Graytail's 3rd: 4x4, HiBrix, Latest LED Tech, Lots Of Light!

[Duggan]

Top of the day to ya Gray.....nice looking colas my brotha. Such consistent quality eh....wish i could try some of your guys Tikal and Panama and Zamadelica. Some day i'l do an all Sat. grow again. right now i'm really enjoying the landrace Indica thing. have a great day and weekend my friend! Cheers Gang!

 

[DrZiggy]

Hard to do when you have a perpetual, unless you want to throw a sack over Tikal's head every night.

It seems you enjoyed her anyway

You can grow perpetual at 11/13, or 10.5/13.5 from seed.
Plant them, leave lights alone. Feed them. Harvest. Repeat.
-Been doing so for a year.

 

[flowerfarmer]

I've just sprouted two ACE 100% sativa. One is a Panama the other is Golden Tiger. I'll be doing them 12/12 from seed. I hope I can manage..

 

[DrZiggy]

GT, another great harvest of excellent produce!

reps.

 

[DrZiggy]

I've just sprouted two ACE 100% sativa. One is a Panama the other is Golden Tiger. I'll be doing them 12/12 from seed. I hope I can manage..

both are excellent!! you'll manage great!

 

[Radogast]

You can grow perpetual at 11/13, or 10.5/13.5 from seed.
Plant them, leave lights alone. Feed them. Harvest. Repeat.
-Been doing so for a year.

Understood. I've been at 11/13 for about 6 months after one biggirl resisted flowering for 30 days under 12/12.

I meant to say that it is hard to reduce the light at the end of flower for ONE girl without reducing the light at mid flower or early flower for the other girls.

With my room at 11/13 it would be hard to go back to 12/12 without sending mixed signals to the girls inside

 

[Conradino23]

Absolutely necessary wit some strains cutting down to 11/13. Great budz

 

[Major PITA]

Tikal me Elmo for the Gray one! Tasty looking produce there, bud.

 

[CareStaker]

Gray I was going to post a while back, but I got

Spinosad eradicated my entire infestation, down to the eggs, three different times. I used Monteray Garden Spray, I think I got it at the local improvement store for just a handful of dollars.

 

[Graytail]

Gray I was going to post a while back, but I got

Spinosad eradicated my entire infestation, down to the eggs, three different times. I used Monteray Garden Spray, I think I got it at the local improvement store for just a handful of dollars.

Thanks for the personal testimony, CS. I hadn't thought about the local stores, and haven't gotten around to ordering any. I'll try to get out there tomorrow and see if they have anything stocked in winter. I like the "eradicated" part - sounds appealing.

 

[CareStaker]

Thanks for the personal testimony, CS. I hadn't thought about the local stores, and haven't gotten around to ordering any. I'll try to get out there tomorrow and see if they have anything stocked in winter. I like the "eradicated" part - sounds appealing.

Yup, like death for all. It was Thrips though, not flies or m*tes - I won't even spell that word.

Thrips, like gnats aren't that hard to kill IMO, but it wiped out the eggs too. One spray. Never seen anything like it. Your whiteflies should fear it pretty hard.

 

[SweetSue]

Finally Graytail!! Sweet-looking buds and the terpenes sound so tempting. I wish I had some way to give one a try, but it'll have to wait until I move to some place where I have more space. Someday though. Some sweet day.

I know there's going to be the biggest smile on your face when you fire this one up. She teased you for so long.

 

[Graytail]

AdvancedLED has been generous enough to offer a XML350 panel to each of this Year's contest winners and I've been asked to give a review of mine after using it for almost a year now.

First of all, it gives me an opportunity to comment on reliability from a user of fairly random choices and brands. I've used a 540W CTLite programmable panel from a reseller, the XML350, a Par-Force 500, three Mars-Hydro 100x3s and a 60x3 UFO, and a Dorm Grow 240. The only panels I purchased were the Mars-Hydros - the others were prizes and marketing offers.

Of the five brands, three failed. The CTLite was a disaster, cooking all 6 modules after less than a year. Dead. Same with the Dorm Grow. The Par-Force lost 6 strips of LEDs a few weeks ago but hasn't progressed. I find it odd that more than half failed in the first year. Two of the companies are no longer in business.

So ... quality and reliability aren't a trifling matter with LED panels. I didn't buy these panels, but if I had I'd be pissed. As it is, I have enough other panels that I don't need the failed ones. I should contact Dorm Grow I suppose, but I feel cheesy about asking them to replace a gift. Men aren't good at returning things.

The AdvancedLED XML350 has run flawlessly, 11 hours a day, everyday, for almost a year.

Beyond that, the Cree COBs are interesting, and I much prefer white light over blurple, but there are only 10 of them at 10 watts each. I'm guessing they run them at a little over 5-6 watts each, so not much power there - most of it is in the blurples. The footprint is a solid 3x3, delivering 800+ umols at 24" directly under the panel, but at the edges it drops off rapidly - they get the high umol value by focusing the beams fairly tightly. I'm not all that impressed with spectrum tinkering so I don't know whether theirs is "better" or not.

Icemud also has a lot of experience with AdvancedLED and I reposted a link he found to their datasheets on page 4 of this journal, and there's a little bit of discussion in those pages along with a cool pic of the pattern the Crees throw. Here's a link to the datasheet:

DS XML 350 Datasheet

I get the sense that this is a workhorse panel - solid, strong and effective. I'm using it for the center panel in a 4x4, surrounded by another 650+ watts, but I think it would also be very nice for a meter tent or something smaller.

 

[DrZiggy]

Doc's current/latest journal is an Advanced LED journal..
Advanced LED Demo Grow by Doc Bud

 

[Stage]

GrayTail,
Thanks for the knowledge share. I will go check out the link to Docs run too.
The quality of the build looks serious. Did you play with the blue and red adjust? Or did you set and forget?
How would you rate it as seedling / veg light?
I believe the par force was your the go to for veg?
I hope to pack away my hid for good....or can i?

 

[Graytail]

It's also time for the weekly update!

The week starts a long string of harvests, roughly one per week for the next 5 weeks. The first will be Taskenti, but I'm not sure what to think. The breeder says 8-9 weeks for bloom, but this one is at 9 weeks and not looking very tasty. I'm not seeing a trich explosion and she's making nanners. Bah. I plucked 'em and I'll keep an eye on her. I'm not all that optimistic at this stage.

Taskenti - 149 days old - 63 days 11/13 - 53 since pistils

Next will be Grin1, doing quite well! The trichs are starting to pack on pretty thickly! I first saw it in the bloom room and tried to get some closeup glamour shots, but I shoulda taken a few more or used a tripod. I'm likin' this one though - another week or two to go.

DrGrinspoonCut1 - 144 days old - 74 days 11/13 - 64 since pistils

This Rio2 is such a chubby little thing! Trichs are getting a bit ridiculous - two weeks to go

RioCut2 - 173 days old - 55 days 11/13 - 45 since pistils

Grieg1 is also a chunky one. I'm liking these fabric pots in bloom - there's a little more soil, but I also think the soil likes the fabric better.

Y GriegaCut1 - 144 days old - 83 days 11/13 - 73 since pistils

Chan1 lookin' good ...

Channel+Cut1 - 125 days old - 34 days 11/13 - 24 since pistils

I'll have a three week gap in harvests and then Freddy's Best should be finished. I put a lot of time into vegging this one, but so far it looks like the bloom is going well.

Freddy's Best - 132 days old - 20 days 11/13 - 12 since pistils

CarnA1 went into bloom a week ago and hasn't done much yet. I bent this one up pretty thoroughly, so she might need some time to get her bearings.

CarnivalACut1 - 144 days old - 7 days 11/13

The CarnBs were getting too close to the light in veg so I put one into bloom today. The other will follow in a week, along with the Grin2.

CarnivalBCut1 - 100 days old

In veg we have the other CarnB at 100 days ...

Grin2 at 70 days ...

Rio3 looking better at 90 days ...

And a Freddy's Best Cut at 21 days

 

[Graytail]

GrayTail,
Thanks for the knowledge share. I will go check out the link to Docs run too.
The quality of the build looks serious. Did you play with the blue and red adjust? Or did you set and forget?
How would you rate it as seedling / veg light?
I believe the par force was your the go to for veg?
I hope to pack away my hid for good....or can i?

I fiddled some with the white/blurple knobs, but in the end ... why? I did turn the blurples down to half for a couple weeks this summer when temps were pushing the high 80s - a nice comvenience.

I still like to veg seedlings and cuts under flourescent, but once they've hardened a bit I don't worry about intensity. I can get the bigger vegging girls within 8 inches of the Par-Force LEDs, and I use a 150MH for the last week or two before flip, usually 10-12 inches away. If I didn't have those, I'd run mid and late veg under LEDs, no problem. They did well under the 540W panel last year.

I'd use that Timber panel for veg, if I had one. It's nice to be able to see the true color of the vegging ones.

 

[SweetSue]

It's so nice that you have a working knowledge of the panel Graytail. Thanks for the review. You can be sure I'll be pestering you for information. I have some serious studying to do with these panels I just won. Hmmmm.... If I load info into my iPad I can read it during the flight home. Help me to kill time and learn while doing so. I have a two hour layover in Dallas and all those hours in the air without Internet access.

That's a sweet trichome shot on the DrGrinspoon. The rest of the girls look quintessentially Graytail. LOL! You've developed quite a distinctive look to your grows. Oooo..... And that CarnB you have in veg is a stunner. That almost overhead shot of her is a little breathtaking. I think I'm gonna start a community grow thread on Carnival as soon as my next one breaks the surface. I just can't resist it.

I'm off to wander the yards a while before I pass out from exhaustion. Didn't get much sleep last night. LOL! Later.

 

[DrZiggy]

GT, so does your family only see you on Mondays?
Thank you for the excellent update..
"Grieg1 is also a chunky one. I'm liking these fabric pots in bloom - there's a little more soil, but I also think the soil likes the fabric better."


as you know, they get lots of air to the soil and roots..

 

[Major PITA]

Did I see you put the hurt on some whiteflies? The pictures look like there are a lot less of them and those that show up look to be on the dead side.