300W LED vs. 400W HID Demonstration

[Green Utopia]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Wow! I'm embarrassed to say I just found this thread. Was good fun reading to catch up though. After an hour and half of reading, and a little medicine, I am just starting to process it all.

This is an awesome thread as usual SS. It's very cool watching you try the new techniques and gear. You're the most advanced noob I've ever seen!

I have never heard or seen that gelatin cloning stuff. Is it cheap? Does it have any nutes or is it just gelatin and you add your own nutes? How do you get the plants OUT of the gelatin? If I missed these answers in the thread I apologize.

As far as the RR plugs - I wanted to jump in to the screen and scream about the over-watering and stem rot! I tried those RR plugs as well, and I found that I could not help but overwater. Basically I tried to not get them over-wet, even down to using a syringe to dose out the water. But I found that invariably I would either over water them, or they seemed like they dried out in two hours. I would love to hear what method you use to determine when to water now. And I too lost a few plants exactly the same way to stem rot.

As far as burying the roots - you absolutely can bury lots of stem. And as was mentioned, I learned from my super gardener neighbor this year that its is GOOD to bury some plants sideways and get more roots - ie Tomatoes.

Now a question about the lights. I know you were thinking about taking light readings on a grid. Did I miss those results?

Finally, damn you for the IR thermometer. I was so pleased at myself the other day when I walked out of the store without one of those. I was already over budget and stood staring and playing with the IR thermometer, and finally put it back. Now I gotta go back and get one.

Thanks again for another of your fantastic journals. I've already learned lots.

 

[SnowBender]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Cool to hear osh is on the grow bandwagon...
Even my corner truevalue hardware has timers, nutes, lights, pots and hydroton.

And its even cheaper than some of the more snobby hydro shops.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Cheers mate. You're doing great!

thank you!

It's easier when you have people experienced with cloning to help out .

I was just going to suggest using straight coco but PG here beat me to it. Check your PMs SS, I'll be sending you a link that's right up your alley. Should be perfect for ~3 days. Once they've rooted in coco it'd be easy to move them to some version of Hempy after this (either straight Perlite or a P/C mix) with no ill effects.

I think all 8 of the PPP clones have rooted. The 2 flowering VK clones haven't yet, but they're looking OK and seem to be going back into veg as the pistils are slowly receding.

I have to decide what I'm going to do with them tonight, but I have several good options.

Take those cuts now, they'll be just about ready to stand up on their own by the time you gotta go! Coco everything you've got and put the newest clones in ~16oz cups, see the PM...

I'm also going to prune the PPP mom and take another set of cuts tonight.

I really wanted to do this comparison with genetically identical clones, but I was concerned because of my inexperience with cloning. I'm excited that I'll be able to do it the way I wanted without compromising.

Yes, that'd be interesting to see. I agree with your general comments earlier about heat also. I'm curious to see what the temps are like at the top of the LED and the bottom of the HPS, in any case - just to see where the heat is. Don't expect it to be all that hot from the LEDs once it goes through the heatsink and fans, just am curious to see what the actual exhaust temps are.

Should be able to get those numbers tonight.

Light bleaching would be PPFD intensity/wavelength and oxidative damage from photoinhibition related, and fall outside direct temp readings as you said, but showing radiative heat readings from the HPS within 0-12" from the bottom (outside of leaf temps) would show some folks how close they can get 'em before cooking 'em. The real sun doesn't get hotter and significantly more intense as the plants grow towards it--!

Well, 8" was definitely too close, but it would have been nice to know that without the physical evidence of it, lol.

Using an air-cooled HID hood is going to be a first for me, and I don't have the luxury of a "shakedown" grow to give me a feel for things, like I have with the LED light, so the temp readings may be helpful there.

One of the primary benefits of LED seems to be that lack of radiative heat downwards, which in HPS tends to cook off/degrade trichomes in flowering (light/heat related decomposition) like Prop mentioned, esp. when lights are close. It's always a steady-state or dynamic equilibrium between production and degradation, the latter of which LED helps to avoid, so more trichomes become available at harvest. Good for us!

The buds on my last harvest grown with LED's were noticeably sticky, and I've never had to clean my trimming scissors so often when manicuring buds. They got gummed up very fast.

thank you TL!

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Wow! I'm embarrassed to say I just found this thread. Was good fun reading to catch up though. After an hour and half of reading, and a little medicine, I am just starting to process it all.

I'm so glad to see you here Papa Green!

Thought you were pissed off at me or something, lol.

This is an awesome thread as usual SS. It's very cool watching you try the new techniques and gear. You're the most advanced noob I've ever seen!

I've been a seed guy until this grow, so the moms and cloning are new to me, but I'm liking it!

I have never heard or seen that gelatin cloning stuff. Is it cheap? Does it have any nutes or is it just gelatin and you add your own nutes? How do you get the plants OUT of the gelatin? If I missed these answers in the thread I apologize.

The product is called Gel2Root. It has nutes and can sustain the cutting without anything else. No rooting gel necessary. You just poke a small hole in the foil on top and stick the cutting in it.

They're not cheap. I think I paid $16 for a six-pack of them, but you can put 3 cuttings in each cube. I think they claim that they can be re-used, but I don't think so. The gel dries out and evaporates slowly once you pierce the foil.

As far as the RR plugs - I wanted to jump in to the screen and scream about the over-watering and stem rot! I tried those RR plugs as well, and I found that I could not help but overwater. Basically I tried to not get them over-wet, even down to using a syringe to dose out the water. But I found that invariably I would either over water them, or they seemed like they dried out in two hours. I would love to hear what method you use to determine when to water now. And I too lost a few plants exactly the same way to stem rot.

The stem rot I got was on an older plant that I watered too close to the stem, and the RR soaked it up and rotted it. First thing I did when I saw that was to check out the other mom. She was OK, but I tore as much of the RR as I could away from her stem and replaced it with perlite to help prevent the same from happening to her.

On the cuttings, the RR's worked very well once I got some helpful advice on not flooding them. They change colors and get lighter brown as they dry, so I used that as a guide. I just would put a little water at the base of the RR with a syringe and let them soak it up. The dome helped keep them from drying out too fast, although my RH is usually around 45-50, so even with the dome off, they would probably take at least 8 hours or so to dry out.

As far as burying the roots - you absolutely can bury lots of stem. And as was mentioned, I learned from my super gardener neighbor this year that its is GOOD to bury some plants sideways and get more roots - ie Tomatoes.

thanks for the feedback on that, it's definitely something I will use.

Now a question about the lights. I know you were thinking about taking light readings on a grid. Did I miss those results?

Nope, you didn't miss them, I need to wait for my life to quiet down a little before I take that on, but it will be done as part of this grow.

Finally, damn you for the IR thermometer. I was so pleased at myself the other day when I walked out of the store without one of those. I was already over budget and stood staring and playing with the IR thermometer, and finally put it back. Now I gotta go back and get one.

I can be a bad influence .


thank you PG, glad you found us!

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Coco. I like it.

It is definitely hairy and ugly, but it holds a lot of water and stays airy at the same time.

The pots feel as heavy after watering as if they were filled with soil, but if you stir it around with your finger, it feels loose and light. Amazing stuff. It even smells good! Smells kinda like citronella.

It wicks like crazy too. This stuff should work really well in the self-watering pots I've been trying to use with other media. Soil works extremely well in those pots, so coco will also.

I was going to set up an air stone and flood the tray with an inch or so of water during my 3-day absence, but I won't have to with this medium.

The 5" pots hold plenty of water for 3 days with these small clones.

I added a Y to the work light, and added a 23w 2700k CFL to the 20w 6500k.

A couple of the clones look like they have some new growth, so things are moving along.

 

[Propa Gator]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

"hairy, ugly" stuff to grow stinky. We are re-defining american beauty.
Coco is no sweat to set-up, giving results rivaling in-tune aero.
Remember my "big" trial-grow plants in those 5" pots? The coir was singing.
If you stick fresh cuttings into this stuff, you'll have roots and new growth in a week or ten days. No 'cloning solution', no dome. Be sure to use city tap water with chloros to avoid fungal/bacterial problems

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Yep, TL sent me a coco grow guide that showed that method of cloning.

Even though my upside down RR's worked, that's how I'm going to do it tonight with the 2nd set of PPP cuts.

I'm thinking a 3-gallon hempy with 100% coco wouldn't need watering for a looooong time, and it's going to be perfect for my self-watering pots.

thanks for encouraging me to go with it!

 

[IrishBoy]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Yep, TL sent me a coco grow guide that showed that method of cloning.

Even though my upside down RR's worked, that's how I'm going to do it tonight with the 2nd set of PPP cuts.

I'm thinking a 3-gallon hempy with 100% coco wouldn't need watering for a looooong time, and it's going to be perfect for my self-watering pots.

thanks for encouraging me to go with it!

kick ass bro you know ive had my eye on the coco for a while, now ur saying 100% coco on ur hempy do u think that would effect the res at all? would perlite or hydroton be better for the res part?

cant wait to see how this works because i already have my coco ready for the next grow but going to mix in some clay pebbles also.

i would Imagen that coco would work great for TRF like OC+ or DM since they stay moist right?

what brand CoCo did you go with? did you flush it at all for salts? watch that Cal with the CoCo

 

[Green Utopia]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Great info on the coco. I don't know why I've had trouble wrapping my mind around it and in 1 page you've cleared up the mysteries.

Re the plugs, another example of your experience paying off. I tried everything water amount wise, but always from the top. Were I to use them again it would def be soak up from bottom as you've done. Great tip.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Cool to hear osh is on the grow bandwagon...
Even my corner truevalue hardware has timers, nutes, lights, pots and hydroton.

And its even cheaper than some of the more snobby hydro shops.

well, in California, OSH is owned by Sears, so that's why I was so surprised, since I believe Sears is very conservative politically.

The grow stuff at OSH is priced competitively, maybe a bit lower than average.

 

[dogsnova]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Orchard Supply Hardware...... I think it is......... Only in Cali..

 

[Propa Gator]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I believe Sears is very conservative politically.

Every moral position has a price
Give them a buck, they'll serve you nice
If they smile, do it twice
Man with money's boss, should know his place

in 1 page you've cleared up the mysteries.

Papa, I've been pushing coir at SS for months, or more
Now he knows and explains without being a bore
Tell everyone how a good thing is good
For medicine grows, he's like Martha Stewart

 

[Green007]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Glad everything is working out SS. Those babies look great! I've been wondering about coir in a hempy, where can I find more info on the subject?

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

What's an OSH, a mainstream garden supply? If so, to stock these items at all is a surprise. In late Aug? Oh, yeah
My request for leaf temps came from not knowing the data you shared in post #256. Delta T looks like a principle relationship worth keeping in mind, even without the specific readings. Heat for vaporization comes from somewhere, right?

"In general, a differential temperature of +1or 2 degrees Celsius is very good. If the foliage is 10 °C warmer than ambient air, the plant is seriously stressed and cause of problem needs to be determined. Generally speaking the cooler the crops stay over the course of the growing season, the higher the yield and the better the quality of the crop."


I read another article on canopy vs ambient temps that said that a non-stressed canopy should actually measure 1-2F *lower* than ambient air due to transpiration/evaporation.

A 10C differential being equal to an 18F differential, I find it pretty amazing that plants can tolerate as much heat as they do before being stressed. At 80F ambient, they would be seriously stressed at 98F, so there is more wiggle room there than I thought.

It's nice that learned peeps burned up a bunch of plants for us to get these numbers, lol.

I believe that plants must throw water into the air to draw up more from the roots, bringing with it dissolved salt nutes. So, the sooner you chuck the dome the better, IMO. 70% RH isn't bad, but 50 or 40 better.
I need a few of your gadjets and gauges to get with the empirical program. Are numbers and artistic appreciation mutually exclusive? I use numbers to rationalise or justify whatever I like or don't like. Sweet sounding music as opposed to most tempered scale chords, for illustration. Much piano music has alot of notes, which obscures the unavoidable dissonance. For understanding, I read about Bachs' twelfth root of two
Plants have a triple Phd in biochemistry, but mercifully keep the details to themselves.

The dome was serving double-duty as both temp and humidity control as I had the cuttings out in the open in my garage, but the two flowering clones did OK for several weeks prior to that in my cab without a dome, so point taken.

Are numbers and artistic appreciation mutually exclusive?

I hope not, I like 'em both

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

kick ass bro you know ive had my eye on the coco for a while, now ur saying 100% coco on ur hempy do u think that would effect the res at all? would perlite or hydroton be better for the res part?

cant wait to see how this works because i already have my coco ready for the next grow but going to mix in some clay pebbles also.

i would Imagen that coco would work great for TRF like OC+ or DM since they stay moist right?

what brand CoCo did you go with? did you flush it at all for salts? watch that Cal with the CoCo

Good questions bro, and I'm still gathering info so I can make what I consider the best decision.

I know people have grown in hempy buckets with 100% coco and had no root rot problems, so it's doable.

One of the biggest benefits of coco is how it wicks, so would like to avoid compromising that by having a layer of something below it that doesn't wick as well. So unless I find some convincing evidence that 100% coco causes rot problems, I'm going to go with it.

Although I haven't been able to find much info on how prills interact physically with the medium, it just makes sense to me that the better contact they have with the medium, and the more moisture it retains, the better they would be able to do what they're designed to do.

Sometimes it helps to take a question to an extreme to clarify things. Let's say you used 100% pure hydroton and a prilled CRF. We'll pretend that most of them won't wind up in the res . I just can't see that combination working very well because of all the air spaces in the hydroton matrix. They need to be in contact with moisture for the osmosis to take place, and I don't think straight hydroton would provide very good contact.

These CRF's are designed to work best in media that are good at water retention, like soil, and coco is similar to soil in that regards, so I suspect that CRF's would work well in coco.

Whether the coco would retain too much of the cal/mag nute package in the prills I don't know, but that can be fixed if it happens.

I'm tempted to go with a CRF in the hempy buckets, but it's too many new things for me at once. I think for my first coco grow, I'm going to go with coco-specific nutes, or regular hydro nutes supplemented with cal/mag if necessary.

The coco I used for these clones was a 10 lb no-name brick that I got on ebay. Since I didn't know the source, I flushed gallons and gallons through it over my lawn.

Then I filled one of the 5" pots with it and took it in the kitchen. I measured the ppm of my tap water, which was 145. Then I ran a little tap water through the rinsed coco and it measured 140, so I know it was clean.

thanks Irish!

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Orchard Supply Hardware...... I think it is......... Only in Cali..

I like it here

Every moral position has a price
Give them a buck, they'll serve you nice
If they smile, do it twice
Man with money's boss, should know his place


Papa, I've been pushing coir at SS for months, or more
Now he knows and explains without being a bore
Tell everyone how a good thing is good
For medicine grows, he's like Martha Stewart

LOL!

I think I'm just a regular joe who likes simple info that I can use, so that's how I approach describing my impressions and observations of stuff.

I think Martha Stewart does a great job of breaking things down, so thanks!

one thing though, where's all my helpers? lol

Now we just need to provide the "Orchards...." Think of the driving up I-5 through mile upon mile of cannabis orchards in the Central Valley. This is our destiny, we used to be the fruit & nut capital of the world [still plenty of fruits and nuts here] we need to be the WEED CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.

just a thought,

b

A very green thought.

So much cannabis growing that ripoffs would no longer be an issue?

yeah, that would be very cool

Glad everything is working out SS. Those babies look great! I've been wondering about coir in a hempy, where can I find more info on the subject?

For something specific like that, I would just go on Google and search for "coco hempy". I've used those search words with excellent results.

Great info on the coco. I don't know why I've had trouble wrapping my mind around it and in 1 page you've cleared up the mysteries.

Re the plugs, another example of your experience paying off. I tried everything water amount wise, but always from the top. Were I to use them again it would def be soak up from bottom as you've done. Great tip.

thanks bro, and again, glad you're onboard

 

[IrishBoy]

Re: 420 Consumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Good questions bro, and I'm still gathering info so I can make what I consider the best decision.

I know people have grown in hempy buckets with 100% coco and had no root rot problems, so it's doable.

One of the biggest benefits of coco is how it wicks, so would like to avoid compromising that by having a layer of something below it that doesn't wick as well. So unless I find some convincing evidence that 100% coco causes rot problems, I'm going to go with it.

Although I haven't been able to find much info on how prills interact physically with the medium, it just makes sense to me that the better contact they have with the medium, and the more moisture it retains, the better they would be able to do what they're designed to do.

Sometimes it helps to take a question to an extreme to clarify things. Let's say you used 100% pure hydroton and a prilled CRF. We'll pretend that most of them won't wind up in the res . I just can't see that combination working very well because of all the air spaces in the hydroton matrix. They need to be in contact with moisture for the osmosis to take place, and I don't think straight hydroton would provide very good contact.

These CRF's are designed to work best in media that are good at water retention, like soil, and coco is similar to soil in that regards, so I suspect that CRF's would work well in coco.

Whether the coco would retain too much of the cal/mag nute package in the prills I don't know, but that can be fixed if it happens.

I'm tempted to go with a CRF in the hempy buckets, but it's too many new things for me at once. I think for my first coco grow, I'm going to go with coco-specific nutes, or regular hydro nutes supplemented with cal/mag if necessary.

The coco I used for these clones was a 10 lb no-name brick that I got on ebay. Since I didn't know the source, I flushed gallons and gallons through it over my lawn.

Then I filled one of the 5" pots with it and took it in the kitchen. I measured the ppm of my tap water, which was 145. Then I ran a little tap water through the rinsed coco and it measured 140, so I know it was clean.

thanks Irish!

very good feed back..

i think the CRF will work great in CoCo but i do understand doing too many new things at once, sometimes its best to take one step at a time. i might give it a try on my next grow and see what happens if i like how the CRF work at the end of my current grow..

from what i have read CoCo help prevent root rot so you might be ok? in my case i think i might use hydroton in my res, but to be honest ill you ur grow for the info if its needed or not.lol.. thanks in advance. j/k..

from what you have seen with the CoCo do you feel any hydroton mixed in would be necessary or a benefit or is the air ratio good enough even when wet? could you see it helping at all?

sounds like you have it flushed nice and good.

 

[go green]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

This is like the coco that comes in a block? Coco-soil mulch block thing???



Nice stuff SS. Just too much info! lol Why not use promix?

 

[Propa Gator]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

Love of the toys bankrupts the boys!

You can tell men from boys by the price of their toys.

Phillips 400 W retrofit

K.I.S.S! Adequate room flow for gas and heat exchange, movement around the plant to minimize the boundary layer, and yer done.

Fancy air trumps fancy nutes.

 

[Setting Sun]

Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID

I've admitted to being a gadget freak, but I don't "depend" on any gadget to make decisions or adjustments. I depend on my senses and what I've learned to do that, but as was mentioned earlier, science and art need not be mutually exclusive, and I sometimes enjoy corroborating my observations with more objective numerical data. I just do it mostly cause it's fun.

I don't need *any* of my gadgets to take a grow from start to finish, but I've always liked them.

My "gold standard" are my senses, but it's very possible that a gadget could be more accurate, so if there is a significant discrepancy between what my senses are telling me and what the gadget is telling me, it gives me an opportunity to investigate which is more accurate, and either label the gadget a worthless piece of crap, or make the mental and/or physical adjustments that will improve my grows.

Just because my plants aren't showing any stress doesn't mean that I have my light as low as it can go. I bleached some buds recently because the only tool I had to learn safe limits was playing with the light height. Maybe I could have avoided the bleaching by using an IR thermometer to read plant stress, especially with a light I've never used before.

I've just used common sense to set up my ventilation fans. Cannabis likes the same weather conditions we like, and we don't like having strong wind blowing at us for most or all of the day, so I set my fans up so that the leaves are just lightly fluttering.

I didn't learn about stomata and boundary layers until much later, but I've found that common sense and science often agree.

Glad you caught that branch before it snapped.

Heavy buds, it's a good problem