Seeds Popped: What’s The Next Move?

[Delps8]

What I meant is that every year the LED lights seem to be putting out more lumens/par per watt consumed than last year's models. Different diodes come out that are more efficient and cooler removing the need for active cooling, the spectrum gets adjusted for example using full spectrum white light rather than blurples, etc.

Ah, got it.
Agreed - the LED marketplace in 2021 is very different than it was in in 2017 (fortunately).

 

[Enjoil]

I thought about that but decided against is for these reasons:

1. The T5 is an 18 watt light that produces 50 µm/second. Every source I’ve read states that 100 µm/second is the minimum that “seedlings likes”. Published ranges seem to be 100-200 or 100-300. With those figures in mind, the T5 will provide no more than 50% and as little at 16% of the recommended PPFD.
2. An advantage of the T5 is that it’s blue heavy, which is considered to be favored in the vegetative stage. When I look at the spectrum map for the SP 3000, it appears that 100 µm/second of their light is will provide more blue light than the T5 and it also provides other parts of the spectrum that the T5 doesn’t.
3. 
   
4. As the seedlings start get bigger, I can adjust the PPFD too 1 µm/second level. I can’t do that with the T5.

Agreed but what’s “much”.

Every source I’ve looked at states that the minimum recommended light intensity is 100 µm/second and, also during the seedling stage, the top end is either 200 or 300. The little T5 can’t supply the minimum level.

The SP 3k has a decent amount of blue in the spectrum and, since I can control the amount of light at such a granular level, I think they’ll get what they need from the Mars.

I’m just trying to save you a bit of hassle bro.

 

[Enjoil]

What I meant is that every year the LED lights seem to be putting out more lumens/par per watt consumed than last year's models. Different diodes come out that are more efficient and cooler removing the need for active cooling, the spectrum gets adjusted for example using full spectrum white light rather than blurples, etc.

I think there’s plasma grow lights and water cooled LEDs now. Crazy! I just wanna be able to use the sun!!!

 

[Delps8]

I’m just trying to save you a bit of hassle bro.

Thank you. I appreciate the info and the suggestions.

That’s a lot of new plants! My little 2 x 4 has a 2 passenger limit!

BTW, I just poked my nose in the tent and the plants are noticeably bigger. I’m pretty psyched about that especially in comparison to the results of the last few weeks. That was awful…

 

[Delps8]

I think there’s plasma grow lights and water cooled LEDs now. Crazy! I just wanna be able to use the sun!!!

No question about that but have to checked the price of a can of sunshine recently? ;-)
That’s the funny thing - we have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get the same thing (±) that’s right outside the building.

“water cooled LED’” - I can imagine that in a commercial grow. The Kind that I had threw off some heat, no question about that. It was nothing like a CMS or an HID but fans were definitely needed and I always ran the inline fan when the LED was on.

“plasma grow light” - meh. Gimme a plasma cannon…

 

[Enjoil]

Thank you. I appreciate the info and the suggestions.

That’s a lot of new plants! My little 2 x 4 has a 2 passenger limit!

BTW, I just poked my nose in the tent and the plants are noticeably bigger. I’m pretty psyched about that especially in comparison to the results of the last few weeks. That was awful…

Look at this mess! And this is after a clean up! They’re ready to go to the flower room now....

 

[Delps8]

Look at this mess! And this is after a clean up! They’re ready to go to the flower room now....

Says Enjoil to someone who kills seedlings…

Seriously, congrats on the grow and good luck in flower.

 

[Delps8]

These seedlings are looking so much better I'm almost tempted to be optimistic. It may be grow journal time in a few days.

 

[Enjoil]

Says Enjoil to someone who kills seedlings…

Seriously, congrats on the grow and good luck in flower.

That’s your motivation to let them ease into the high power lights... they will stay alive better I’m thinking...

 

[Delps8]

That’s your motivation to let them ease into the high power lights... they will stay alive better I’m thinking...

"ease into the high power light" Absolutely. The last thing I want to do is go from not enough light to too much light. Right now, I'm at the lowest recommended light level.

The Mars can put out a lot of light but it's dimmable from 5% to 100% intensity. Right now it's about 25" above the "canopy" running at 15% power. The PPFD is 100 µm/second and, thanks to the SP3K, the coverage is extremely uniform.

The current PPFD level is the minimum recommended PPFD for cannabis seedlings. I've seen recommended ranges of 100-200, 100-300, and, just tonight, another source recommending 200-400. Assuming that the plants react as expected, I'll gradually increase the light level to 400 µm/second which is the minimum recommended level in the vegetative stage,

 

[Delps8]

Family photo. I found one of the seeds on the floor of the germinator a few days ago so I’m down one seed. The remaining 5 seem to be doing pretty well at this point. It will be 4 days germinating at the end of today.

 

[Delps8]

Bloody kids. Every time you turn around, the little bastards have grown!
Other pix - the POSSQL's ex has Krispy Kreme artery-cloggers delivered. He's a nice guy but I don't trust him. Ball's in my court though - the little bitch doesn't know about the stents.

 

[Delps8]

I’m just trying to save you a bit of hassle bro.

I've been thinking about why I wasn't using the T5 and am using the Mars and, rather than using just the Mars, there's a lot of benefit to using both and I appreciate you pushing me in that direction.
The good thing about a T5 is the amount of blue light but the 18 watt bulb only generates a PPFD level of 50. On the other hand, the Mars can generate a very low amount of light but its spectrum is balanced so there's nowhere near the percentage of blue in its payload. Put another way, the 50 µm/second of light from the T5 has a pant load more blue than 50 from the Mars. So, the best of both worlds is…
I can hang the T5 in the tent and use that to supply a blue-heavy "baseload" of 50µm/second and use the dimming feature of the Mars to add in the rest of the light that's needed.
The reason why this has been buzzing around in my head is that the tallest seedling started leaning really badly so I used a toothpick and a twist'em to hold it up and then bumped the light level up. Leggy, weak stems can be caused by too little light so I added 20µm/s. The plant straightened up within a few hours.
Blue light can be used to keep plants compact. Turn that around and lack of blue light will tend to allow plants to get tall and I think that's what happened. When the seedlings were really young, they were under the T5 and I noticed that the seedlings were short with thick stems. After lighting up the Mars, they grew tall but thinned out. I didn't connect those dots till tonight.
I'm hoping that by adding in the T5, the blue light will help the seedlings grow compact and strong rather than tall and skinny. That's just a theory and, you're right, something documented in a grow journal.

 

[Delps8]

The plants in the pix were seeds in the 'fridge 10 days ago.

They've been at a PPFD of 185/DLI of 12 for a few days but I'm going to bump that to 200 PPFD tomorrow and will continue to push the light level based on recommended minima and observation.

The VPD has been 0.9± for the past two days. The ideal is to get that to 0.8 but I don't have a controller that's VPD savvy. I'm using Inkbird temperature and humidity controllers, a Pulse One, and Acurite sensors. I need to get them all calibrated.

The plant in the third row had a stem that was so weak that it fell over. I've set up the blue-heavy 18 watt T5 lamp to coax it along and it's doing fine but, while its a good exercise in plant husbandry, at this point what difference does it make? Yeh, that one's gotta go. I don't want it to die on me and put me in nutrient lockup…

 

[Delps8]

how to make a grow journal

congrats on the germination. put them in the tent with the light at the proper seedling height.

It took a while but I just now started a grow journal. It looks like I might have an algae/mold/something issue and I need to deal with that pronto. Thanks for pushing me to get this journal started.