Fanleaf Tries For A TLO, True Living Organics, Grow With 6 Plants

[fanleaf]

Riddle me this, oh master of the cob lights......are your drivers voltage sensing? If so, why not run 220 and use half the amps? Just curious, that's all. I love that gauge too, where did you find that?

Well, because it wouldn't make any difference. This is down in my basement where there was a 120-volt 20 amp circuit not being used at all in an old washer and dryer location. This tent and the equipment that runs this tent is the only thing on that circuit. I could run 240 volts to the drivers however as far as saving anyting, it wouldn't. The Mean Well driver's don't really run any more efficient at 240 volts than they do at 120.
And as you can see from the meter on the lights once I include my little 100 watt heater and my 4" exhaust blower and the humidifier I'm still only pulling less than 5 amps from this 20 amp circuit. If I was running a much bigger operation here than it would make sense to run at 240 volts just to save me a breaker space in my breaker box. But as far as power saving there is no difference between pulling 10 amps at 120 volts or 5 amps at 240 volts. It's the same amount of kilowatt-hours either way.

I bought those little meters online. They work really well for especially my bigger arrays where I have rows of 3000k cobs and rows of 5000k cobs. I'll post some pictures of my bigger controller with all of the meters that are under my 25 table array right now. It's actually perfect timing to do so because I was just replacing a potentiometer on the unit I'll post some pictures of momentarily.
If you would like a link to where I buy those meters just send me a PM and I'll get it to you. They're only like $10 a piece

 

[fanleaf]

After a few years of service I noticed today that in my larger room where I have plants flowering now one of my drivers that control three of the 5000k cree's would not turn up further than 130 Watts. After some testing I found the culprit, the potentiometer that controls that driver was malfunctioning. So I had to pull that potentiometer out and replace it with a new 100K ohm unit.

the potentiometer on top, closest to the camera was the malfunctioning unit. I guess I can't complain after a few years of service the only thing that has gone bad in my homemade spectrum and power control box has been a potentiometer.

Here it is, back up and running again! The red potentiometers control a row of the 3000k Cobbs and those are adjustable anywhere from zero to 320 Watts a piece. The blue potentiometers control a row of 5000k Cobbs and each of those are adjustable from 0 to 250 Watts a piece. This control box is really nice to have in the grow room because it allows me to fine-tune the power of each Spectrum while I hold my par meter around the plants. All of the drivers are located outside of the grow room.

here is the 25 cob array that are organic plants will be under when they are ready and needing the room. For now I'm finishing up a few plants that are in there now that only have a few weeks to go.

Here is a few shots of the headband and some purple diesel that is finishing up under the array right now.
These plants are 4.5 weeks into flower.

 

[Bode]

Highya Fanleaf,

Awesome array of cobs and controls! And awesome results. Frost is king! Great work, man! Cheers

 

[fanleaf]

The lights just turned on for the day and here we are just shy of 48 hours after they were placed in the tent.
It looks like one of the black Russian as well as one of the lemon kush headbands are the most excited to take a look at their new world. The second Lemon Kush Headband has shed its shell and is starting to spread its wings as well. The other 3 are not very far behind though, I can see the rest of them are now above soil and getting ready to split the shell off. As of right now we have 3 new babies getting their first taste of light energy.

From the looks of the other 3, in the matter of a few hours they will be soaking up some "sunlight" as well.

I gave each pot about 25 mL of freshwater each. Just enough to keep the top of the soil damp. I have no problem letting the pots dry out some but at this stage the top of the soil will dry out really fast from the circulation and the warmth so adding just a tiny bit of water to the top of the pots will help to keep the moisture level a little more even and our micro beasties happy.

 

[fanleaf]

So, now that we have six brand new babies and they all look healthy as of now. I'm going to dial the LED array way down. I'm going to turn it down from 280 Watts clear down to 40 Watts for a day or two. I do this as of recently because when you are using really powerful grow lights the plants tend to grow so low and compact that you cannot help from the bottom leaves being in the soil. This also makes it a big pain in the butt later in the grow when it is time to water them. So for the next day or two I'm going to leave the lights down really low and make the seedlings stretch a few inches before I crank the lights back up.

Also, as of lights on, 20 minutes ago, all six of the babies pots had lost about 60% of the water weight. If I let them go the rest of the 18-hour day I know the top half of the soil would all be dry to a crisp. For that reason I gave them each about 30 ml of fresh water. Again, while there's still some water weight in the bottom half of the pots this will just Ensure but the top stays moist as well.
@Emilya , do you ever add any mulch to your seedlings in there starting container? I ask because for this grow I have a whole bunch of chopped up cannabis stems and since it is a smaller mulch I was considering going ahead and mulching around the seedlings being careful to stay away from their stem. I believe that may help the pots dry a little more evenly and also be beneficial for the micro beasties. What do you think?

 

[Emilya Green]

I like the concept but not the choice of mulch material. I don't use it until something larger than the 1gal size, but I do use it after that. Mulch needs to be inert, so inert that bugs have no interest in it and no abilities to tunnel into it. Bugs love raw rotting cannabis debris though. It wouldn't work for the same reason that we don't let fallen leaves rot into the soil, it draws to it many of the wrong types of scavengers and bacteria.

 

[fanleaf]

I like the concept but not the choice of mulch material. I don't use it until something larger than the 1gal size, but I do use it after that. Mulch needs to be inert, so inert that bugs have no interest in it and no abilities to tunnel into it. Bugs love raw rotting cannabis debris though. It wouldn't work for the same reason that we don't let fallen leaves rot into the soil, it draws to it many of the wrong types of scavengers and bacteria.

Well shoot lol. The only reason I chopped up and saved about 3 gallons of stems from my last Harvest was because that was one of the mulches that Rev recommended as an okay mulch in his book. Everything you said makes tons of sense though. No sense in risking it the way I see it.

 

[Emilya Green]

hard for me to second guess the Rev though... im really just a hack compared to most. If its cool with him, its okey dokey with me too.

 

[fanleaf]

hard for me to second guess the Rev though... im really just a hack compared to most. If its cool with him, its okey dokey with me too.

I take your advice very seriously though. You are being way too modest with all of that, "hack, compared to most" stuff. As much as I think it would be super cool to see all of my weed plants in 7-10 gallon pots mulched with chopped cannabis stems, I may hold off on that for now at least. Trying to think of a way to test it out.

 

[Slowpuffer]

I take your advice very seriously though. You are being way too modest with all of that, "hack, compared to most" stuff. As much as I think it would be super cool to see all of my weed plants in 7-10 gallon pots mulched with chopped cannabis stems, I may hold off on that for now at least. Trying to think of a way to test it out.

Wouldn't it blow your mind , if you used it on one plant and it grew twice as big as the other 5 ?

 

[fanleaf]

Wouldn't it blow your mind , if you used it on one plant and it grew twice as big as the other 5 ?

Ha....Yes, it sure would. Maybe we should try it with one of the double plants. One of the Black Russians perhaps.

 

[fanleaf]

Just a short update and let me apologize now if I bug the heck out of some of you with constant updates. This is my first living organic grow so I want to be able to come back to this journal and see what happens from day today so I can use it later.
it has been about 24 hours since I turned the power of the light down to 40 watts to initiate some stretch of the seedlings. So far that's working out great! The lights have just came on for the day so I will probably have quite a bit more stretch today. They're looking good and already starting to stretch up towards the light some. I will probably let them go on stretching for the rest of this lights on period and take another look at them before I make it rain Par.
I'm not looking for a ton of stretch but enough to make it easier to water and keep the leaves out of the soil as the plants get older. That is the one downfall of very powerful lights. They can make the plant start growing leaves right at soil level so the first set or two is laying in the soil.

 

[fanleaf]

Well, that's about all the stretch I needed.
Lights on today.....

No water, no anything today. The only change is that I just turned the light back up from 40w to 280w to let it rain photons.
Tent lights on environment is steady at 77 degrees and 60%rh.
Next watering I'm thinking of inoculating them with some myco's now that there are roots. What do you think about that plan @Emilya ?

 

[Emilya Green]

I like it... i give myco once a week all through veg

 

[fanleaf]

I like it... i give myco once a week all through veg

Will do!

 

[fanleaf]

I learned something today. I've never grown or smoked Alaskan Purple so I didn't know. Seems Alaskan Purple is only a nicer way of saying what this strain was originally named....Alaskan Thunder$u@k. I had no idea

 

[fanleaf]

Only update today is that there is no update.
I really wanted to inoculate the seedlings with some Great White Mycorrhiaze today however they are still not ready for more water yet. The pots are getting lighter, however about 30% of water weight is still there. What's wrong with these darned seedlings drinking on their own schedule?? Aren't they supposed to grow according to my wants? I wonder if they would have drank their water quicker if they knew that in the next water would be teams of helpful food workers for their roots?

Anyways, I know they will be dry tomorrow so I will get pictures and all measurements of what I do, when I give them their water/myco mix. I also plan to mulch 5 of the 6 tomorrow with a shredded Cypress blend mulch. The darned store I was at (Menards) had a million different varieties of Cedar mulch and I had to really hunt for anything other than Cedar, Pine or a rubber mulch. The 6th plant will get a Cannabis stem mulch as an initial test to see if I can get away with it.

 

[JustMeds]

Dropping a book mark here. Now got some reading to do.

 

[fanleaf]

Dropping a book mark here. Now got some reading to do.

Welcome to the show! This style will definitely be a learning experience for me.

 

[henr8]

Hey fanleaf, glad to see your trying out organics, i've been growing weed this way indoors for a couple of years now, i've been growing vegetables for many years and own a small farm. I'm currently working on a masters degree in biology, all thanks to the initial interest in cannabis.
Anyway i read your ingredient list and must alert that you have way too much nutrients in your soil, you will run into to excess's that will cause imbalances that will cause deficency's soon enough, if not on your first run it will catch up to you, i promise. I've read the Rev's stuff for a while now...i can't argue with the results he seems to get but to me a lot of his teachings seem quacky....he himself has moved away from such a rich mix and uses mainly chicken manure now. Anyway i'v calculated you have enough nutrient for approxiamtly 30 gallons of soil. Unless i'm missing something....anyway i'm speaking from experience, i tried his methods at first, i was thought to believe cannabis was a ''special growing plant'' with special needs...well it's not, it's nutrient needs (ratio) are close to tomatoes, i've seen large scale indoor soil grows who used....wait for it...epsoma tomato-tone, kelp and rock dust. My soil mix now a days is the same i grow veggies in and my plants have never been happier. Check out the KIS organics podcast for some great scientific information on growing cannabis.