Hey everyone!!!! I'm back with an all new and exciting test grow featuring the All new Advanced LED XTE series (300w model) and the Advanced LED Diamond Series EX-VEG. I was lucky enough to receive a sponsorship to showcase their lights in operation and I am very happy to be chosen and will do my best to show what these lights are capable of. I have a few new strains I will be running that I have never flowered before, as well as some strains that you have all seen me grow in the past, so this should help give me an idea of the results achieved with these panels vs what I have produced in the past Unfortunately I had to wave goodby for now to my V-Scrog, my plants were too big to put under the screen and train this run, but have no fear... the V-Scrog will be back in the future This grow journal will consist of both of my grow tents.... I tent will feature 2x Advanced LED XTE300 series lights for flowering, and the other part will consist of 2x Advanced LED Diamond Series EX-Veg 200's. So now for the traditional journal details: What strain is it? Flowering Tent: Grandaddy Purple, Purple Urkle, GSC, Ogiesel, Blue Dream, Churchberry. Veg Tent: clones of all the above, plus black cherry cola, mystery og, university hills og, Harlequin, and still trying to get clones of my SFV OG to root. fingers crossed. Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? These strains are all hybrids.... Blue dream: 80% sativa hybrid... Blueberry x Haze Churchberry: The Church (northern lights x swiss sativa skunk x super skunk) x Blueberry Grandaddy Purple: Purple Urkle x Big Bud Purple Urkle: unknown genetics OGiesel: Mass Super Skunk x Diesel x OG kush GSC (thin mint)=OG (rumored a south florida OG kush) x F1 durban (Purple Champagne X Durban Poison)) ??? Is it in Veg or Flower stage? Both tents currently in Veg, but XTE 300 series tent will soon be flipped to flowering. If in Veg... For how long? I don't keep track of veg times... If in Flower stage... For how long? Not in flowering yet, but very soon. Indoor or outdoor? Indoors. Each grow tent is a Hydrohut silver edition 2x4' tent. Actual measurements are larger and each tent measures approx 2.5'x5'x7' Soil or Hydro? Soil.... recycled and reused soil. If soil... what is in your mix? This soil has been reused and recycled each grow so the amounts of each soil supplement are not useful as it has been a few grows since originally mixed. With this batch of soil, I did add about 30% more new pro mix and added about 30% new worm castings, plus some of the supplements to regenerate the soil "organic" materials. I also was introduced to plant leaf recycling by Curso, and so I have started to take my leaves from current grows, and add them to my soil mix to break down... composting weed back into the soil The Base Soil Mix: ProMix HP Worm Castings Volcanic Pumice Alaskan Forest Humus The Amendments: Make up 15% of my total soil mix Azomite (trace minerals and micronutrients) Calcium Carbonate Powder 97% Soft Rock Phosphate (Collidal Clay with high phosphorus and CEC value) Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) Crab Meal 2-3-0 23% calcium(also a P source and source of chitin a hormone/growth regulator) Fish Bone meal. (3-18-0) 24% Calcium Lava Sand (adds trace minerals and supposedly adds paramagnetic value to the soil) Crab Shell Meal 2-3-0 23% Calcium Kelp Meal (also has growth hormones and PGR's, plus trace minerals) Alfalfa Meal. (2-0-3) (contains Trichontinol which aids in plant growth and health) Powdered Humic Acid (Adds Carbons to the soil as well as trace minerals and aids in chelation of minerals) Humboldt Myco's Maximum (Beneficial Bacteria and Mycorrizae Fungus) Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulfate) Greensand (0-0-3) (Trace Minerals) Dry Molasses (1-0-3) (Energy for the Microbes) If soil... What size pot? My flowering Pots are 5 gallon plastic square pots... Currently my Veg pots are 2 gallon round plastic...(as the plants get bigger I will be taking 6 of them and they will get transplanted into larger pots, the rest will be moved over to my 3rd (spare tent to keep going for the following cycle after this next one) Perpetual growing rocks Size of light? Flowering tent I will be using 2x Advanced LED XTE 300 series LED grow lights. Veg Tent I will be using 2x Advanced LED Diamond Series EX-VEG lights. Is it aircooled? The lights are cooled by individual fans to keep case temps down... The tent is cooled by a 6" hydrofarm fan hooked to a large carbon scrubber mounted at the top of my grow tent. Temp of Room/cab? usually my ambient temps stay between 75F-85F RH of Room/cab? my RH typically stays right around 50% but sometimes (rarely) the winds come off the desert and dry the RH down to 10% or less. PH of media or res? I don't check PH.. Any Pests ? Nope...none I do use a few preventative measures to make sure it stays this way.. I grow high brix, so typically pests don't go for high brix plants. I spray in veg with spinosad which pretty much prevents any pests from wanting to breed I use yucca extract in soil and foliar sprays which also seems to be a great pest deterrent. How often are you watering? I water every day to every other day, only 1 cup of water for small vegging plants and 2 to 2 1/2 cupss of water for larger vegging and flowering plants. Type and strength of ferts used? Using foliar products including Bloomit, Amaze and PGR. I also will be using Tand J enterprises tea and bio-minerals about 1x per month I will be giving a soil drench of earthjuice Other nutrients on hand include and may be used: occasional additive include advanced nutrients: carboload, organic b, fulvic acid occasional additives include general organics: bioweed, cal/mag, hydrolyzed squid, florablend tea, bioroot bonide liquid fish 2-4-0...love this stuff! SNS pest products for prevention Spinosad by bonide
So to keep up the trend of doing the full unboxing review and testing, I did a video for each light type including unboxing, visual review, IR thermo tests, PAR testing and Kill-a-watt tests.... The XTE 300 Unboxing video...and photos... http://youtu.be/qrCBIHX8rh8
Here is my unboxing, testing and review video and photos for the EX-VEG 200 series by Advanced LED. http://youtu.be/JlURdEYaeMo
So in my flowering tent I have 6 plants.... This is going to be fun because I have 4 strains in which I haven't flowered yet, that have been vegging for about 3 months: Blue dream, Churchberry, Grandaddy Purple and Purple Urkle.... I also have 2 "mothers" of GSC and Ogiesel that I have had vegging for about 5 months or more, so I am going to flower them out to make room for the clones I took of them, as well as get the plants more on a perpetual schedule. The GSC was trimmed, cropped and topped so many times it began to grow like a vine along the ground in my 3rd grow tent, so I had to tie all the branches to bamboo posts to hold them in the air until they retrain their position and hopefully start exhibiting heliotropism again... (growing towards the light). My Ogiesel is so bushy that it should yield really well, being that its root base is very established and it has been in veg for a long time. I will be flipping all these plants to flowering after a week. I did some topping of all the primary meristems to help bush them out even more, so I am waiting for the new growth before flipping to flowering. I also wanted the plants to get adjusted to the new lights, intensity and spectrum. I will be continuing my daily watering schedule as it showed me much better results as far as plant health over my last grow, so I pretty much will keep up the light nutrient feedings, compost teas and cal/mag water. I'm pretty excited about using these new XTE lights that use Cree and Osram chips. From all my reading, using better chips typically leads to more light per watt used, (better efficacy) and also less color shift and lumen depreciation, so I am looking forward to seeing what these chips are capable of. The total draw wattage of my flowering tent is around 500w total. (each 300 is running between 240-270W) Another cool feature of the XTE series is the ability to manually tune the spectrum output. Each channel, red and blue have a dimmer knob that control the intensity of each channel. So I can shift in more blue, or more red, or dim the red if using for veg... so it gives flexibility to the panel usage nice feature. I also have to say I already noticed about a 2-3F degree cooler tent over past grows using these lights. They run very cool, as well as have fans that blow a lot of air, but run quiet I definitely like a cooler tent Here are my girls under the new XTE lights by Advanced... Plant order in tent (Front left GSC, Front middle Ogiesel, Front right Purple Urkle) (back left churchberry, back middle, Grandaddy purple, Back right Blue Dream)
Here is my VEG tent with all my clones of all strains I have. Currently I am only running each EX-VEG panel with half the diodes on. I don't need them at full power with the plants being so small still, but as they get larger and more bushy, then I will turn on the other half of each panel to give more light. I am a big believer of full spectrum lighting, but I decided to try out the all blue spectrum out of curiosity to see how they grow my plants. Maybe I may change my opinion but I still believe that plants need full spectrum for full health so I am open to being surprised. Here are the girls under the new EX VEG lights by Advanced LED.
Thanks Poke! Grab a chair, couch, beanbag...make yourself comfortable.... should be a long but fun adventure and of course bring anything to smoke you please well MJ that is..
Quick update for today... Flowering Tent: I recently topped them all to help encourage some branching to help fill up the canopy, and so I am waiting for new leaf growth to form and thrive before flipping to flowering. (prob within 1-2 weeks). I also just tied my GSC up to the bamboo posts because it was looking very much like a vine and not growing upwards from constant trimming over its probably 6+ month in veg. I tied all the branches up to the bamboo for support and I am hoping that it regains its upward vertical growth, which it seems to already have started to send branches and leaves up to the light. I also noticed a while back (about 2 weeks ago) both my Purple urkle and Grandaddy purple showed a little leaf discoloration so I have corrected it and now they are showing healthy growth again. So I have been also waiting to make sure they are in full health before flipping to flowering. I have been only feeding them about 1 cup of water per day since they are still in veg, and yesterday mixed up a TandJ tea to get the soil boosted and teaming with microlife Other than that everything is looking good and the plants seem happy under the lights so far. Also, I do want to mention that currently I have channel 1 (blue/white channel) on full, and Channel 2 (red channel) on 3/4 full. Once I hit flowering I will have both channels on full. The VEG tent: The Veg tent is coming along nicely as well. It seems that the all blue spectrum definitely promotes more internode growth and for some reason the leaf blades seem slightly fatter than under a mixed spectrum and the internodes definitely seem much tighter together. I am still waiting to see how the all blue spectrum affects my brix levels, but its still early to take readings so I probably will wait a few weeks to test and see. I really only will be able to compare the ogiesel and GSC to past grows, but it will give me an idea if they are within the same area as they were in past grows... but so far, I am really pretty pleased at what I see, and I have to say these lights are extremely bright. I have been watering the vegging girls about every few day with only about 1 cup of water since they are still very small and aren't sucking up much water yet. I have to say overall with both lights, I am extremely pleased how my tents have both come down about 2-3F degrees and I actually was able to turn my fan speeds down slightly as well nice So I wanted to include photos to show the growth so far under the EX VEG lights. I have had these lights up and running now for about 2 weeks when I originally received them, but wanted to wait until I got the XTE lights to get the journal started. Unfortunately the 1st 2 XTE lights I was sent had to go back because of issues with them, but as we all know, things happen, electronics sometimes fail, and its not really a concern as long as it is handled by the company in a quick and efficient manner. Advanced handled the issue very professionally, was extremely apologetic, and had new lights out to me as soon as they received the old ones back. So really no big deal to me, and it was handled with care and professional nature so I had no worries at all. I wanted to explain this for 2 reasons, 1 to let you know exactly my experience so far, but also to explain why I have run the EXVEG panels for 3 weeks without journaling them. So here is the photos I took on Sept 21 when I hung the panels, and the vegging plants today about 3 weeks later. Sept 21st... Sept 28th... Today...
Hey Everyone... Update time.. So since right now both of my Tents are in Veg, I haven't been updating as frequently as I usually do since not much changes day to day, as well as being in VEG is kind of boring compared to flowering haha I have been working on getting my plants health back to perfect before flowering, both my purple urkle and grandaddy purple have been showing some odd leaf discoloration so I gave them a medium flush the other day, and have been letting the soil dry out. I checked the PPM and it wasn't extremely high (of the runoff) and I put in 0ppm water and it came out around 1200ppm which for most strains seems to be ok..usually when it gets around 1600 or more is where typically I see issues, so I gave them a good flush anyways and then hit them with some cal/mag and phospherous because I believe this may be what is causing the issue. They don't look horrible, but I just want to make sure they are not stressing when I put them into flowering. I also have been waiting for all the new leaves and tops to form since about 1 week ago I did some trimming/pruning/topping to help encourage more branching, as well as a fuller canopy. So far over the course of the last week, the plants seem to be doing good and the canopy is getting much fuller. I probably will be flipping them to flowering within the next week. My Veg tent is doing really good and so far I am pretty impressed with how things are looking in there. The plants are growing very bushy and seem to have extremely tight internodes. Plant health also seems to be good and so far I am happy with what I am seeing Well here are the photo's of both tents
There getting there just trying to make sure that the plants regain health...both my GDP and Purple Urkle seem unhappy, lots of leaf discoloration... so gave em a flush, and hopefully by the end of the week they will be ready to flower
Nice brother. Have you checked for roots at the bottom of the pots? Might be time for a transplant? You know them better than me tho!
I haven't checked but they should be ok.. usually the pots after full flowering are pretty full, but not rootbound which is good. I think the discoloration may have had to do with me adding calcium carbonate, and locking up phosphorus, but not exactly sure. I am horrible at diagnosing plant issues lol
Ah, plant issues are my forté But if you added calcium carbonate that coulda done it! If it doesnt improve throw a pic up and we'll see if we cant figure it out together!
I appreciate that Poke! I am definitely leaning towards it being the calicum carbonate, I should have also added Soft rock phosphate to balance the calcium to P, but ran out. I added some humboldt bloom which is basically liquid SRP and liquid calcium carbonate, after the flush to help restore the balance, and will be mixing up a compost tea tonight to further repopulate my microbe population I definitely think it may be P due to the purpling of the leaves.
Hey everyone... Just wanted to drop a quick update. So things are looking really good in my flowering tent and It should be within a week that the ladies get flipped to flowering. After flushing the grand daddy purple and purple urkle they are showing healthy new growth and seem to be recovering fine. It was very odd because only half of each plant was showing discolored leaves, not top to bottom halves, but side to side halves. Almost as if half the plant was infected or something odd, or had some weird genetic trait??? not sure what exactly the cause is since they are fed exactly the same as all my other plants which are showing pretty good health... but its ok now because they are looking happy again So as for the veg tent it is also looking good. I currently am running the panels at only half wattage (one switch on, one off) on each panel since the plants are young and don't need full power yet. It seems to be vegging them just fine and even with half power off, the coverage seems to reach all sides of my tent fairly well. I am not noticing a huge difference in the plants as far as growth or health over full spectrum lights, but I did notice that the plants under the EX-Veg blue lights, are showing many more leaves developing on the lower branches, making them bush out more than usual. Lots of leaves The node spacing looks slightly tighter too, and growth seems to be pretty fast. I have to say I am happy that my tent temps are cooler with these LED's...and my flowering tent barely is exceeding 82F, when with all other lights it was always up around 85F or higher... so 3 degrees or more cooler, definitely a plus Well not much else to report today besides I will be getting a compost tea started for feeding the next few days. I want to boost up the microbe population and health before I shift gears to flowering... should be very soon
Here is a pic showing the leaves...only the larger fan leaves are effected which also helps confirm the P is the issue... The new leaves are healthy and uneffected. Also the new leaves do show slight tacoing which is odd because temps, humidity and light are all right at the perfect levels... 78-82F, 50-55% RH and lights right where I have them positioned are putting out around 800-1000 umol which is way under the light saturation point. Now the very odd thing is this, on both the GDP and Purple Urkle, only half of the plant is showing the tacoing leaves and discoloration, the other half of each plant looks completely normal.. its very odd... I wonder if its possibly because I topped it so many times that maybe I somehow displaced or screwed up the hormones.. ??
I think you are correct on your diagnosis. However, i think the leaf curling upward is a sign of potassium lockout, which is apparent when calcium carbonate causes the soil ph to become unstable. Usually multiple lockouts occur. This would explan the evaporation via leaf edges, here's an excerpt i grabbed on potassium (k) def. So even if your external temps are fine a ph imbalance means the plant internally has a "fever" if you will. But i wouldnt bet my money on just one lockout. Last week i let my plant get rootbound. The result was multiple lockouts at once. If you flushed and are making a tea, i think youre on the right track.