Sprouted April 7th. Saved the seed from a bag of the nicest stuff in my area. There was no way I was letting that seed go to waste I was surprised I even found one. So far it's lead a good life, started off under 40w of fluorescent light and grew up healthy. No real problems, the cotyledons fell off last week and one of the single blade leaves right above them died this week after slowly turning an ugly yellow. Rest of the plant is as green as they come. I bought a LEDtronics plant bar, because the idea of using under 10w of power to do what 100w can do seemed appealing. For a week I had it growing just under the LED's, took the 2 2' fluoro's and the cfl I found kickin around out. It actually grew quicker than with the fluoro, and you couldn't even tell there was a light on in my closet. Last week I put the fluoros back up, eliminating shadows. I just transplanted this past wednesday into a 5 gallon bucket that I snatched from work. The shock just wore off and growth has picked up in the past 2 days. I was giving LST some consideration, but for my first grow I'm gonna pass. Besides, 2 new plants sprouted 2 weeks ago so they'll be my test subjects. They're growing in about 1 gallon pots, still just babies. And that pretty much brings us up to date. OH, also originally I had my plants on a 20/4 timer, then I went to 24/0. I plugged the timer back in yesterday and am going to ease into 18/6, and by that time i'll probly be ready to flower. Not sure yet what to do about flowering while two other plants are growing in veg, since I don't have a lot of lights to use, and I'm not home much to move it out of the light. But I'll deal with that problem when we get there. http://forum.grasscity.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/10277/cat/500/ppuser/31466 http://forum.grasscity.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/10278/cat/500/ppuser/31466 http://forum.grasscity.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/10275/cat/500/ppuser/31466
Rearranged the lights today to get the 2' fixture out of the way of the LED's which I believe do more good for the plant than the 40w of fluorescent light comin out of there. I also noticed the remaining single blade leaf is beginning to yellow like the last one did. Is this ok or a problem? I'll post pics when i get batteries for this cheap piece of crap.
hmm so you were growing with LEDs? that may account for the tiny size of the plants for growing since april. i would invest in some CFLs (like a couple 40watts -- they fit into desk lamps) and get the plants under them. the yellowing may very well be from lack of light or a nitrogen deficiency. you been fertilizing these little guys? FLEX
I've got faith in these LED's to grow a plant, and even so I do have other light on the plant, so I'm confident it isn't a light problem, except that I need to move it a little farther away so it stretches up. As far as feeding goes, honestly I don't really feed my plants. My big one has never asked for food, so to be on the safe side I never gave it any. I planted it originally in organic compost, and it took a bunch with it during the transplant into a soil which is slightly prefertilized. Not to say it's not underfed, just that I've been cautious about food, but if that's what it needs, then that's what I gotta do. Lack of nitrogen slows growth too other than yellowing leaves doesn't it?
well it hasn't gained much hieght vertically at all lately, since it was repotted. New branches are popping out the bottom nodes but the top is kinda stunted. But yeah it probly needs nitrogen instead of distance from a light huh? They're out in the sun today while I'm home.
I replaced the tubes with a daylight CFL (the only one I could find locally...) and she took off! The leaves reach for the light like they do for the sun. No more drooping! Going to look for 2 more today, pics soon.
thats the advantage of using bulbs other then LED...they recreate a similar spectrum to the sun which the plants need to grow. You will probably start to see an immense change in growth now, good luck FLEX
One day with the daylight CFL...holy crap. One of the babies bent 90 degrees just to get closer to it! Shame on anyone who disses CFL's. It's a no name 32w at 2000 lumens. Too bad wal mart only had one. I can't find any more though I've checked home depot, lowes, two different wal marts, and the local hardware store and nothing. Where does everyone find these things? I don't wanna order em. Still haven't gotten batteries for my camera, so pics are still on the way.
hmm, try the local convience store...most sell random household products.. thats VERY wierd that no store carries CFL.. usually they are EVERYWHERE. try "staples" or "buisness depot"... they are very well stocked with CFLs where i live. good luck finding em, try the "lighting" section of those retail stores.. any CFL will work...not just "daylight" Regards, FLEX
I found 2 more 25w cfls. I had one in there, it wasn't a daylight, just a normal soft white 2700k 26w CFL. It didn't get a reaction from the plants like that daylight one did. I replaced it with one of the 25w. I think the soft white would work better for flowering with a redder light. I found them everywhere, but the daylights with a much bluer light were scarce. I just hooked it all up right before nap time. I'm also guessing that's why the LED's don't get much of a result, cuz they have much more red in them than blue. Maybe I'll hook em back up for flowering. Forgot batteries AGAIN.
The advantage of using LEDs, though, is that they are incredibly efficient. They are about as close as we can get to directly transforming electrical energy into light energy, and in theory you could create whatever spectrum of light you wanted via a variety of different LEDs close together. Of course in reality they're not very practical. You say the 10W bar has the pwoer of a 100W CFL or incandescent or something? Well, that's impressive, but it's still only 100W. It would take a *lot* of bright LEDs in a big space to really do it justice, but if it were done peroperly it would be fucking awesome
hey arseface...maybe next time actually read what i said I said, thats the advantage of using bulbs other then LED..... hehe Interesting info tho on LEDs, i have no experience with them, so i learned something new today FLEX
Yeah, I read what you said, and I agree with you. Traditional grow lights are the way to go... I wasn't correcting you or anything, I was just commenting that in theory LEDs could be an incredibly efficient way to grow - even though it would be very expensive and complicated to do properly.
yeah, thanks for posting that, i didnt know much about LED grows (other then scientists testing RED LEDs with Tomato plants and having exceptional success) as you can highlight certain aspects of the spectrum FLEX
yup, I read on another forum a thread of someone doing an LED test. they spent a lot of $ putting the grow together. I think it was on refeermanseeds forum. I forget. they said in about 5 years from now the price of LED lights/equipment will probably have gone down enough to make it practical to use... very cool.
hey man, i totally hear ya. alot of people told me never to use cfls. i went the way i wanted to and bought 2 45 watt 2900 lumens light bulbs from canadian tire. my plant springed up the first day and its looking better than ever. try some miracle grow soila nd some ultra bloom, i got it as advice from a close friend and its working wonders. i also put in some hydrorocks to stop from yellow leaves. perfect. i dont see why ppl diss cfls
Alright I remembered the batteries but the camera is cheap so the images are blurry. At least ya'll can get an idea of how she's doin. Lotsa growth down below. I want to flower soon, but I don't know if I should because I don't really see anything resembling "alternating nodes." If anyone can tell from the pictures if she's ready to flower that'd be sweet.
I went ahead today and switched out the daylights with 2700k soft whites. One daylight (the 32w) went with the babies on the top shelf in my ghetto grow box. I don't really have two seperate areas to grow in, so what I did was put the pots in a large cardboard box, hooked up the light right above the plants, and draped a black trash bag to block the light from reaching the bottom. Looks good so far. Pics tomorrow, it's lights out right now.
I dunno about you, but waiting for alternating nodes takes too long. I let my plant veg for 30 days and it still wasn't alternating nodes. It's now approaching 40 days old and is in day 2 of flowering and I've yet to see any nodes that alternate. I guess it takes 6-7 weeks, be patient. As for swapping out that daylight flouro for a soft white flouro...isn't that a bad idea? I read soft white flouros may keep your plants growing but they provide the wrong spectrum of light. Your plants will stretch a little bit and won't grow as well as plants vegged under cool white(6500k color temp) flouros. Well, good luck.