Indoor Soil - 900 Watt LED - Urkulan Grow Journal Summer 2012

[Loial Green]

Day 43:

As you can see, I got them all tied up the way I want them. Whew, that took about an hour per plant. I counted an average of 30 flower tops per plant which I am really happy with! Every branch is supported and the flowers are equally spread out. The girls got a strong feeding (MOAB along with some Norwegian Kelp - Maxicrop) yesterday and seem to be loving it! They only get one more organic and one more chemical feeding before I flush and starve them.

Here's an aerial view from just under the light. Notice the twine that I strung between the bamboo.

This one's kind of cool the way that my flash was barely able to penetrate the LED lighting. See how I strung the branches with those green twist ties.

So I only have 20 more days of flower left. Do you think that these flowers will stack enough to fill in the gaps on the stems?

Here's another look at the babies that I just treated for spider mites. Day 23

 

[Loial Green]

LED Lights:
The LED hood is from DormGrow.com and is made by G8-LED. All I can find on this LED is that it is using the true 3 watt bulbs at 120 degree angle (I think). This hood puts out a hell of a lot of light, enough to temporarily blind you (everyone looks once). I have it suspended 36" from the top of the canopy and the mover is set to pause for 2 seconds on the sides. This is the fastest setting. Does anyone have any knowledge on the ideal distance from canopy for this light?? I'm just using an educated guess from the little information that's out there. Can it be placed closer since its moving? According to DormGrow's "marketing guru", this light covers a 5'x6' area and is equivalent to a 1500 watt HPS.

I received an answer from dormgrow.com who is also a member on here. He told me that the ideal height is 36-42" from top of canopy. Thanks Dormgrow! I guess I'm in the clear.

Since most LEDs right now are running these 3 watt diodes, I compare and contrast by strength (number of bulbs), and color spectrum. I feel that it is relevant to mention that this light has 288 individual diodes, 8 different colors for just under $1000.

 

[Buckshot]

I hope you get the mites under control they are horrible. Good luck, everything else looks great!

 

[Loial Green]

Thanks Dude!!

 

[Loial Green]

I couldn't wait any longer for the air pots to get here so I borrowed some 1 gallon pots from a friend of mine. When I planted my peppers this year, my mom instructed me to cut the bottom branches off, expose the stem and then transplant the root ball deep into the new pot, covering up a big portion of the stem. My peppers got huge virtually overnight so I decided to try this with the babies. Has anyone else tried this technique? As you can see, I went a little crazy with the pruning. I hope I didn't shock them as I probably should have done this slowly over a period of time. We'll see what happens...

 

[Loial Green]

This took a few hours. Here's all the babies in their new homes.

 

[Loial Green]

Some updated pics of the flowers in regular light. They are really pretty but small. I sure hope that they get some girth to them in the next 3 weeks.

 

[Loial Green]

Guess What?!?! My air-pots got here today!

 

[Loial Green]

I thought that I would show the progress of the babies / teenagers at day 35 of veg. I waited a couple of days after transplanting and then I did the FIMing technique (similar to topping) on day 28 of veg, so here they are 1 week later. I'm really happy with the branching and the distance between nodes are less than an inch. These girls will transplant into the air-pots tomorrow and get 2-3 more weeks of veg. I haven't fed these girls any chemicals (miracle grow) this time around, only a light feeding of FF Grow Big. I think that i might switch to 100% organic for this run.

 

[Loial Green]

Day 55 of flower. These girls have such small buds and leaf blemishes, I know I can do better. This is why I am going to go to the natural organics. Stay tuned for air-pots, soil amendments, microbial teas, and other such science experiments!! A friend of mine sent me a pic of this Urkulan that he has growing outdoor in a light deprivation setup right now and his kolas are the size of my fist and forearm... so pretty!

 

[Loial Green]

Sorry that it has been over a week since I have posted Let me catch you up to date...

Day 58 of flower.
Since this is a 63 day strain (8-9 weeks), I should have really flushed these plants on Aug.2 (day 49). I have been pretty disappointed with how small the buds are (with their "popcorn" nugs), so I decided to feed one more time on that day. I then kept watering with just water, but never really flushed them until day 58, where I sent 5 gallons of pure water through every pot. I then stripped off all of the sun leaves that I could see with a stem. See the before and after photos below.

 

[Loial Green]

Here's a couple more photos of Day 58 under the LED.

 

[Loial Green]

Day 63... supposed to be harvest day.
So there really isn't any change since the flushing. If anything, maybe the buds are a little denser but not any bigger. My leaves haven't started to yellow yet since I'm sure that there are still plenty of nutes left in that soil. I looked at a little piece of a sugar leaf under my microscope and as you can see, the trichomes are still clear. I am going to flush the soil once more and let the girls live another week!

 

[Loial Green]

I am convinced that I can increase my yield by improving my soil, changing my pots, and going 100% natural / organic. There have been so many positive testimonials on growing with LEDs that I am not ready to point any fingers yet. A friend of mine is growing this same strain under a HPS and has totally kicked my ass. There are a lot of variables however. He let his veg for longer and stretched them in a scrog. He's using 10 gal smartpots and has a proven feeding regiment (I burned my leaves a bit).

I have held off on transplanting the babies into the air-pots until my soil is ready (which should be tomorrow). It has taken me some time to get all the ingredients together since I had to order most of it. Big thanks to bigirishdoode for his help with mixing an awesome soil mixture. I hope this mix in my air-pots is going to grow some big, fat, hairy, stinky girls!!

Per container:
2 ft^3 Roots Organics Coco
2 ft^3 Fox Farm Ocean Forest
1 ft^3 Perlite #3 coarse
3 C Extreme Gardening Mycos
2 C Happy Frog Steamed Bone Meal
2.5 C (1 lb) Azomite
1/4 C (1.25 oz) TeraVita SP-90 Humic Acid Powder
7 lbs (1/2 bag) Wiggle Worm Earthworm Castings
2 gal (diluted) Vermi T Solution microbial tea

It is really hard to figure out how much azomite and humic acid to use since they only give directions for square feet (not cubic) and/or how much to use per acre. I just used an educated guess. The hydro store has this tea available at all times for $6 and can be diluted to 25 gallons. I probably will make my own eventually, but this was easy for now. What do you think of my science experiment? Do you see any problems with my mix or ratios?

 

[Loial Green]

I hope to get a little more conversation started on this blog. I am not that experienced as this is my first indoor grow. A little feedback would be much appreciated! Thank you in advance for any and all critiques and comments!

 

[s1ingblade]

I just finished a similar grow coco/led and air pots, I was also very light compared to a similar grow with the same strains but under HPS. It took me a while to figure it out but I was burning the plants to the point of lockout (full strength as suggested by Advanced Nutes) and then not knowing much about growing with leds had the lights to close and just nuked the poor plants and obviously got a bad taste in my mouth. Thanks to all of you and this site I have learned a lot of things here that apply to growing with led's that I didn't know or think about. One thing I am learning is that to close can bleach out your buds and tips and that the plant's transpiration rates are MUCH different, I was trying to water and feed the same way as with HID's not considering that for 1 not having so much heat as to have to have a/c like the HID's my plants didn't have the same water requirements as the plants flowering under a big 1100 watt MH. I am sorry if that was a jumbled confusing mess, feel free to pm me anytime or to look soon for my upcoming journal I will do just as soon as the tent shows up next week (I cant wait).
I will look fwd. to learning more and more from you xxxSYNxxx, thanks.

 

[s1ingblade]

I guess what I was trying to say was that the same plants, same medium, same nutes but one growing under led's and the other set growing under HID's the plants under hid's were able to handle the hot nutes better because they were transpiring so much more. What I am wondering is the reason they sweat more is just because of the higher temps?

 

[Loial Green]

Hi Arizonameds,

First off, yes please let me know when you start your journal. I just included the link to my journal in my "signature" so every time I post, anyone can click on my grow. I hope this will increase traffic.

I don't know exactly why the plants can't handle the stronger nutes but you are right, they can't. That is why I am going to do this run without the strong chemicals. That sucks too because I spent a pretty penny on my nutes. Everything that I have been researching suggests that if you get your soil to a healthy, "living" state, your plants require a lot less nutrients because they can efficiently uptake whats in the soil. I'm then on the fence whether I am going to feed with the Fox Farm food (grow big, big bloom, and tigers bloom) or another organic 3 part system. Any suggestions? Have you heard of any cons with fox farm food? I think you are right about the concept of lockout and with my old shitty pots, I know that the root growth was stunted. I make sure to only water when the pots get dry but before the plants wilt. What size air pots do you use and how often do you water?

My tent stays around 80-85 degrees without any extra cooling, just fans to keep the air moving. That is on the high end of the safe temperature zone. With the temps the same, I don't understand why there would be such a significant difference between LED and HID (I've never grown with HID). If both systems are running at 85, wouldn't the plants perspire the same. So I guess I have the same questions as you. Let me know if you get an answer before me.

Thanks for the discussion!
SYN

 

[Loial Green]

Day 67.
Plants still aren't ready. Can LED lighting effect the amount of time that it takes for flowers to mature? It is close however. My trichomes aren't crystal clear anymore; they have a haziness / cloudiness to them. Hopefully a few more days until I see the first sign of amber.

Babies are now in the air-pots with their new soil mixture and loving it!! Also I just ordered another 900 watt LED from dormgrow.com (actually from ebay because its cheaper than their website). That means that in a couple of weeks, I will have both tents running strong. Hopefully the babies will be big enough to be moved into their new home and put into flower. Should I run a week of 18/6 lighting under the LEDs before i switch to 12/12?

 

[CascadianDank]

So how did it turn out and are you still going with the 2nd light??