Hey blades! I have been intrigued with LED's watching more and more grows with them so decided to give it a whirl. My first led light was a 300w corn pulling 38w..... I put an LSD clone under it and she loved it! I became quite impressed..... I built a 2x3x4 little cabinet so she had her own space though once she got into a 3gal pot, it wasn't enough light to keep her happy anymore so gave her away then sat with this empty space for awhile until I saw Tbones post's on his grow and more specifically this thread. I became excited and just had to try them out! They came in (Friday) Sept 29th and got to work putting 2 boards together...... I did one and my 9 yr old son did the other and set one up in the little room....... Today, I set them up properly and set a few plants from regular seeds under them after I transplanted them into 5" (1/2Gal) fabric pots with my soil mix........ 3 Dominga (Kenai Kush x Arturo) ...... 2 Oh Yeh (Chemdog x Arturo) ....... Now we'll see how they grow with the lights ~12" above them before deciding how they will be used in the future. I am going to start with vegging them for ~4wks then sex them before repotting into 3 or 5 gal fabric pots
I looked at their pictures again seeing off colored spots so went in with a microscope.....thrips All of my bonsai plants have them....every single one except critical Super Silver Haze in flower I just had to bring chocolope inside ..... she must have been infested - dang it! Only 24 hrs into this and already an issue ((sigh)) oh well just gotta roll with it I suppose. At lights out I soaked them with diluted neem oil then when lights came on, I heavily defoliated them removing leaves with the most eggs Before....... Oh Yeh on left; Dominga on right After....... They are twigs now Guess I went a little overboard ah well it is what it is..... I am going to hit them again with the neem oil every day for the next week as thats how long it'll be before spinosad gets here..... if anything i'll get rid of them and all of my lil bonsai clones and start over from seed - hopefully it doesn't come to that
..... and 4 days later....... Oh Yeh Dominga They are recovering very well and haven't seen any thrips since the harsh defoliation and spraying them everyday with neem oil.....3 more days and I think I can back off to spraying them weekly.
Only one per shelf.... I am considering adding another per shelf but in 4k or have both 3k's on one shelf and 2 4k's on the other for when they get bigger and especially if I go ahead and try to flower them - dunno really. What would you do?
I'm guessing you won't be vegging them very long since you'll run out of space otherwise? If that's the case I'd run 2 3k boards on each shelf since you'll spend more time flowering than vegging. If you do get 4k boards I'd run 1 3k and 1 4k per shelf since you don't have a separate veg area.
Oh I have other spaces....I have my bonsai mom's under flouro's in a 4'x3'x3' area and an empty 3x3x8 closet with a 400w hid. Just waiting for the other inline fan to come in to spark that room up but yes, I am wanting to keep these in this space while seeing what the boards can do so I can see if they'll be ok for smaller grows or use them to replace the flouro's..... may just do both I was comparing the color spectrum in the temps and really don't see that much of a difference and got curious but your absolutely right. I am going to wait a bit longer for their recovery then throw them into flower to sex them so I can remove the boys and put the girls in a 15gal fabric pot (one per shelf) with blumats Thankfully the boards come back in stock in the morning so it'll be good timing as it took ~2-2.5 wks to get to me the 1st time around
Alright! Tomorrow will be one week since they were put under these lights and heavy defoliation - look at em now...... Oh Yeh Dominga They are LOVING these lights!
Just after those pictures on Sunday, I topped all of the plants so they are the same height.....now 3 days later, here is their progress........ Oh Yeh Dominga I think we are back on track
Transplanted into 15 gallon fabric pots and hooked up blumats. Now to just get them dialed in, the other 2 boards and we'll be good to go....... Oh Yeh Dominga I forgot to get black tape to wrap up all the clear tubing ah well a couple days won't hurt
Received another 2 QB120's!!! I put together one and set it up over Oh Yeh (on top shelf)......that whole corner is going to be even more blinding than what it already is. Pics don't do these lights justice but here is a pic of the difference between 1 board vs 2 boards in 2x3x4 spaces.......... That whole corner is a work in progress but the plants are loving it so far! Oh Yeh Dominga I am sold on these lights for veg and will be replacing my flouro's with them in the coming year. Now to see how they do in flower starting with Oh Yeh (Chemdog x Arturo)
Both shelves now have 2 boards each! At 60 watts each board, I have 20 watts per sq ft going on each shelf......need sunglasses to look directly at the plants now I also noticed the clover seeds I sprinkled on the soil are already germinating...... While I was in the room, I changed Oh Yeh's light cycle to 12/12 so they'll get ~26 hrs of light between today and tomorrow....soon we'll find out what sex they are
Oh Yeh is starting to push out pre-flowers! Its a bit early but I think I may have gotten lucky with 2 girls....... Left plant Right plant We'll look again on Sunday The Dominga plants are about ready to be flipped for sex..... I think i'll do that on Sunday night/Monday morning. And just for giggles, here are pictures of the light coverage they are receiving....... These pics are of the top shelf but the bottom shelf lights are set up exactly the same
Alright, looking at the Oh Yeh plants the one on the left is definitely a female....... and the one on the right is looking male...... Sooo the one on the right is going to taken out tomorrow, reset the lights back to 18/6 and set up a scrog net for the confirmed girl. I'll veg her til she fills out half of the screen then flip her to flower. I have been thinking (almost obsessing) over the watts per square foot..... 20w just doesn't seem enough but clueless about leds. So relying on k's, actual watts and what will fit in this space, bought 2 Lights of America 12w under the counter 24" leds in 5000k. Unfortunately, 1 had faulty wiring and sent out a spark so that one is going back tomorrow but here is how the one looks........ I think i'll put 2 of these on each side and have them turn on 2 hrs before the qb's and off 2 hrs before the qb's.... this will give: 48w (8 w per sq ft) blue spectrum "sunrise" 168w (28 w per sq ft) mixed spectrum "daytime" 120w (20w per sq ft) red/yellow spectrum "sunset" Edited to fix my math
Got rid of the Oh Yeh looking male, hooked up the other 3 under the cabinet 12w leds and put together a scrog....... I doubt the side lighting will make a difference but they are low enough wattage I don't have to worry about burning her while trying to promote more branching.... once her lights go off, she will get a foliar spray of coconut water, aloe, ful power and pro tekt. I'll be back later with an update on the Dominga cabinet
And here is the Dominga cabinet...... They have really blown up in the last 3 days...even that twig in the front has almost doubled! I switched their timer to 12/12 to find out who stays and who goes
I swear the Dominga's grew another inch over night...... ...... and all 3 are girls! Soooo who stays and who goes? I think its a no brainer that the twig in the front is a gonner........both of the back 2 have their merits but I am loving the one on the left really spreading out trying to hog up the whole pot to herself soooo the left one stays and the other 2 go Setting up her scrog tomorrow
Worked on the Dominga pot today - took out the 2 smaller plants........ .......and set the scrog net over her....... To give an idea just how short and bushy she is, the net is sitting at 6" above her and had to pull a couple of her tops up to the screen lol