually is is they run all 300 LEDs at only 1.5 Watts a piece so they don't burn out. 1.5 Watts x 300 LEDs equals 450 actual watts used per light. I have had my room completely full All of the Lights you are using and did very well with them a few years ago. Anyways, I just thought that might be some useful information for you down the road.

Why dont you use them anymore?

 

[fanleaf]

Why dont you use them anymore?

While they were great lights and I grew many great plants with them I invested in more efficient white cob arrays that I built. I was able to cut the power down considerably and harvest the same or more. I have 4 or 5 cob arrays from as few as 4 cobs to 42 cobs. All of the builds can be seen in the build thread in my sig.

 

[Growingasmile]

While they were great lights and I grew many great plants with them I invested in more efficient white cob arrays that I built. I was able to cut the power down considerably and harvest the same or more. I have 4 or 5 cob arrays from as few as 4 cobs to 42 cobs. All of the builds can be seen in the build thread in my sig.

How's the heat from those lights and how many would it take to match a 1000w hps yield?

 

[fanleaf]

How's the heat from those lights and how many would it take to match a 1000w hps yield?

It depends on how you build the array. If you build it like 75% of people where you have minimal cobs per square foot so you have to run them at higher wattage they are still by far more efficient than any HPS but could be much more so efficient. If you pack the cobs in the grow area 1 per square foot or more (high initial costs)and use top of the line high efficiency chips then you can run the array pushing each chip very very lightly where they are super efficient. My 25 chip array and my 42 chip array absolutely have the potential of 2 grams per watt.
Watt per watt HPS can't touch a good quality cob array.
The right cob ran at the right drive level and also the new quantum boards are right about or at a PPF efficiency of 3.0 umol/j. That's roughly 50% more efficient than hps.
That said, you could match on 1000w HPS with very few cobs. Let's say for instance you were in a 5-foot by 5-foot grow area. You could run 12 cobs at 83 watts each totaling 1000w burning the same power as the hps but yield potential is more with the cobs. At 83w each though the efficiency of the cobs will be nowhere near thier peak so instead you can pack 25 cobs in that same 5x5 area and run them at only 40 watts each (still 1000w total) where they are far more efficient umol/j. Yield potential is far far superior to HPS this way allowing you to run much less (200-400w less) than a thousand Watts to get the same PPF as the hps.

 

[fanleaf]

As far as heat goes, actually in the winter time like right now I sometimes have to choke off my exhaust blower if I don't want to run a heater. I keep my par levels at about 1100 - 1200 at the canopy in flower. I could turn the lights way up higher but that's about maximum par saturation levels without adding CO2. I have some really good reads on the way I build my arrays and how I run them for efficiency. If you look in my 42 array build ($4600 light build) you can see how I build a control panel where I can actually control the light spectrum as well as the power of each Spectrum with my arrays. There's also a good explanation of that control box that I built in my current Journal in my signature. I just started that grow and I believe page 3 is where I show my control panel. It can also be seen in my four strain 6 Auto journal in my signature.

 

[fanleaf]

@Scottsquatch I didn't mean to hijack your Journal there in my last few posts. I get on the subject of lights and I like to talk lol.