Noob's First Grow: Indoor, Coco, 4 Plants

[falstaffo]

nice start,
i am currently learning the woes of limited height, i have 2 areas, one is 150cm the other about 130cm, so have been implementing the mainline technique on my photos and lst/topping on a couple of royal haze autos, the autos have nearly maxed their tent lol (150cm) 7.5 weeks a couple into flower and no sign of slowing grr lol
good luck!!

 

[TheMadDabber]

So par pfd and ppfd are derivatives. (Sorry if your bot a math person) but it's like par is the length pfd is the area and ppfd like the volume. ( meters, square meters, and meters cubed)

I'm gonna butcher this so may be beat just to google an example. But par is the number of photosynthetic electro magnetic waves released per amount of time (seconds I believe). Pfd is the measurement in a 2 dimensional space. And ppfd in a 3d space. Again, sorry for butchering.

It's better than lux for example because lux measures all wavelengths and ppfd measures usable light.

You should be able to download a lux app and find a conversion table online...

But trial and error seems to do the trick just like with nutrients every plant has a sweet spot you want to find.

One thing you could do is check out the specs that came with the light or that are listed in their product's info online. Should look something like....

 

[The Bard]

nice start,
i am currently learning the woes of limited height, i have 2 areas, one is 150cm the other about 130cm, so have been implementing the mainline technique on my photos and lst/topping on a couple of royal haze autos, the autos have nearly maxed their tent lol (150cm) 7.5 weeks a couple into flower and no sign of slowing grr lol
good luck!!

Thanks Falstaffo! Yes I think height will be an issue for me as well. Going to try to quadline for that reason. Good luck with your grow as well!

 

[The Bard]

So par pfd and ppfd are derivatives. (Sorry if your bot a math person) but it's like par is the length pfd is the area and ppfd like the volume. ( meters, square meters, and meters cubed)

I'm gonna butcher this so may be beat just to google an example. But par is the number of photosynthetic electro magnetic waves released per amount of time (seconds I believe). Pfd is the measurement in a 2 dimensional space. And ppfd in a 3d space. Again, sorry for butchering.

It's better than lux for example because lux measures all wavelengths and ppfd measures usable light.

You should be able to download a lux app and find a conversion table online...

But trial and error seems to do the trick just like with nutrients every plant has a sweet spot you want to find.

One thing you could do is check out the specs that came with the light or that are listed in their product's info online. Should look something like....

Evening @Pennywise and @TheMadDabber - thanks again for being patient with me on my endless lighting questions. I vaguely remember derivatives from calculus (area under a curve, rate of change per unit of...., etc.). I get the general idea.

I wasn't able to find the type of diagram/plot that you shared here for PPFD, Dabber. However, I did find the following "spec sheet" for my LEDs. Here is what it shares: top left looks like a distribution curve of light temperature/colour. Top right - no idea, can't read the labels or axes. In the bottom left corner of the data table, I see the key metric that you both mentioned - PPFD - with a value of 365. However, I am not sure how to read the rest of the data. In particular, I was wondering if there is a standard height/distance at which PPFD is measured?

Thanks guys!

 

[The Bard]

Today's update... not much to show from the grow tent. The four plants got moved to their final home (3-gallon fabric pots) yesterday mid-afternoon. Based on some great feedback here, I made a couple of changes to what I had been doing....

1) I backed off on the concentration of the nutrient solution, as there was a little burn starting to show on one leaf, and @Derbybud suggested that the leaf-colour might be a bit dark. I had been running EC of: RO (0) + Cal/Mag (0.3) + NPK (0.4) = 0.7, pH of 5.8. I mixed up a new solution, and it is now 0 + 0.2 + 0.2 = 0.4, pH 5.9. Gave the entire pot of coir a nice soak of this new concentration.

2) Really informative (for me!) exchange going on with MadDabber and Pennywise regarding LED placement/distance above the canopy. Based on their advice, I raised the lights yesterday and addition foot, so they are now about 30" above the top leaves.

Hopefully I will have something new and fun to show tomorrow as a result of these changes. Thanks all!

 

[The Bard]

Hey @Dutchman1990... I had to make a batch of Maple Shortbread Cookies this evening. Special request from "the boss" (aka lovely wife). Shaped them a little differently than previously, just to try it out, and did the maple syrup drizzle this time. They are infused with coconut oil. Cannabis from OCS, and the quick numbers I ran came up with about 25g THC and a few mg of CBD in each cookie. Good night time snacky. Wifey is long asleep at this point, so I think they worked. Hope that you will let me know what you think of them when you get a chance to try them - might want to try with plain coconut oil the first time, just so you don't waste your good stuff.

 

[TheMadDabber]

Very good. Yeah dont ask me, I waited until college for calc. Got the worlds worst teacher and gave up. Sad cause math and science are my fav.... I digress, yes basically par is # of photosynthetic radiation particles per second pfd is meters squared and ppfd is meters cubed. Not sure derivative is at all an appropriate analogy for the scenario but I think the point was understandable.

The last number there of the specs days ppfd in u moles per meter cubed. That's the ticket. So at 36 inches or about a meter you'll have an average of 364.8 u moles. So pretty spot on for veg.

Next I want to say watch that EC. It's good for now but you'll want to assume an increase in feed of about 0.1 per week. I always start my seeds in soil for thes reason.... I'm lazy! So just keep an eye on it. It's good to keep all the coco moist after a transplant so good work. You can feed more localized every2 or 3 days so long as that other day you make sure to re moisten the coco. And always water to some sort of runoff.

That's all I got for ya today Bard. Keep it up your doing great already!!!

Have a green day

 

[Dutchman1990]

Hey @Dutchman1990... I had to make a batch of Maple Shortbread Cookies this evening. Special request from "the boss" (aka lovely wife). Shaped them a little differently than previously, just to try it out, and did the maple syrup drizzle this time. They are infused with coconut oil. Cannabis from OCS, and the quick numbers I ran came up with about 25g THC and a few mg of CBD in each cookie. Good night time snacky. Wifey is long asleep at this point, so I think they worked. Hope that you will let me know what you think of them when you get a chance to try them - might want to try with plain coconut oil the first time, just so you don't waste your good stuff.

They look fantastic Bard!! Well done and I’ll be making them this weekend! I can’t wait to whip them up and try them out! I love maple syrup anything and shortbread cookies are delectable! I’ll be sure to let you know

 

[The Bard]

Good evening everyone! Hope all is well, and folks are looking forward to the weekend just ahead.

The ideas and suggestions that @Pennywise and @TheMadDabber shared with me got me motivated to learn a little more about lighting, metrics, etc. I found this link really helpful in explaining some of the concepts. Probably too rudimentary for lots of folks, but in case you are curious....

About PAR, PPF, And PPFD

If you're shopping for horticulture grow lights, you may have seen the terms watts, lumens, LUX, foot candles, PAR, PPF, PPFD, and photon efficiency.

fluence.science

It is from a lighting manufacturer, but I didn't find it to be a "sales pitch" at all.

 

[The Bard]

Very good. Yeah dont ask me, I waited until college for calc. Got the worlds worst teacher and gave up. Sad cause math and science are my fav.... I digress, yes basically par is # of photosynthetic radiation particles per second pfd is meters squared and ppfd is meters cubed. Not sure derivative is at all an appropriate analogy for the scenario but I think the point was understandable.

The last number there of the specs days ppfd in u moles per meter cubed. That's the ticket. So at 36 inches or about a meter you'll have an average of 364.8 u moles. So pretty spot on for veg.

Next I want to say watch that EC. It's good for now but you'll want to assume an increase in feed of about 0.1 per week. I always start my seeds in soil for thes reason.... I'm lazy! So just keep an eye on it. It's good to keep all the coco moist after a transplant so good work. You can feed more localized every2 or 3 days so long as that other day you make sure to re moisten the coco. And always water to some sort of runoff.

That's all I got for ya today Bard. Keep it up your doing great already!!!

Have a green day

Thanks, and yes! I have been using the feed schedule that @Asesino85 shared in his journal a year or so ago. Gradually increasing EC each week, as well as shifting the NPK a little each week. Thanks for that reco - I'm on it!

 

[Pennywise]

Good tutorial Bard!

 

[The Bard]

Good tutorial Bard!

Thanks! I found it helpful.

 

[Mr. Magoo]

Yes. Great info there!

 

[The Bard]

So some photo updates for today.

So far so good on most fronts (FYI - the little white spots are from the diatomaceous earth I used as a preventive for bugs - need to wipe that off, LOL)....

Group shot of the foursome:

IMG_2425.JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 28, 2019

Group shot 03 28 19

Purple Kush:

P Kush.JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 28, 2019

Train Wreck:

Train (2).JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 28, 2019

Green Crack:

Crack.JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 28, 2019

Not a whole lot happening with these three. New leaves steadily appearing. Leaf colour might be a little lighter than previously, as I toned down nutrient solution EC, and raised the level of the LED lights.

The not so good news... I am a little down and bummed by the Girl Scout Cookies. I guess that somehow I have cooked it with nutrients and/or lights being too intense. It is the only one of the four that is showing this leaf problem. On the other hand, as I think back, it was also the largest when I transplanted from Solo into the 3-gallon pots. It had LOTS of roots, including some spinning circles in the bottom of the solo cup. So maybe the leaf distress is from my being too late to transplant? Regardless, I gave it another huge drink of diluted nutrient solution a few minutes ago, half the EC of what I had been using up until a few days ago - I dropped the EC down when @Derbybud flagged they looked over-fed.

Here's what it looks like right now... the brown spots and yellowing leaves are making me sad. However it is still putting out lots of new growth at the top.

GSC 5.JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 28, 2019

GSC 4.JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 28, 2019

GSC 3.JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 28, 2019

GSC 2 (2).JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 28, 2019

GSC 1.JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 28, 2019

For reference, here is what she looked like on Monday evening, just before up-potting:

Girl Scout 3.JPG

• The Bard
• Mar 25, 2019

Girl Scout 3 03 25 19

Any other theories as to what might be wrong with her, or anything else that I should be doing? I don't want to do a flush with plain water, but please let me know if you think differently.

 

[Derbybud]

Looks to me like a ph problem. Have you checked the ph lately?

 

[The Bard]

Looks to me like a ph problem. Have you checked the ph lately?

Thanks... I have been mixing up nutrient solution to get to the EC that I was targeting and then leaving it to sit for an hour or two, then pH testing. It is always a little high, and so then use pH down to get it into the range of 5.7 to 5.9. I just went down and re-tested the batch I made this afternoon, and the solution is sitting at 6.1. So it has crept up a little! I don't have a "tank" per se, just a few jugs that I have been using to mix up enough solution to last a day or two. But to be honest I haven't been re-testing pH the next day to see if things have shifted. I didn't think pH would move much after sitting for a couple of hours. I will do so tomorrow before the next feeding to see if pH has continued to climb overnight. Finally, I did calibrate my pH meter at the start of this grow, but I will check that as well - many thanks for pointing this out!!

 

[Derbybud]

That's still good. 5.7-6.2 . Then it might be calcium. Are you adding cal mag?

 

[The Bard]

Yeah, I do. I rinsed and "charged" the coco a couple of weeks ago before starting to work with it. I think it is supposed to displace sodium ions with cal/mag or something like that. Each time I mix a batch of nutrient solution I start with RO water (0 EC) and bring it up to 0.2-0.3 EC with cal/mag. Then the other nutrients go in to reach the final EC. So I don't think it is a calcium or mag deficiency. I am hoping that Derby's guess of pH might be a promising lead. I mixed up a batch of solution yesterday, and it was 5.8 when first mixed. Late last night it was 6.1. Just now it is 6.2, less than 12 hours after mixing. Since a batch of nutrients lasts me about 2 days, perhaps it is possible that it keeps on climbing? Next watering is in about 8 hours, so I will pH again then and see if it has climbed even further.

Or, it was bringing the EC up to far too fast - the dark leaves that you pointed out several days ago from too much nutrients. All the plants have dark leaves, but this is the only one with any brown spots or yellowing.

Another theory that I am pondering.... this Girl Scout Cookies was by far the biggest plant when I moved from the solo cup to the 3-gallon. In the bottom of the solo cup roots had circled several times. (None had come out the drainage hole, and I didn't think to pull the plant to check root development sooner). So perhaps the damaged leaves are from being root bound? Just a half-baked theory at this point.

If I can rule out some of the potential issues moving forward (nutrient level, height of lights above plants, and pH), then fingers-crossed that the new growth will continue and not fall victim to the same problem.

Appreciate folks chiming in with thoughts and things to check out.

 

[Derbybud]

Your new growth looks real good so maybe just keep an eye on them.

 

[The Bard]

Roger dodger, thank you! Think happy thoughts about them. Really appreciate all of you brainstorming with me on this.