Re: 420 Cannasumer Reports Competition - GrowLEDHydro 300w LED vs. 400w HID
TL, Thanks for the awesome inforamtion and thanks to everyone else for the discussion. Blown away.
Thanks TT, glad you enjoyed it! Was fun puttin' it all together. A Labor of Like if you will.
I like your name ,too.
(Two Tokes: for when
one toke just won't cut it!)
TL awesome post + reps if I can....
In all of my testing I have found that 12" to 15" is MY strains optimal distance for an air cooled 400w HPS...
Your post just explained exactly why that is...
Starting out the flowering cycle with high canopy light intensity and working your way towards a lower canopy light intensity helps prevent oxidation to the mature flowers that is in turn caused by radiant heat coming off the HID bulb.. By pulling the HID light up off the canopy towards the end of the flowering cycle I've found this greatly decreased the sunburn effect to my mature flowers.. Just as TL posted about..
Thanks Dog, you have an interesting take on flowering. I agree we're constantly fighting degradation near the end of the plant's life in an effort to reach a positive dynamic equilibrium with regards to trichome production. If it works, do it!
Man, Lurker... posts like these are why I nommed you for MOM!
This is also why I went vertical CMH...
Thanks man!
Didn't even know I'd been nominated until you mentioned it here. I should pay more attention to what's goin' on around here lol!
Interested to see how your vertical turns out. I liked your earlier contraptions (pipe-full-o-roots!), are you finding you miss that stuff in exchange for the simplicity of Hempy and the theatre-in-the-round?
Awesome post TL!
Very understandable, both your explanations and your graphs.
I do have a digital light meter, but I've been too beat to do much more than keep up with the essentials.
Now that you've posted this data, however, I'm much more motivated to get some numbers.
a *lot* of work went into that post, and I've never seen the issue broken down so well before.
you rock bro
Thanks very much SS, you know my methods. Sometimes, it's not just madness, I swear!
I like your video updates also, a good addition to your normal comprehensive journaling. You've got those girls all a-flutter
(did you take off your shirt or something?) Nice to see some Moving Pictures (through The Camera Eye).
<cue Rush music>
A modern-day warrior mean mean stride
Today's Tom Sawyer PPP pride
Though your mind is not For Rent, I don't put you down as arrogant, either...
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As to your HID deficiencies, those are rather interesting. Coco's not the best buffering agent - much less like soil than pure (liquid) hydro. (Soil can be good when prepared properly, but sometimes I think even the Doc's faith in soil's capacity to buffer sometimes outstrips its actual ability to do so.) RO and CalMag will definitely help. It can be inconvenient to keep mixing, but at least it gives one a known quantity from which to build a solid nutrient profile upon. As most cooks know, you can always add more - but you can't take away. (Like Prego: 'It's in there!')
(Ok, now that's making me hungry for my house-wide famous spaghetti sauce. Let's see: ground beef, tomatoes, tomato paste, fresh basil, parsley, yellow onions, roasted minced garlic, green peppers, oregano, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dash of salt n' pepper, pinch o' red pepper (secret ingredient!), corn starch, a little old vine zinfandel...mmmmm!...)
Where was I? Oh, yes...
deficiencies, and buffering.
Here's what I think, and this is just idle speculation, haven't bothered looking up any cites for this one. I'll leave that to other folks. YMMV...
Your plants had several days under MH or LED with which to become somewhat accustomed to the light after you transplanted (with the existing root system still suspended in the good, washed coco), and then your issues started showing up a week+ later.
Here's the SPD (Spectral Power Distribution) for a typical Sylvania MetalArc bulb:
Apart from a low band in the far-blue/violet range and that one smaller spike around 470 nm, overall distribution is kinda choppy and haphazard, and not as much blue as one might think. A lot more in the greens and yellow, actually. And the intensity isn't too bad from that far away - and you've got a nice secondary barrier (tempered glass lens) in the way, too.
The LED, in contrast, has nearly 30% of its total output in the blue range. And it's a pretty high density overall, too. (More than I'd use, definitely)
My
guess is that all the extra blue in the LED (both in %, and higher intensity) is
kicking the plants into 'create sunscreen' mode big-time, esp. the first couple of weeks. You see what runts this light creates of (the tops of) buds even 12-14" away. Well, all that ('sunscreen') stuff is basically
antioxidants, like you'd get from raspberries, grapes, acai, red wine, green tea, and the like. Those work pretty much the same way in plants as they do in humans - protect us from things that're bad for us.
In effect, the lopsided spectrum in that light is (purely concidentally) also
making the plant create some of its own buffering agents, which are somewhat combating things like the excess salinity (and high ion environments resulting from over-nuting or alkalinity, etc.).
Something that's not needed in a healthy plant environment (and actually stunts production somewhat), but one that just happens to reduce some of the deleterious effects when it's not.
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I guess plants must like
red wine, too.
I also find that when some red wine's administered to the
gardener, the plants seem happier, also...
That also means that one could still have mild-to-moderate issues in the substrate, and not know it - i.e. which might not even show up as much in the plants under (this particular) LED - if it weren't for the canary in the coalmine (HID). Those issues would still have an effect, though, definitely.
Not to get all Eastern or anything, but imbalances always manifest in the energy system before becoming evident on the physical realm. All growers (hydro especially) know this once they start measuring TDS/EC/ppm/pH. Once you start to see it in the plant, it's already been going on in
some fashion for a period of time. You just see it faster in hydro, usually.
Another reason why I'd keep rinsing your pots for awhile (still some excess salt, probably, outside of any separate issues from using tap). Any advantage one side or the other has in veg will translate into flowering as well. (Race might be a few kilometers, but a 100m head start still makes a difference...)
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Anyway, that's my theory, and I'm stickin' to it! :rolleyes3 (for now)
<Whatever it is I've been smokin' - I want some more!
>
Have a good trip Sun,
-TL
ProblemChild 
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