Scarfinger68's - Soil - CFL - Aurora Indica Journal - 2013

[Scarfinger68]

Scarfinger68’s, Soil, CFL, Aurora Indica Journal - 2013


Nirvana’s Aurora Indica
Indica (Afghan x Northern Lights)
Starting from feminized seeds (5)
Will probably Veg for 60 days
Flowering will be 7 - 9 weeks
Indoor grow
FFOF soil
1 gallon pot, 6” square pot, and 24 oz. cup.

Veg Room Lighting
26W (color: 5000 K) (Lumens: 1850) x2, 26W (color: 6500 K) (lumens: 1850) x2, 26W (color: 2700 K) (Lumens: 1800) x2

Flower Room Lighting
42W (color: 2700 K) (Lumens: 2800) x8 = 22400 lumens
2’ x 2’ Flower box = 4 sq. ft.
22400 lm/4 sq. ft. = 5600 lumens per sq. ft.
(ideal is 7000 -1000 lumens per sq. ft.) (minimum recommended is 3000 lm/sq. ft.)

Flower Box Exhaust
4" High Output Inline Fan by CAN

Temp is 79 to 84°F
RH 40% to 60%

Soil PH 6.8
No pest
Watering as needed, every 2 days or so with aerated tap water.

Fertilizer:
Fox Farm Grow Big, Tiger Bloom, Big Bloom, Tecnaflora MagiCal, Thrive for Microbials, Unsulphured Molasses, Epsoma Garden Lime, Epsom Salt, and an All Purpose 10-10-10 slow release dry.

 

[Scarfinger68]

Planted 5 feminized seeds today in styrofoam cups. I mixed the soil with 1/2 FFOF and 1/2 Epsoma organic seed starter. I pre-soaked the soil with tap water straight from the sink. Stirred the soil around with a spoon to ensure 100% saturation. Cut holes in the bottom of the cups to drain the excess water.

Dropped one seed into each cup and used tweezers to push the seed (approx. twice the width of the seed) into the soil pointy end up. I lightly covered each seed and then gave a couple squirts of water with a spray bottle.

Placed Plastic cups on top to make a humidity dome. These will stay on for 2 days then I will remove them and let nature takes it course.

 

[KingJohnC]

subscribed. Lumens are a scale of brightness and do not add like you believe they do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumen

 

[stealthgrow]

I'm watching.

 

[Scarfinger68]

subscribed. Lumens are a scale of brightness and do not add like you believe they do.

The link you provided was really all just a bunch of gabledeguk to me.

These concepts are widely excepted among CFL growers:

Lumens are a measure of the power of light as perceived by the human eye. (And before anyone starts to talk about plants "seeing" differently...the human eye is able to perceive light in the wavelengths used to grow.) You can grow a plant with 3000 lumens per square foot, but you're definitely on the low end with that. 5000 lumens per square foot and up is what you want to strive for.

As noted, CFLs don't have much canopy penetration. Distance form the plant is much more important for CFLs. Light from any source decreases in intensity in exponential relation to distance; the amount is the square of the distance form the source. Double any distance from a source and the amount of light will be one quarter of the previous amount. If you've got an HPS light, the 1 1/2" difference between 7" and 8 1/2" won't be huge. With a CFL, the difference of 1 1/2"...going from 1 1/1" from the plant to 3" from the plant...is the difference between getting some buds and getting nothing.

For vegging, you want to find what will be called "daylight" or "full spectrum" bulbs. They should be 5500k to 6500k.

For flowering, you will want to use "warm white" bulbs. These are more common. They are usually 2700k.

Ignore the "watt equivalent." Watts have nothing to do with growing. Watts are a measurement of energy, not light. Lumens aren't perfect, but they're more than accurate enough to determine if you have enough light.

The main difference between HPS and CFL's are light penetration. CFL's need to be closer than HPS to maintain the lumens at the canopy.

This is the perception of CFL growing by HPS users:

Although you can successfully grow and flower a cannabis plant under a fluorescent, your results will be poor and you will most likely be disappointed. Use these lights only for seedlings and clones, and perhaps the vegetative stage of the cycle. A HID light is recommended for flowering.

From this site:

Determining lumens for your grow area:
First determine the square footage of your area (example in a 4 foot by 4 foot area, there is 16 square feet, 2 by 2 feet is 4 Sq ft. ) If you have a 1000 Watt High Pressure Sodium Light Bulb, that produces approximately 107,000 lumens. Divide this by 16 (your square footage) 107,000 divided by 16 = 6687 lumens per square foot. So just divide the total amount of Lumens, by the total amount of square feet, and that's your lumens per square foot.

Considering you can't get all your lumens/wattage in one CFL you have to add them up. They may not added up the way I perceive, but that's the way CFL growers are adding them up. I am also not a scientist so other peoples past experience and knowledge is good enough for me. Even after all the review I did... I can't unequivocally say how they add up

CFL growers are mainly growing in a small space's so CFL's are more appropriate.

I will conclude by saying that if I was growing in a larger space then yes I would like to use HPS.

Thanks for your comments KingJohnC. Your always keeping me on my toes +Reps to you my friend

 

[Scarfinger68]

So Lumens, Lux and Kelvin are all complicated scientific calculations that are based on how the human eye perceives light. Not how a plant experiences light.

If you want a straightforward cut and dry answer, then it would sound something like this: “Light in the traditional household sense, is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength, or combination of wavelengths in the 400-700 Nm range which is visible to the human eye.”
Peak absorption for chlorophyll occurs at about 450nm wavelength for blue light, and 660nm or so for red light.

The problem is simple:
1) lumens are meant to be a measure of light that is useful to the human eye
2) Plants just so happen to favor light at wavelengths that the human eye is least sensitive to.
3) because of this; quantifying the amount of light a fixture produces which is useful to plant growth becomes almost completely obscured inside the data.

Plants “see” light, in terms of wavelength in nanometers that stimulate chemicals in the leaves etc to go to work... To be more precise, vigorous plant growth revolves (basically) around stimulating 2 substances: chlorophyll-A and chlorophyll-B

For example:
Take for example a LOW pressure sodium lamp. LPS is one of the most efficient sources of light on the planet, in terms of lumens/watt. It’s about 200 lumens/watt. The catch? It produces light on only two dominant spectral lines very close together at 589.0 and 589.6 nm. The averaged spectral output is almost completely on the 589.3 nm wavelength.

Hypothetical:

Let’s say My growing area happens to be one square meter, and I somehow get my hands on a 600watt Low Pressure Sodium light. (I’m not even sure if they exist). 600watts * 200 lumens/watt = 120,000 lumens/ one square meter! That means that bad boy will be illuminating the grow area with 120,000 lux of light! According to our precious lux chart- that equals nice intense direct sunlight, so we’re in great shape right? Wrong. Look at that puny spike at 589nm and look at the photosynthetic response curve I posted earlier... ALL of the light produced by the LPS light is almost completely useless. So I guess 120,000 lux doesn’t instantly mean the same as direct sunlight huh?

So just expressing a certain amount of Lumens or Lux doesn't explain how or why it is the right amount for the plant considering the plant doesn't care about those terms.

What is the wavelength range of the light radiation that is emitted by CFLs?
Since CFLs are designed to provide general illumination, the majority of the light emitted by CFLs is localized to the visible region of the spectrum (approximately 400-700 nm in wavelength). In addition, typical CFLs emit a small amount of UVB (280-315 nm), UVA (315-400 nm) and infrared (> 700 nm) radiation.

*Oh man.. I got a headache* :surrender:

So all I can conclude is that a 2700K CFL must produce a wavelength closer to the 660 nm range and a 6500K CFL must produce a wavelength closer to the 450 nm range. Lumens/Lux/wattage are all expression of power that suggest you have enough exposure to the wavelength considering only first that you have the right spectrum to begin with.

I can say I understand more about light now. Can I say I know how to add up lumens... not unequivocally.

Phew... I am done thinking about light. All I know is I got some nice buds using CFL's

Done... Finito... Wham! Bam! Thank you Mam!... and he spikes the football, game over!

Please can we stop talking about light :surrender:

 

[Scarfinger68]

Damn it! More light stuff. Just a decent post on when to consider going from CFL to HPS

So how much bigger do you have to make the HPS lamp before it starts kicking CFL's ass in terms of power efficiency? Below you will find I have done the math for the popular sizes of High Pressure Sodium bulbs:

70w(90Watts actual)- 6000Lumen 67Lumen/Watt
100w(124Watts actual)- 9500Lumen 76Lumen/Watt
150w(199Watts actual)- 15000Lumen 76Lumen/Watt
250w(300Watts actual)- 29000Lumen 97Lumen/Watt
400w(468Watts actual)- 50000Lumen 107Lumen/Watt
600w(660Watts actual)- 90000Lumen 136Lumen/Watt
1000w(1140Watts actual)- 140000Lumen 140Lumen/Watt

As you can see, the efficiency doesn't start to get worthwhile until you get up into the 250W-400W+ range. So I guess you could argue that CFL is the obvious choice for someone who wants to stay under 250 watts...

So, are you bummed out because you think $60-$100 bucks for one of those huge 150watt cfl lights is unfair? So do I. The GOOD news is that in terms of light output per watt, the smaller CFL bulbs are more efficient than their larger counterparts. See the enclosed data below

CFL Chart
26W- 1700Lumen 65Lumen/Watt
42W- 2600Lumen 62Lumen/Watt
65W- 3400Lumen 52Lumen/Watt
85W- 4200Lumen 49Lumen/Watt
105W- 6900Lumen 66Lumen/Watt
150W- 8200Lumen 55Lumen/Watt
200W- 10000Lumen 50Lumen/Watt

 

[Spimp]

Sub'd.

BTW, You are wasting your time arguing "the lumen debate" with KingJohnC. I also wasted time arguing the debate with him.
He is right.
You are right.
I am right.
Technically we are all right.

 

[Scarfinger68]

I took the humidity dome cups off. They had been on around 22 hours. I was afraid they may develop mold if I kept them on to much longer. RH in the VEG room is 52% and temps are high at 86° F.

I will keep an eye on them

 

[Spimp]

Do you always use the humidy domes? I do a hybrid germanation technique of paper towel start, then use the sun for the warmth. Always looking for new ways to skin a cat...

 

[Scarfinger68]

Do you always use the humidy domes? I do a hybrid germanation technique of paper towel start, then use the sun for the warmth. Always looking for new ways to skin a cat...

I didn't have as much success with the paper towel method. Now that I think about it... there are probably 2 main reasons

1. I would have to touch them and accidently damage them/or the hairs would get stuck on the paper towel.
2. *probably the main thing I did wrong was*: I was planting them pointy end up (Now I know this is wrong for this type of germination technique) when I should of been planting them pointy end down.

I decided to do this soil method before I really figured out what I was doing wrong with the paper towel method.

With my current method:
I rarely touch the seed. I use tweezers to push it into the soil pointy end up (which is better for this technique). The dome is... my own thing. There may be others that do it. I was just thinking it would give the seed time to soften up and sprout. The risk is mold.

One think I did that they say not to do is use chlorinated water. I used water from the tap. My reasoning is the chlorine will kill any harmful stuff in the soil that may cause mold/disease.

*These are my reasons for doing it this way and I can't say that these are correct.

 

[CrimsonBlitz]

sweet a new journal I'm subbed, glad I made it on the first page.

That's a lot of info on lights lol. Funny thing is you guys haven't even scratched the surface. Lighting is a very touchy personal and very complicated subject to get into. So I say whatever floats your boat If I had a choice, i'll take any wattage Cooltube HPS > CFLs any day of the week. I realize its situational too

Thankfully, I havent had a problem with germing seeds or cloning. I'm pretty abusive too lol. I handle my seeds all the time even though your not supposed to, I touch their tap roots also when I pop them into a hole (not recommended).

I'd still have to say my all time favorite method for germ is soak for 12-24 hours in water then damp (not too wet) paper tower into a misted ziplock bag in a warm location. Works like a charm

 

[Crawdaddy]

Subbed, so going for a heavy Indica it looks like.

 

[Scarfinger68]

Subbed, so going for a heavy Indica it looks like.

Oh yeah! This will be the "heaviest" Indica dominant strain I have ever grown. I hope it is a real show stopper ...

She's a showstoppa
Make ya body rocka
I know you wanna go and throw away your last dolla
Good god allmighty girl she's drivin em wild

Make ya say
Ooowee ooowee thats the way I like it baby

Now that would be some good shiznits!

I am thinking your Kali Mist may come closer to the above statements.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

[Scarfinger68]

I got 4 volunteers. I dug down into the soil of the 5th one (not a recommended technique but I couldn't help myself) and it does have a little shoot coming out. It may make it... time will tell.

4 sprouts after 3 days in the soil:

 

[stealthgrow]

Your on your way...

I'm watching

 

[Crawdaddy]

I dug down into the soil of the 5th one (not a recommended technique but I couldn't help myself) and it does have a little shoot coming out. It may make it... time will tell.

I did that with my 3 seedlings, I do not do patience well Was glad I did though found all 3 about 1/4-1/2 inch down trying to poke through. So cleared off the soil above them, let them do their thing for a few days, then put soil back in around stem. Benefit was they not stretch out as much. I made the mistake of planting them in bigger pots to start out though, got slow start cause roots probably going till found bottom.

 

[frostyMJbudEC]

subbed

 

[Scarfinger68]

subbed

 

[frostyMJbudEC]

thnx for for having me, im always looking for fresh new grows to follow but every one i find is well on its way, so im glad i could catch this one early