Hello
and it's a veg tent update due to having both a new born arrived and also a form of personal revelation regarding these lights that have given me food for thought.
First and foremost let's take a look at the new girl:
The Lemon Skunk has said hello, unfortunately there is no sign of my immature crossed Incredible Bulk and Lemon Skunk yet, I've got my fingers crossed on that one still.
That out of the way, my personal revelation is that I've been growing all wrong! Nothing new there I know but when I say all wrong I mean in the sense of my lighting. You see, as I opened the tent today I had a vision of beautiful ladies that seemed to have shot up overnight and looking happy and smiley about it too. They were praying to the light and looking healthier than I have seen a lot of these plants in a long time. So what does it boil down to? I have a few scenarios that I'm thinking over, here they are and if anyone has any opinions, as ever they are all appreciated.
First of all have I been using too much light in veg. Can this cause slow growth and unhealthy looking plants? It certainly causes a lot of heat as the temps have dropped around 3F since swapping out two higher wattage lights, they are still within my 80F - 85F range that I prefer though so the heat part is mainly minor. But can an overpowering of light actually cause the slow growth that I'm thinking of? I know that it can kill seedlings so maybe it's the same with vegging plants, I don't know but it's something I would like to consider, I'm kind of half disregarding the idea as I've probably lost around 300w max but it has to be in the mix. This does lead me to a possible second cause though
Are we overrating the effects of splitting spectrums for 'optimum' plant growth. HPS has always been the best producing light for a reason I think, it contains a full spectrum including the green spectrum of which I am recently hearing conflicting reports about. Some maintain that it is useless while others say that it aids penetration of the plants, I'm not sure either way as I have no concrete evidence to put forth so I have no educated opinion. Either way is there something that these split spectrum LED's are missing? I'm looking at that as a possibility. which makes me ask...
Do some strains dislike certain lights? For instance I have had two plants that have literally looked like dogshit forever, now that will obviously be down to my growing skills, but are we making it harder for ourselves if a plant prefers a full spectrum to a split spectrum, or for that matter is it a case of feeding more/less nutrients under this spectrum causes issues that wouldn't be there under a different light? I'm not sure I'm explaining this exactly as I would like to get it across but here are a couple of pictures of the two girls in mention.
Incredible Bulk reveg, she has been ill for a long time and there is a possibility that she was nute burned at one point but today revealed a startling difference from a few days ago:
Just the feeding issue is certainly plausible, but it still surprises me that she seems to be recovering at a much faster rate with the same environment but a full spectrum light instead of a split spectrum light source.
Here's the old (I think, would need to recheck) Paradise Delahaze that never really took off. She has been sickly throughout her growth, she still has the scars/dead leaves to prove it, yet today she was the happiest that I have ever seen:
Now I understand that her old growth won't grow back but she is looking remarkably happy, and her new growth is looking healthy too. It almost seems like an overnight transformation and this was part of the reason that I started thinking about whether she hadn't liked the old light. Or whether her nutrient needs had been different somehow, as my feeding schedule is pretty regular at being irregular but always 2 feeds, 1 water or 2 waters 1 feed depending on which one is looking suitable at the time.
The Royal Queen Seeds Critical and the Humboldt's Bubba's Gift are two other plants that had their light changed and they too are looking bigger, I mean growth spurt bigger over the past few days. I thought it might just be me looking through rose tinted glasses but my trusty assistant confirmed it when they came to look. Maybe it's just 'that time' where they start growing fast, or maybe something is afoot:
Here's the Bubba's Gift today:
I'm tempted to defoliate her undersides but she just seems so nice bushing out yet. I know it will have to be done, but maybe later
Here's the Critical, she still looks like she needs something for her stems as they're still spindly. Today she's looking happy and reaching for the stars:
Here's the little CrackerDino, that soil is baked hard and it pains me to watch, but I did say I would see if she would grow in soil from the garden. She looks happy enough:
OK so back to the two Think Big Autos. I didn't want to swap their light out as they're so far into flowering, a couple of weeks more and I think these will be for the chop, I had to change the support on DDA1 and pick her up today. She had fallen over on her side and I thought she was a gonner, but I picked her up and she seemed strong enough so I'm not ready to chop her just yet.
Here's the DDA1 none the worse for wear hopefully:
The DDA2 that was topped seems to be merrily plodding on too:
That's all the girls sorted so now back to the questions at hand. Do certain strains dislike split spectrum LED in comparison to full spectrum? Are there different feeding needs for split spectrum and full spectrum? Can too much light mean stunted plant growth and would 640w split into 3 units of LED's be too much light, or too little light for that matter? But if that's the case why are the plants looking healthier and livelier today, could I be mistaking stretching for happiness? Damn the questions are endless, any ideas anyone?