800W Raymatix LED, Grape Pie + Vermont Cherry, Hydro 4x4

Alright so started another grow. I'm a little bit in to it so going to post to catch up to real time.

Have 6 plants for California compliance. Have 5 Grape Pies and one Vermont Cherry Hemp Plant. Got them as clones so they are already 1-2ft tall. I did a stagger approach try to balance bushy growth during veg. I shortened my pip frame in height and I shortened the depth of it so I can get around it easier. So plants are really in a 4x3 ground coverage with 4x4 to grow in to.

Using the All Weather Shed again.

Staying hydroponic but got a vertical trash can and moved the nutrients in to the grow shed. I went to grodan grow blocks instead of the coco mat just for fun. Using Veg+Bloom for tapwater again.

Controls are the same... custom PLC by me.

Using the next gen 800W Raymatix RAYX4.

Evaluation: Really bright when you get under it! Doesn't seem that bright but then Configured as 4 200W modules. Love the multiple rows of LEDs on each module so there is even coverage. Each module is individually angle adjustable. Whole light is waterproof including the connectors which is cool. This one is just single spectrum. Last one I had the prototype one was spectrum adjustable. Light is pretty heavy. I think it would work well in a professional grow from the ceiling or permanently mounted on a rack system for vertical growing but for a tent setup it would be pretty heavy. It's like 86lbs.

Got an Apogee quantum light meter for myself now. Probably best or 2nd best you can get and really gives you true PAR readings, especially for those far red spectrums. Just going to pull the light as high as possible because of the weight. With these optics the PAR readings are insane so I can just dim it in to to the right level. Light has 0-10V dimming for automated control and I just hooked up a potentiometer to it.

Set Up:

Nutrients: Veg+Bloom
Water: Tap
Medium: Hydroponic 6" Cube
Light Source: Full Spectrum LED
Light Watts: 800W
Size: 4x4
Strains: Grape Pie and Vermont Cherry

Starting conditions:

Temp: 80F
RH: 80%
CO2: 500ppm
PPFD: 300umol/m2/s
Light Schedule: 20/4

 

Okay gonna try to post a few to catch up here. Here is Day 1 when I put it in. 5/18.

Day 1 Total / Day 1 Veg

Day 1 Total is the total days its been in the grow room not number of days since I sprouted a seed because I got these as clones.

Also added a huge filter inside btw. Plants here. Just feeding them balanced water. Have 2 plants taller than the rest so will have to do some lst and bend it around the trellis.

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5/24
Day 7 Total / Day 7 Veg

Realized the plants weren't getting watered so you can see some rough ridges on it. Had to put a bleeder inside the resevoir. The pump wants to pump out high volume and there's only 6 tiny restricted holes so it was struggling. Whatever the geometry of moving the tank it doesn't like it anymore. So added the bleeder and works pretty well and extra mixes the nutrients when running.

CO2 tank ran out so room at around 400ppm.
RH: 55-65%. Running 2 humidifies and can't keep it up.
300-500 umol/m2/s

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5/31
Day 14 Total / Day 14 Veg

Plants are vegging out now. Going to start bending the long shoots to even the canopy height out. Bumped temp up to 82F Turned light schedule to 18/6. Hemp plant is growing like a shrub. It's kinda odd.

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6/3
Day 17 Total / Day 17 Veg

Topped everything. You can see everything is thickening. The hemp plant you can see in the front is just all leafs like a bush. Its supposed to be an outdoor strain so maybe I've got a variable thats throwing it off. CO2 is at 250ppm because there is more plant growth and still no CO2 tank. Room has a fairly good seal. Turned lights to full on since plants are pretty far away.

 

6/6
Day 20 Total / Day 2 of Flower

So flipped to flower 2 days ago. When I had turned lights to full on for the jump I heat burned (brown spotting) and light burned (white spotting) my leaves. So I turned the room temp back down to 79F to help keep lights cool and leaves cool and I turned the light down again so it was at about 600umol/m2/s at the top. CO2 was through the roof at like 4300ppm. Thought it was my leaves breaking down from the light burn but it turns out I had a tank leak. So that may of hindered some things or added to the burn I don't know. So what I learned vs the 500W light is with this many more watts and close proximity to the plants you really have to be diligent on leaf temp. By cooling the room a little it keeps light cooler and leaves cooler and I've corrected that. As for the light burn the bleaching is from too rapid an increase in light. I did some research and its recommended to increase about 50umol/m2/s a day so the plant can respond and adapt to the change. This wasn't an issue because last time it was way less watts and I didn't have optics. Optics are really helping.

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6/13

Day 25 total / Day 9 Flower.

Over the last week I've cut some leaves blocking new baby tops that are trying to make their way up. A couple of the tops are reaching the top trellis. Pulled 1 humidifier to make space. At this point last time I didn't need a humidifier by now. I think the extra watts are causing the AC to run more and taking more humidity out of the room. Bumped room about 50umols to about 650-700ish.

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6/14
Day 26 Total / Day 10 Flower

I have the outer lights turned inwards 15 degrees to minimize waste light hitting the walls. Decided to turn the module against the wall straight down since I'm getting light clipping now that the plants are getting closer to the light. I'm leaving the one out by the door angled inwards. That one is working great because it is making the plants grow straight up rather than out against the door because light drops off.

Brightness is 600-800umol/m2/s at the varying top heights. Higher than I turned it up to because plant is growing in to light as well because it gets brighter as it get closer.

Cut fan leaves off side shoots to help them grow up rather than weigh them down as they're growing around.

 

Today

Day 29 total / Day 13 Flower

RH is between 68 and 75. Stopped using the humidifier. Plants continue to jump and grew a lot over the weekend. Have a lot of tops poking through the top trellis now. Cut back some fan leaves on top 6" or so in the front that were blocking lower bud sites but was too lazy to do it throughout because I'd have to jump in the room.

Hemp plant is popping up a little in height but is wayyyy behind the grape pie. You can barely see it there in the front being

Because plants continue to grow up, the light levels are now 1050umol/m2/s at the highest tops and 800 at lower ones. Turned up brightness about 100umol/m2/s so now at around 1150 at highest and 900 at lowest.

Dropped room temp to 77F from 79. I think I have some stretch from heat too especially as I turn light up. This should help. I need to check leaf temp vs room temp.

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Yesterday

Day 31 Total / Day 15 Flower

Okay so I did a lot of change. One thing I've learned with plans is gradual change so the next plant day should be interesting.

So tops continue to rise and its getting scary haha. Manufacturer recommends 12" max closeness to the light because of heat and I'm rocking 6" in some spots so I'll have to turn the AC down and hope for the best. I'm also going to try to stunt growth here. Apparently this is a stretchy plant to begin with. Like more than double during the jump which I didn't realize.

So as I've said before I splurged for a Apogee Quantum Meter which is really good for 1 to 1 reading for PAR and is really good at capturing the far reds at 660nm. Those cheapy readers can give you skewed results. Inaccurately high numbers at one part of the spectrum and low numbers at the other. So anyways the readings when I opened it were 900umol/m2/s at the top of the trellis and 1500 at the top node. Since I'm doing a lot of change and tired of these things stretching I said screw it and cranked light up full blast to the full 800W. I now read 1150 umol/m2/s at the trellis and 2300 at some of the top nodes. I can't even find white papers/charts/ or even anecdotal information for PPFD above 2000. It is insane. I don't know if I will get photobleaching (true light burn) or not yet but I'm going to try to prevent heat burn. Sooo here's what I did next.

I let the light run for 10 minutes, opened the room, and used a hand held laser thermometer to read the leaf temps. Leaf temps are about 3-4F higher than the room. Leaf temp is all that matters because that is the temp the leaf thinks the room is at. Some sensor above the light means nothing to the plant. So I've dropped the room temp to 72F. Meaning the leaves are at 75-76F. Before I had a -5F temp during lights off (night time) which is supposed to stretch the plant which I was good with. Warmer nights than days are supposed to shorten node length. Well its too late to shorten node length because I've flipped to flower so I set my controls to a +1F at night. So the meter is going to keep room to 1F higher but because of the leaf temp because it is so close to light I'm really experiencing 76F Day, 73F night at least at the top of the plants. 72F at the bottom. The cooloer set temp should also suck heat out of the light better making heat transfer prefer to go through aluminum out the back of the light rather than project through the lens surface because heat follows the path of least resistance.

I've set room CO2 to not drop below 1500ppm. My programming will cut off valve if sensor reads 1800ppm. I've read above about 1900 to 2000ppm you can experience toxicity to the plant. So I'm teetering at the upper end but with 1K to 2.3K of umol/m2/s at the tops it needs more CO2 to run at optimal rates.

Now I have these heat and light issues and since the light is so strong and penetrates so deep I have a ton of alive leaves. So I decided I couldn't wait any longer and I had to defoliate. I usually do it around day 21 but did it because 1) so those lower tops can make it up, 2) because the leaves on the upper tops are so close they are blocking below, 3) humidity is a difficult to keep low now, 4) so I don't loose too much under growth, and 5) so hopefully I might stunt vertical growth : )

I defoliated about 18-24" deep. I forgot to take a PAR measurements deeper within the canopy but I can.

Since I dropped the temp the AC should run more and take more moisture out. I've added a secondary dehumidifier and set it to not allow the room above 60% RH.

So hopefully I don't burn my plants, hopefully they have enough CO2 without harming them, and hopefully they stop growing.

Pics in next post

 

Okay here is the update on the height and before and after defoliation for Day 15 Flower.

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You can see the poor hemp plant down at that second trellis line in the front : (

 

Here's the little interface I look at that I posted in @Steakbomb 's thread. It's a page interface I made that the PLC shows me. I used a Click PLC from Automation Direct then they have hardware tools.

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Okay so update from yesterday.

Day 36 Total / Day 21 Flower

Took a few days off from checking on them.

Tops have grown in to the light. Severely underestimated how much these would jump. Again more than double.

So the tops that grew tall enough to bend in to the light I moved and let pop up in to the dead space. Probably 5 of those. The ones that jammed in to the light and keep up on it I've bent those down along the top of the highest trellis. I had bad experience last time actually cutting tops off so going to try to bend them down. I have no idea how everything around them will react but really have no choice. Starting to dry and brown them out. Probably 10 of these. Then I have quite a few that are maybe 1-2" from the light and they seem to be doing okay. No signs of burn or bleaching so I'm just going to leave those and bend them later if necessary.

Anyone with experience of cutting vs bending over when they run out of room?

CO2 running low.

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Didn't think I had this many tops, also think some of the side shoots have grown equally as high so its kinda anarchy. I cut tops last time in like week 2-3 I think and it just ended poorly so yeah I've bent over and we'll see.

I think I underestimated its flip. Its already a 2x+ grower in flower and put a powerful light and it has plenty of energy to keep going. I tried stunting it and its growing through the light. There will be some popcorn at the bottom because I'm leaving everything on this time and its way taller. Last time I lollipop'd so I didn't have any of that down below. Just trying something different. But I bet I get solid nugs the 1st two feet down. I've got 800W on a 4x4 tray with optics so its penetrating really deep. I probably have 800-1000umol/m2/s just below that pvc pipe and I have that at an even spread throughout the square.

 

I got them super stretchy, they got tighter when I weaved and vegged them here.

I started doing that and bending them over and there was just too many, it was going to drown the canopy below weaving like a blanket on top hahah. Yesterday I just started cutting some tops. Like 5 to 10. Didn't have great luck last time but we'll what happens this time. I still have a bunch of normal ones so.