The Physicist's Indoor Soil Vanilla Frosting

[The Physicist]

Hi everyone and welcome! This is my first grow. As a scientist I like to focus on the small details for optimization. Any information is always welcome! Spread the knowledge!

I would like to thank everyone who has posted here over the years and kept journals.
I'm a long time reader, first time poster and grower, and have learned an incredible amount from you all.

Let's get going on the details of the grow.

- Strain -
Strain: Vanilla Frosting
Type: Hybrid
Percentages: 65% Indica 35% Sativa
Source: Female Clones from THC Design after first visible root.
Veg Stage: 3 Weeks (6/2 Lighting Schedule)
Flowering Stage: Flipped to 12/12 two days ago.
Topped: Middle Week 2, LST Week 2 until now, re-positioning every two days.
Defoliation: Every few days, so many fan leaves its insane.

- Medium and Nutrients -
Medium: FFOF (Fox Farm Ocean Forrest) Soil 70%, Perlite 29%, 1% Mosquito Bits (Bacillus Thuringiensis subspecies: Israelensis). The reasoning for the Mosquito Bits is preventative maintenance against any fungal gnats which feast on roots. I had this destroy some vegetables I was growing inside and this solved my problem years back. I use this in the mix and sprinkle a teaspoon worth on the top once planted. I never see fungal gnats in any of the indoor plants, so it seems to work well.
Nutrients:
Fox Farm Trio - Grow Big, Big Bloom, Tiger Bloom
Fox Farm - Wholly Mackerel
Fox Farm - Kelp Me Kelp You
Fox Farm - Microbe Brew
Fox Farm - Flowers Kiss
Fox Farm - Sledge Hammer
Botanicare - Sweet (Raw)
Mad Farmer - Get Down
Mad Farmer - Mother of all Blooms (M.O.A.B)
Rhizoflora - Terpinator
Home Made - Neem Oil/Citrus Soap Mix

- Hardware -
Grow Space: Attic Crawl Space, 3.2' x 2.5' x 5.5' Lined with Reynolds Aluminum Foil, 2 Rolls
Air Flow: 12" Intake fan connected to humidifier shoots cool air up into the crawl space, two 6" Post fans oscillate around the base of the plants, one oscillates over the top. 12" Exhaust fan sits above crawl space entrance near intake fan. Provides constant air flow around the entire crawl space.
CO2: MyCO2 Bloom Blue Oyster Mushrooms x 3, total ppm 1200
Humidifier: Vick's Cool Moisture Humidifier.
Heater: 125W heat lamp enclosed in a black box, used during lights off hours.
Grow Light (Clone Week): LED/T5/CFL
Grow Light (Week 2): 180W Full Spectrum 12" above, 100W LED, enhanced red/blue, combined around the sides illuminating the lower canopy/any hidden leaves, 6 - 10" away.
Grow Light (Week 3-Flowering): 315W Phillips 3100k CMH in Mantis Horticulture Ballast/Reflector 18" above canopy, 100W LED, enhanced red/blue combined around the sides illuminating the lower canopy/any hidden leaves, 6 - 10" away.
Light Cooling: None except for circulating air.
Plant Pots: 3 Gallon Black Plastic, with ~ 100 small 4mm drilled holes for added root ventilation.
Mounting: Zip-ties, Hooks in the roof. Allows for constant 1" adjustments at basically no cost.

- Tools -
Spectrometer: Ocean Optics HR2000+ (Measure spectral intensity distribution above the canopy and below for optimization of PPFD/PAR)
Thermal Camera: Seek Pro (Measure Leaf Temperature)
Humitity/Temp: ThermPro TP60 x 3
Trimmers: Kiku 8" Bonsai Scissors
pH/EC/TDS Meter: Vivosun Amazon
Microscope: Vividia V1-PS 2MP Handheld USB
Reservoir: Gravity Feeding hung from ceiling
Light sensor: Lux Sensor Edmund

- Environment -
Lights ON Temp: 77-80F
Lights OFF Temp: 71-73F
RH Veg: 58-61%
RH Flower: 46-48%
pH: 6.5
Veg ppm: 750-850
Veg EC: 1.7
Flower ppm: 950-1100
Flower EC: 2.1
Leaf Temp: 75-78F, Room Temp - 2 (Measured with Thermal Imaging Camera)
Calculated VPD Veg: 0.97-1.04
Calculated VPD Flower: 1.4 - 1.5
Calculated PPFD from Spectral Intensity Distribution/Lux Measurement: 545 umol/m2/s

- Feeding Schedule -
Dryness: Knuckle Method (~2-3x/week veg and ~3x/ week flower)
Quantity: Half Gallon / Plant (results in 5% runoff)
Nutrient Feeding: Half Strength of Fox Farm Feeding Schedule, every other watering, (pH to 6.5 each time with Terpinator every watering)
Foliar Spray: Once a week for 3 more weeks.
Flush: Every two week.

I'll be adding some photos of the ladies soon. Feel free to ask me anything or point out any info I forgot to mention.

 

[The Physicist]

Does anyone have a true definitive answer for drying buds with or without leaves still attached? Subtract environmental conditions, focusing only on terpenes, smell and bud density.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Hi, there, (The) Physicist. Would you be of the (possibly theoritical) astro variety, by chance? I've been... spaced upon occasion.

Regardless, I see that you're new, here, so: Welcome to 420Magazine! You deserve a commendation for that initial journal post - it might just be the most thorough one I have ever seen.

Good luck with your grow!

 

[The Physicist]

Thank you! Figured more detail is always better when trying to get advice from more knowledgeable individuals. I did my graduate thesis in high energy laser physics. Never was much for a theory guy, always was fascinated with light and how I could manipulate it.

 

[Pennywise]

Welcome to 420 Magazine, your looking good so far.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I did my graduate thesis in high energy laser physics. Never was much for a theory guy, always was fascinated with light and how I could manipulate it.

Ah. Maybe you could answer a question that I have been wondering about for a while?

 

[The Physicist]

Sure ask away! Thanks pennywise!

 

[The Physicist]

Here is the spectral intensity distribution for many lights common to growers. Here is the spectral intensity of the sun for reference at noon, in california. Hopes this helps people understand my grow light structure and pattern of usage. The most important part to growing plants in my opinion (I'm biased as I love light!) is optimizing your spectral intensity distribution aka PAR/PPFD.

Sunlight:

T5 Tubes:

Full Spectrum Feit LED:

Cool CFL LED 100W Equivalent (Home Depot):

Optimized Side/Under Canopy Spectra:

Warm CFL LED equivalent 100W (Home Depot):

CMH 315W Phillips 3100k Spectra:

 

[The Physicist]

This really makes it quite easy to calculate your PPFD and PAR. Integrate spectral intensity distribution with the measured LUX and you get the actual PPFD in umol/m2/s.

 

[Pennywise]

Interesting

 

[The Physicist]

This demonstrates the power of CMH bulbs tbh.

 

[The Physicist]

Not necessarily in yield compared to hps, but in quality of the final bud, smell, terpenes etc.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Sure ask away!

I've been hearing/reading for a while about how people are trying to determine why and how the universe is expanding at the rate it appears to be. A very popular theory is that the universe must be full of "dark matter" and "dark energy." Although they cannot detect the stuff, they swear up and down that it must exist, because that would explain the rate of expansion.

I tend to be an "Occam's razor" kind of guy most of the time. So... Is it possible that the photon actually has a non-zero mass? Obviously, we have never been able to measure a photon's mass - so it would have to be quite low, indeed (if, in fact, it has one). But we know that photons exist! And "undetectable via current technology" does not automatically equate with "zero."

Still and all, if a photon has a mass, it's infinitesimally small. However... there are a pretty <BLEEP>ing huge amount of them - I read that, in order to emit 60 Joules per second, a light bulb has to produce 180,000,000,000,000,000,000 photons per second. I probably don't have enough years remaining to allow me to add enough zeros to that number to represent the output of the average star per second, lol. And they're going in every direction. If one defines any given space as a sphere and then sticks some objects in that space which, when released, fly off in every direction... And the person then says, "Okay, now the sphere is defined as the space which encompasses those objects," well, he or she is now talking about a space that is constantly expanding.

Or something like that. Yes, we'd have to rewrite a few theories. <SHRUGS> But that's what you do when you get new evidence - or gain a greater understanding of that which you already have. Like that whole gravitational lensing thing. They say it's because black holes warp, bend, and puncture spacetime. And that's another thing that I've always had trouble swallowing. Because those f*ckers can move. Yet spacetime does not now look like a randomly plowed field (possibly one that has some holes poked through it)! On the other hand, if photons have mass, then they can be directly affected by black holes, just like any other object that has mass can be affected by really massive objects. You want to get a Voyager spacecraft up to 15+ km/sec, but you cannot simply attach a 100-mile long rocket to the thing, then you use slingshot maneuvers around various celestial objects. Right? Right! If there's a "gravitational lens" affect - and that's observable - then I'm... first of all... going to wonder if it might be because photons do have mass - NOT decide that it must be because black holes wad up the very fabric of the universe like a used tissue (FFS!).

I'm merely a semi-technological, middle-aged, grumpy hillbilly most of the time. I did manage to graduate high school, but the only college courses I ever took were some that I did purely for my own learning/entertainment way back when I was in fifth-sixth grade. So not exactly much in the way of a formal education. I've asked a couple people about this stuff, but basically got shot down without any consideration.

I don't know... I'm probably completely wrong. It's not like I run the Rose Center for Earth and Space - or even just the Hayden Planetarium - or anything. But, be that as it may... Einstein's Theory of Relativity goes out the window when you try to use it in the world of quantum mechanics. Which is hardly surprising, what with good ol' Einey Steiney not believing that black holes could actually exist as anything other than a theoritical thought exercise :rolleyes : - but I digress, and I'm trying to keep this short. What I was about to type was that it doesn't matter if some bozo walks in and he's such a moron that he cannot seem to learn to not wipe his runny nose on his hand - if he spits out a theory that works in both the "macro" and the "quantum" world, then people are probably going to wonder if there might be something to it, yeah? But I'm not really a "people person," so that's just an assumption on my part. Maybe they'd all just have him ejected from the building before calling the janitor in to mop up the poor guy's trail, IDFK.

If someone listens to my idea about photons having mass and says, "No, that's not how it is," well, they're probably correct. But then, again, if it can be used to help explain this thing, and that thing, and those other things, and the other possible explanations involve some kind of mass and energy that we can't see, can't smell, can't taste, can't hear, can't pick up, can't move, can't... <SIGH>.

So: Yes or no? (Thanks!)

 

[TorturedSoul]

This really makes it quite easy to calculate your PPFD and PAR. Integrate spectral intensity distribution with the measured LUX and you get the actual PPFD in umol/m2/s.

Maybe so, but if you already have the former, why even bother with the latter? Our plants do not come equipped with the Eyeball, Mark I (Human).

 

[BedroomFarmer]

I'll sit in for this. Plants looking good

 

[CagedApe]

Does anyone have a true definitive answer for drying buds with or without leaves still attached? Subtract environmental conditions, focusing only on terpenes, smell and bud density.

I would say it's all relative....

 

[The Physicist]

I've been hearing/reading for a while about how people are trying to determine why and how the universe is expanding at the rate it appears to be. A very popular theory is that the universe must be full of "dark matter" and "dark energy." Although they cannot detect the stuff, they swear up and down that it must exist, because that would explain the rate of expansion.

I tend to be an "Occam's razor" kind of guy most of the time. So... Is it possible that the photon actually has a non-zero mass? Obviously, we have never been able to measure a photon's mass - so it would have to be quite low, indeed (if, in fact, it has one). But we know that photons exist! And "undetectable via current technology" does not automatically equate with "zero."

Still and all, if a photon has a mass, it's infinitesimally small. However... there are a pretty <BLEEP>ing huge amount of them - I read that, in order to emit 60 Joules per second, a light bulb has to produce 180,000,000,000,000,000,000 photons per second. I probably don't have enough years remaining to allow me to add enough zeros to that number to represent the output of the average star per second, lol. And they're going in every direction. If one defines any given space as a sphere and then sticks some objects in that space which, when released, fly off in every direction... And the person then says, "Okay, now the sphere is defined as the space which encompasses those objects," well, he or she is now talking about a space that is constantly expanding.

Or something like that. Yes, we'd have to rewrite a few theories. <SHRUGS> But that's what you do when you get new evidence - or gain a greater understanding of that which you already have. Like that whole gravitational lensing thing. They say it's because black holes warp, bend, and puncture spacetime. And that's another thing that I've always had trouble swallowing. Because those f*ckers can move. Yet spacetime does not now look like a randomly plowed field (possibly one that has some holes poked through it)! On the other hand, if photons have mass, then they can be directly affected by black holes, just like any other object that has mass can be affected by really massive objects. You want to get a Voyager spacecraft up to 15+ km/sec, but you cannot simply attach a 100-mile long rocket to the thing, then you use slingshot maneuvers around various celestial objects. Right? Right! If there's a "gravitational lens" affect - and that's observable - then I'm... first of all... going to wonder if it might be because photons do have mass - NOT decide that it must be because black holes wad up the very fabric of the universe like a used tissue (FFS!).

I'm merely a semi-technological, middle-aged, grumpy hillbilly most of the time. I did manage to graduate high school, but the only college courses I ever took were some that I did purely for my own learning/entertainment way back when I was in fifth-sixth grade. So not exactly much in the way of a formal education. I've asked a couple people about this stuff, but basically got shot down without any consideration.

I don't know... I'm probably completely wrong. It's not like I run the Rose Center for Earth and Space - or even just the Hayden Planetarium - or anything. But, be that as it may... Einstein's Theory of Relativity goes out the window when you try to use it in the world of quantum mechanics. Which is hardly surprising, what with good ol' Einey Steiney not believing that black holes could actually exist as anything other than a theoritical thought exercise :rolleyes : - but I digress, and I'm trying to keep this short. What I was about to type was that it doesn't matter if some bozo walks in and he's such a moron that he cannot seem to learn to not wipe his runny nose on his hand - if he spits out a theory that works in both the "macro" and the "quantum" world, then people are probably going to wonder if there might be something to it, yeah? But I'm not really a "people person," so that's just an assumption on my part. Maybe they'd all just have him ejected from the building before calling the janitor in to mop up the poor guy's trail, IDFK.

If someone listens to my idea about photons having mass and says, "No, that's not how it is," well, they're probably correct. But then, again, if it can be used to help explain this thing, and that thing, and those other things, and the other possible explanations involve some kind of mass and energy that we can't see, can't smell, can't taste, can't hear, can't pick up, can't move, can't... <SIGH>.

So: Yes or no? (Thanks!)

Quite the post you have there haha. Lets narrow that down to a few things, photons are massless, we know this because for example neutrinos exist which help conserve mass and spin (a intrinsic quantum parameter) in particle decay. This is the foundation for the Standard Model of particle physics.

Dark energy/matter is very much real and there are spectrometers being made now to measure the light given as theoretical processes from dark energy/matter expansion/events.

Einsteins work is truly beautiful and people forget Einstein didn’t just define Relativity, he wrote quantum theory and theorized the Laser 50 years before its creation. Brownian motion is another big one most people over look as another massive Einstein accomplishment. Schrodinger defined the energy levels of quantized system with his famous equation.

Einstein‘s theories stated black holes could always exist but no physicist like them because we can never see inside one. We can send probes to the event horizon, or measure pair production at the event horizon for information conservation, but we cannot see inside to make a measurement. This is what troubled Einstein and many physicists today. What the hell is a black hole, we know it has finite mass, size, angular momentum, rotation, field strength, but what is it?

Gravitational lensing is fun, and its not just with black holes, its any object with mass in space will distort the fabric of space-time. A super dense neutrino star will exhibit significant gravitational lensing, but not as much as a black hole. The earth even has a lensing effect albeit extremely small, all objects with massive distort space-time.

Side note, many lasers today operate at >100Joules at several Hz. Albeit mostly pulsed lasers, but there are cw lasers that go to >150,000Joules/sec

hopefully this hit the topics you wanted! Cheers!

 

[The Physicist]

I would say it's all relative....

haha at the end of the day thats what I enjoy the most

 

[The Physicist]

Very aggressive stretching and growth over just 12 hours! Day 3 of Flowering started.

 

[CagedApe]

haha at the end of the day thats what I enjoy the most

I knew you would like that my friend