I think my friend did the impossible, too much light! Anyway, this is my friends first time indoor grow. He is growing 4 feminized low ryder 2's in an appropriately spaced cabinet lined with mylar. He mounted a 63W LED grow light from ://hydro-grow-led.com/ and left the light running 24/7. (Hey its autoflowering right? More light= more yield or so he thought). Anyway, 2 weeks in his plants are alive, but stunted and the leaves have very little chlorophyll and don't look that green. They actually look really cool, they got all sorts of tie dye colors going on. I did a little research and found that this is from too much light and happens to plants at high altitudes. Its not a real "burn" per say, the temperatures are very low, about 70 degrees in the box. The soil is just some natural organic soil, and my friend hasn't messed with nutes (first grow, don't want to complicate things). Anyway, what should my friend do? The lights are as far away from the plants as possible. Obviously, he should take them off of 24 hour light cycle and scale back to something more reasonable until they recover (hopefully). What my friend is concerned with is since this strain autoflowers around 9 weeks, will this delay/stalled growth hurt yield? Or will this just take extra time for the plants to recover and resume normal growth. He doesn't mind if they take extra time, but would be pretty heated if significantly hurt growth by shaving a week or two off an already short growth cycle. He doesn't know if these genetic freaks will just spend more time in the seedling stage to recover, or if the 9 week thing is set in "genetic stone." Does anyone have any info/experience with TOO MUCH LIGHT? To its credit, for a light to be too intense for even weed to grow at only 63 watts, this light must really have some crazy growth potential if used properly. My friend has never witnessed this phenomenon before.
read the abuse chart in my signature. it sounds like to little light. usually people with led's also use CFL
No, it looks more like too much light from your abuse chart. More reds, purples. I don't see how it would be too little light with a bunch of 1W leds with 30 degree angles (as opposed to the less intense 120 degree cheapo ones) and 24 hour light. Definitely light burn.
plus the led lamp also has built in white leds to supplement wavelengths for the other carotenoids, so there is less need to fall back on CFL's for the broad spectrum coverage. Take a look at that website and it explains how this specific led light is better than the competition. Not only name brand, high intensity LEDS, but also better used wavelengths to stimulate chlorophyll, better coverage in terms of area, improved LED viewing angle for intensity. I looked at many LED panels before arriving to my decision including UFO, Procyon and the cheapo ones from China. This one really does look like the best "bang for your buck" and the science behind it does pan out. My feeling is that it might be "too good." And put out too much intensity, or I really might need to scale back to like 16 hours of light from 24.
sounds like it's something other than too much light, 'cause that much light (even in your fancy uber LED master lights) at 10 inches wouldn't do that unless other things (nutrients, temp, humidity, soil variants) were out of wack. i've seen plants grow up to like 7 inches away from a 1000w hps that was air cooled and it was one of the nicest colas i've ever seen.
Sorry for endorsing the light, I was just trying to draw attention to a possible explanation. Like I said, this is my friends first really grow, so what does he know. It just seems likely that the light is the cause due to since it is the most untested factor. Soil is straight up organic potting soil. Fresh, not old from the local flower store. Getting plenty of fresh air exchange, definitely not too hot in there. Soil is not dry, but not overly moist at all. rH is comfortable at 50 .However, I have seen incandescent bulbs grow herb better than this. These plants are stuck at baby seedlings and should be way bigger than this at 2 weeks. Something is wrong for sure. I am sure it is a lighting issue. If you hear hooves, think horses if you know what I mean. It might be hard to believe but my friend may have nuked the seedling with LEDS. I know what stretching looks like and I can tell there is none of that going on, so I don't think its not enough light. Perhaps this LED light is producing too much UV or something? Thats the only other thing that could make sense.
I think my friend is going to try putting them under a flourescent and supplement with the LED for 16 hours a day until they recover. These things are like 2 inches tall and should be way bigger I believe. One symptom of too much light I heard is a halt of growth and a yellowing/pigmenting of the leaf, but the leaf remains alive and supple. Thats what my friend has going on. Maybe the LED light isn't a 1000W hps, but it still may have been too much too soon for the little ones.
i really think you should look into something more then just light issue. check your ph of your run off. check your ph of your water your feeding with and just check EVERYTHING.... ph test kits with the solution typically run 20$ and are very accurate. ive been messing with my kit for the last week, i wasnt confident about the whole color tinting thing but its pretty darn obious what the ph is with the color tint
I think your friend had burn his plants. An LED nutrient solution would need to be very weak compared to a HID nutrient solution. And the colour purple shouts out at me 'cold temperatures'. If the plants are cold, underneath weak lighting (meaning LEDs 10" away) and full strength nutrients, then there has to be problems down the line.
Purple is a little inaccurate. Hints of red/purple. Mostly yellow or light neon green. Hints of other colors more towards the edges of the leaf. Also, no nutes. Just organic soil and filtered water.
I am a experienced Low rider grower, and to get the best results put the timer to 18 hours a day. I have never tried that problem that you are describing before. but the soil has to be good and so does the temperature. I don't believe that flowers can get too much light, because we can't compete with the sun that is a lot more powerful than anything we can produce. The only reason we use lamps is because we want to keep it secret. Too much light = Joke. also, slow grow is a good sign of cold tempurature. If seeds can handle sunlight, it should be able to handle a LED lamp.... LOL!
Don't believe everything you read, especially on an LED grow light site. It's not a burn, if it is, it's from nutes, not an LED light. The thought is definitely good for a chuckle but that doesn't help your friend. I would suggest getting a few pics up for a real diagnosis,.....but I'd start looking elsewhere,.....it's not the lights (or "lack of" I should say)
I'll ask my friend about putting pictures up, he may or may not be comfortable with that idea. If he thinks its ok, I will try to post them later today. When I saw the stunted growth, I thought about the soil first. However this brand of soil has been used for other house plants and even an outdoor grow with no issues. Maybe its not too much light coming from the lamp, but still some other sort of defect as a result of the led? Maybe too close to the young seedlings? I don't know. I found this link to a forum which discusses overlighting http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lights/msg0113370628951.html
could just be a bunk LED. My dad spent over 3 bills on one and nothing would grow under it. There are many fake LED grow lights on the market.
Well, my friend tried to take pictures but they were no good. The resolution was to blurry to get any detail. Doing my own research, the closest thing I could find which resembles my friends seedlings is zinc toxicity or iron deficiency. Mainly yellowing/chlorosis. The plant which had it worst is finally becoming necrotic, and the others are on their way. So I guess my friend should try a different brand of soil. He just finds it odd because he paid extra for the good organic composted and is surprised to see this. The seedlings sort of look like this Do the Leaves have an Inter-Veinal Banding Appearance - 420 Magazine In that the leaves are mostly neon green/yellowish with darker green "tracts" within the "grooves."
I agree, I definitely don't think they got too much light from that setup. I have 150w HPS closer than that to my plants and they don't even get burned...
