Minimalist LED grow

I have already demontrated this in other threads, but not as a journal. First showing that one can grow an amazingly healthy plant off a single 23 watt CFL and then later, under 5 watts of LED light. I brought a mini plant to full flower under 18 watts of LED (not CFL - corrected) and yielded 13.5 grams.

Know ahead of time that this journal may not be completed as the plants generally get too big to complete without moving them to my flower room, but we shall go as far as we can.

For your perusal we have two plants from high quality bagseed of unknown origin at around two weeks. Both were started at the same time under 5 watts of cool white LED. The runt is probably a female (Jill), and the giant is most likely a male (Jack).

 

Both are being grown under my infamous bucket lamps. (Do a search.) Nutes are very cheap, generic dry hydro.

Jill was transplanted to a 5 gallon DWC with lava rock as the medium in a 5" netpot. She is still under the 5w LED and is barely growing at only 4" high, but looks healthy. I could give more light, but I don't think that is what is holding her back. Likely just a weak plant.

Jack is growing like, well, a beanstalk and is over 12" now at week three. I didn't plan on topping him, but had to slow him down a bit. Photo was taken 12 hours after topping. He is also in lava rock, but the pot is sitting in 3" of stagnant water (no airstone). I hand water by scooping some from the bottom and pouring over the rocks twice a day. He likes being mistreated. For lighting he is under 4 watts of red and 8 watts of cool white.

 

Look peeps, I understand this is not a large-scale sexy grow, but I am trying to show y'all what you can do with small lights buy minimalizing light wastage. I doubt there is one grower here who can compete in early to mid-vegging.

Jill finally settled in and has grown 50% in 3 days still under a single 5w LED. Roots have yet to reach the reservoir.

Jack is recovering from being topped and has grown 2" in 3 days and is the picture of perfect health without massive lights, expensive nutes or fancy equipment. So many forget that marijuana is a weed, not a finicky orchid or African violet.

Switched him to 12/12 at 14" * 11". Still under 12 watts of LED. If it is a male as I suspect, there is no need for a large plant. Just in case I am wrong I will take a few clones.

Here he is just prior to topping:

 

No and that is why I started this one. It was 18W of LED not CFL.

Even though Jill has the advantage of DWC vs. passive hydro and 30 watts of CFL vs. 14 watts of LED, she is only 1/4 the size. Of course, this means nothing as they are not identical clones. She was weak since birth.

In order to possibly finish this grow, I have done my first ever 3 bucket lighting system. All three are lined with Reflectix - much sturdier than mylar. The bottom bucket is as you see below.

The middle bucket has the bottom cut out and is placed on the screws in the first bucket. The top bucket is inverted and contains the LEDs. The reason I am doing this is twofold:

1. My regular flower room is in use and this is a secondary grow 'tube'.

2. This is the predecessor to a possible single plant professional grow box.

The one main drawback to my 3 bucket tube (despite looking clunky) is that it has minimal ventilation.

He has finally recovered from the topping and sprouted two new main stems and added a few more inches in height.

This part is not a brag nor meant to be. It is a statement about overthinking marijuana growing. I use no PH meter, no PPM meter, no pumps, hard tap water, have too low humidity, cheap nutes and too little light and my plants are always gorgeous.

Now I am not knocking those who do use all the tools as I would definitely invest for a larger grow, but look how many gardeners have all the gadgets and a dozen bottles of expensive additives and yet have weak and damaged plants.

 

There are too many ways to go to direct you with a single post. Here is the deal: LEDs are going to work best with a flat canopy such as a SCROG or SOG or similar training, or for short plants. I am getting away with using LEDs on this plant because I am containing nearly all the light and because I hope to keep it under 26".

If you are going to grow tall slender plants, then use the T8 or T12s for vertical sidelighting and perhaps a 250-400W CMH or a 300 -350w (actual watts) LED. They could be spindly because of too little light or lights were too far away.

Learn from this grow cycle and pick your next strain to most closely work with your needs and grow room design. Looks like you put in a lot of time and thought. All you need to do is refine a little.

 

Check the attached image out from a fellow blade. Now this guy has an awesome grow and I am not ripping on him. I put it here for educational purposes only. I have seen similar things in hundreds of journals.

Notice that he has 39 watts of CLF (3 X 13w) or 69 watts of CFL (3 X 23w) (I can't be sure which from the photo) over a seedling or unsprouted seed for which only about 1 focused watt is needed. Due to economoy of scale, I would use a single 3 watter for at least a week and it would grow as large as that under all those CFLs.

See how about 98% of the light does not land on the seed and just sprays around the room. That means less than 1w.

 

Your Smartpot autos are looking mighty fine. Your journal makes a good book end to mine with one of the highest power single LED lamp grows.

Will stay tuned to see what you can do although you will probably out-yield me...

 

So much for my hunch. Jack is now officially Jacqueline and she is still growing like a beanstalk. She showed flowers today at 18" tall. Not sure if I will be able to finish without putting her in my regular grow room.

Even if I cannot it still shows what can be done with minimal equipment and light as long as it is focused and captured.

Jill is still tiny, but healthy. Her roots finally hit the reservoir.



Jackie's photo taken 5 days before sex showed. Updates soon.

 

No room as she in the bucket and is already pressing hard against the walls which are only 11" apart. If I build a commercial cabinet, it will definitely have side-lighting.

I used to use traditional side-lighting in my grow room, but found a much better way. I am surprised commercial light mfgs have not caught on.

My current light is like this:

[ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ] or basically flat.

My next build will be more like
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
/ \
/ \

The sides will not be merely angled reflectors, but will have smaller leds mounted along the whole length. This will elminate almost all shadows. The sides will likely be hinged to be able to change the angle as necessary. Purely horizontal side-lighting hits the leaves at the wrong angle.

 

The drawing posted changed from the preview.

 

Now remember folks - this is only an experiment so no laughing at the hideous three bucket system.



Here is Jill still trudging along in the DWC, healthy but severly stunted at only 6.5"



The next two are of Jackie taken at the same time. In the first photo she is just in the bottom bucket. In the second, she is shoe-horned into the middle bucket. Jackie is currently 22" tall. Not too bad for passive hydro. There is enough headroom for maybe another 6 to 7", but width is another matter.





Still under 22 watts of LED.

 

My approach is great for seedlings and early to mid-veg and is not really practical for many medium-sized plants or large flowering plants. That is where your SolarStorm will probably work best.

That being said: too many growers always seem to be looking for more or bigger lights when they should first look to optimize what they are already have.

It is not too complicated, just look everywhere in your room that is lit up, but where light is not falling on your plants. Then either rearrange your setup or build some better reflectors to capture the stray light.

I know I go on and on about this, but I saw the other day where one grower had five tiny seedlings (3.5") and blasted them with a 400w MH from like 6" away and wondered why they were dying. If people would stop trying to push their plants to grow more and faster, and instead work with them, they would be way happier with the results.