So it's been an adventurous few months with my first grow wrapped up and currently curing. Wondering on average, how long have you cured to get best flavour and potency out of your plants. I want to ensure a smooth tasting and potent stash... pics for attention. Lol *First two pics - I call her BiBi, BC Big Bud ( the trio and the long one) *Third pic - I call her Gigi, God's Green Crack
looks like an early harvest to me. Or insufficient lighting. No swelling and buds look airy. If you dry trim, you can smoke almost immediately and still get the taste and flavors, especially if grown organically. If you want top potential, 1-3 months is recommended
Thank you! This was my first go. They were in flowering for 12 weeks and I did a dry trim. These pics are right after 7 day dry when I was trimming. I was afraid to wait too long as it appeared that I had all the trichomes looking milky and some amber with big mushroom tips. That's why I decided to pull the plug and chop. They are very smelly and sticky though grown in my tiny 2x2 tent.
I have an LED light that I was advised it's suitable for my 2x2 tent. Without checking, I believe it is a 8k lumens I kept the 12/12 light for 12 weeks.
ok. 8,000 lumens is seedling lighting. For flower, depending on efficiency, you need more like 40,000 to 60,000 lumens or more. PPFD should be 600 minimum, up to 1000 ppfd. I have most of my gear dialed around 900 ppfd in flower with high end LEDs. That’s about 600 total watts for a 4x4 area
Ahhh gotcha... so explains why my final buds aren't looking its best as noted above. I did pick up another tent. 4x4 and have 6 of those lights in that one. So that should give my new plant the much needed light this time. I came across an app on my phone so I'll measure tonight and update on the lumens.
An easier way to figure out if they’re enough is to add all total ACTUAL WATTS (not 1000watts) up and see how close you are to 1000 total watts. That’s about the needed watts with old blurple tech to have a decent harvest. With 6 lights, the coverage should be decent. Those lights have an effective footprint not much bigger that the light itself. If you are tired of running hot and inefficient lighting, you can get top of the line LEDs for not much more than you spend for enough watts of blurple since you have to buy so many. You can save event more if you purchase a DIY kit from HLG or Invisible sun with about 600 watts
Ok thank you! I'll check that tonight. I did buy these extra lights as it's a 3 compartment tent with the bigger part being 4x4. And the other 2 for small seedlings are a 1x4 each top and bottom compartments. Currently I have 1 light over my seedling Sweet Tooth in another thread that I posted a pic. Sweet tooth... established Mar.19.20 *I got a good price on those lights, they weren't cheap but I figured, better to have an extra on hand.
they couldn’t have cost too much if only 8,000 lumens. You can expect to pay $1-$2 per watt for quality LEDs. At 600 watts needed to flower a 4x4, that’s $600-$1,200. But that’s the engine of your grow and not the place to cheap out
Ok then I must be wrong on that number. I'll check tonight. The guy at the "garden" place told me it's a good light size for the 2x2. Thank you for taking the time to walk me through this.
your welcome. It’s very common with these blurples. They advertise 1000 watts and they’re usually around 150 because the max the diodes can handle is 1000 watts, but they’re inefficient and driving them to 1000 watts would burn them out almost immediately. The opposite is actually true with quantum boards from HLG and Invisible Sun. You can overdrive these board with proper cooking, but it will decrease efficiency and reduce the lifespan
Ok. So I couldn't get to the light info due to the setup but I did my typical test. I did 2 spots around my baby sweet tooth (about 12-18 inches from light) and this is what it read... showing roughly a range of 50.8% rh average, 26,500 lux average, 23 celcius temp average. I've been lead to believe that is good? Thoughts? Also, I do have the older style red/blue blurple led as you called it also but I'm using those on my veggie seedlings not my girls.
Ok. Thank you again! I'll leave it for that stage as is currently. Got a few weeks to source a flowering one.
First rule of growing weed. Never listen to the guys in the hydro shop. They're about as useful as i am a bacon sandwich.
Lol thank you! I'm learning that now. There are just so many different choices and hard to know. Even with all the online suggestions, it's hard to determine that perfect one for my space, unless you trust someone to know their stuff. Lol I guess that's why I'm here.
Find someone you trust mate. Have a hunt about the journal section and find a guy with a similar set up that does well.... Then pester him constantly untill he sorts you out. That's what I done haha. Poor cunt had to go look out the sock puppets and all sorts. Took about 4 weeks of doing his tits in and i knew everything I needed. Nobody grows my method (NFT) for some reason so it was him or no-one. Still only ever seen 5 people with the same gear and one of them was today lol.