Emmie's 6 Plant, True Living Organic, LED Grow Journal

Emilya said:
I seem to have built up a lot of readers on this thread, so I will use this as a quick and easy way to announce that I will be starting a new grow journal very soon with some very special seeds on my first totally legal Missouri grow! I haven't found a new place yet, but that is ok... if I have to, I have moved plants before. :)
Today I have been working on one of my bins of supersoil, adding quite a few amendments to it for this landmark grow. I have added some partially used bags of stuff laying around here, some earthworm castings, old forest humus, a half a bag of perlite... and then I went for the good stuff and added back in to this well used soil a goodly amount of azomite, oyster shell flour, dolomite, epsom salt, bone meal, RealGrower's Recharge, Happy Frog 5-5-5 organic, rock phosphate, humic acid... and the result of all this mixing is a sweet smelling soil that smells just like the forest floor.
I realized when I smelled it that this soil is just fine and very rich, and I have put off my plan B of buying one of the commercial supersoils... my 7 year old soil is just fine. The majority of this mix will cook for the next 2 months and will be used as a base layer in final 10 gallon GeoPots and I will start up this weekend germinating and moving to solo cups. I will sneak a bit of this newly amended soil into the bottoms of all of the containers as we successively uppot so that some of this mineralized soil will be at every layer for the roots to eventually find.
I will be growing out a special gift that came just for me from @santero, the well known German breeder, called Berry D-licious ... a cross between Shishkaberry x Sour Diesel. Thanks San!
My goal will be to bloom 2 large plants under a 2x4' SCROG maximizing my new COB lights while also producing a couple of carefully fertilized buds for seeds in the process. I will be starting 7 of my 10 seeds with this goal in mind. I will have great soil, new lights and amazing genetics, plenty of spare LEDs... this should be epic. I hope that several of you will follow along when you see the new grow highlighted in my signature and on my links page... it won't be long!
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Wouldn't miss it! Berry D-Licious is exciting enough, you're making seeds too? My heart! Goodly amount? You seasoned growers are like good cooks. :p Do you really amend like that?
All the new things happening are exciting too, can't wait!
 
stoneotter said:
Wouldn't miss it! Berry D-Licious is exciting enough, you're making seeds too? My heart! Goodly amount? You seasoned growers are like good cooks. :p Do you really amend like that?
All the new things happening are exciting too, can't wait!
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lol... I plan on giving the Recharge a good workout on this run too... keeps Joyce from complaining about my messes I hope, and if it works as well as my tomatoes are working, I think I can bring a lot more people over to TLO growing.
And yes, a dash of this and that... mother nature doesn't use measuring cups... why should I? lol, of course I can't recommend anyone else trying this, but I had a pretty good idea from that 14 week plant this last time what happened to the soil, so I had a good idea what to add.
 
I am personally very excited to see this new grow :goof:
 
What is TLO by the way I don’t know the short forms of anything ‍ :cheer:
 
Thank you
 
Emilya said:
Thank you guys, I am very happy that we all learned something from this journal. I would like to think that as I continue on this journey along with the rest of you, that I will continue to experiment and learn new things with each grow. It is very enjoyable to be able to share these experiences with all of you, well at least most of the time. Tonight we are going to learn a little bit more.
:passitleft:

It is time to come clean and finish my report of this grow with our last long running plant, NYC Diesel. NYCD has died.
:rip:

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It has been my task over the last few days to figure out why this happened. It was sudden and dramatic and despite my best efforts to save her, in her 11th week she suddenly developed severe macro nutrient deficiency symptoms.
I had made the problem worse by not understanding my cheap multicolored lights and how powerful they really are. I hurt both the Jack and NYCD by moving them way too close to the light around week 8. Jack recovered well from the abuse but NYCD bleached out 3-5 of the buds at the top, and the problems seemed to get worse from then on. I believe now that even here at the end, the light was a bit closer than she wanted it to be and I was pushing her way too hard.
:cool:
There was a larger problem going on that had my attention and I saw my first signs of it in Jack going into the 10th week in these 3 gallon containers. They were running out of some of the nutrients and I was having to supplement K and P to knock back the symptoms. Without @AngryBird's banana juice, she would have died sooner than she did. I realized too late that I should have gone with at least a 5 gallon container to run this long because all of the short running plants had done fine, excellent as a matter of fact, but here was NYCD who was expected to go 12-13 weeks. She didn't have a chance.
:rolleyes:
The soil suddenly lost its balance and went dramatically acidic. The mineral spike areas were death zones with a measured base pH of 4.6. This low of a pH can not support life and suddenly on the last watering the myco fungi died and a majority of the beneficial microbes also were not able to survive. The water/nutrient cycle stopped.
The soil actually went flat and lost the ability that makes it soil, the ability to clump... I have never seen this so dramatically in a container. The level of the soil fell an inch and a half or more! The soil compacted, and could no longer hold oxygen. This container is a now a death zone.
DSCF7065.JPG

What did I do wrong?
Too small of a container for a long running plant. Duh. I knew better, but did it anyway.
And, I did it in old soil that had not been amended for a while... Duh.
RIP dear NYCD... we will meet again. She got far enough to have some trichomes before the top died... some of her will go into the butter machine.
Don't do what I did. Sometimes I can be a real dunce. :lot-o-toke:

So this is basically the end of this journal. I am glad that you all enjoyed it and I hope you catch my next one when I decide to start. I need to take a little pause at this time while I deal with the new emerging laws in this state, and I have some decisions to make. I will be back soon though and will have plenty to journal about... I have 6 months supply here now at best and am already thinking about how I would run a SCROG under my new light to maximize yields with a legal plant count.
:ganjamon:

Be well everyone and I hope your gardens go well! I am still here on the forum doing my thing, even without a garden in the background. Thank you all for your support, all the references given to new people linking to my work, and your choice to make me the March MOTM. This journal has been a joy to present to you and I have learned a lot! Another completed journal is in the books. ~~ Emmie
:circle-of-love:
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That sux you had trouble in the end! I wanted to tell you that the wappa can be super killer, i got a zip in budapest and was soooo happy for like two weeks! Try her again and you will be giggiling like a school girl. I think mine was harvested a littlebit early but was still fat, soooper stinky and would clog my grinder!
 
Enjoil said:
That sux you had trouble in the end! I wanted to tell you that the wappa can be super killer, i got a zip in budapest and was soooo happy for like two weeks! Try her again and you will be giggiling like a school girl. I think mine was harvested a littlebit early but was still fat, soooper stinky and would clog my grinder!
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The wappa turned out great, both in the regular cure and in the cob cure versions... it was NYC Diesel that i seem to have an issue with. This is the second time I have failed her over the years, while my brother grew her just fine. lol
 
HugePeckerhead said:
I didn't get a chance to read all 48 pages of.comments but how did the switch from hps to led go?
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my grows up until that point were a combination of t5ho, hps and mh. In flower I ran two 600w bulbs specially installed in a large Raptor air cooled hood. The cheap LED lights beat that. Considering cost, cost to run and lifespan, it was not even a close comparison. I am sold on LED. After I was convinced, I decided to get the very best LEDs, so I built my own.
 
this is my little ghetto set up. Well where I veg at anyways. Im new at this so it's basic right now. I was thinking about making the jump to hps out of curiosity but honestly the ladies seem to love it and are thriving as it seems to me. But now seeing your comment makes me think about just dumping a couple hundred on the big boy led lighting.
 

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We have several great sponsors who will give you quite a discount. I like the full spectrum Mars lights a lot, I like the perfect sun lights, but if you DIY it like several of us here have you will find that it is fairly easy and economical to build your own. I built what is available commercially for around $750 for just over $500, but of course I don't have a warranty, customer support or any datasheets to go by either. That extra you pay for a commercial light gives you a lot actually.
 
Emilya said:
We have several great sponsors who will give you quite a discount. I like the full spectrum Mars lights a lot, I like the perfect sun lights, but if you DIY it like several of us here have you will find that it is fairly easy and economical to build your own. I built what is available commercially for around $750 for just over $500, but of course I don't have a warranty, customer support or any datasheets to go by either. That extra you pay for a commercial light gives you a lot actually.
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The one I have is a mars 300w but that thing looks brighter then the 1000w Unbranded I have running also. I'm literally going to checkout the sponsor pages on them just to see what's out there. But one thing I do know is their pro cree looks nice. And also their reflector series they have. Thanks for the quick info though as I'm pretty sure you saved me.ordering the hps lighting system and realizing I'd rather just stick with the leds
 
HugePeckerhead said:
The one I have is a mars 300w but that thing looks brighter then the 1000w Unbranded I have running also. I'm literally going to checkout the sponsor pages on them just to see what's out there. But one thing I do know is their pro cree looks nice. And also their reflector series they have. Thanks for the quick info though as I'm pretty sure you saved me.ordering the hps lighting system and realizing I'd rather just stick with the leds
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You might want to send a note to @SmokeSara, our rep at Mars. Definitely check out the others too. Check out my article where I put my lights through their paces and use my numbers for comparison. Do yourself a favor and get as close to solar light spectrum as you can, CRI 100... My lights are CRI 90, just missing a bit of blue. When I add 2 more 5000k COBs to it later, my overall spectrum will be CRI 100. My reasoning is that the sun is equipped to give what plants need better than we can do artificially... lets get as close to that standard as possible.
 
Emilya said:
You might want to send a note to @SmokeSara, our rep at Mars. Definitely check out the others too. Check out my article where I put my lights through their paces and use my numbers for comparison. Do yourself a favor and get as close to solar light spectrum as you can, CRI 100... My lights are CRI 90, just missing a bit of blue. When I add 2 more 5000k COBs to it later, my overall spectrum will be CRI 100. My reasoning is that the sun is equipped to give what plants need better than we can do artificially... lets get as close to that standard as possible.
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@SmokeSara I'll be sending a note shortly if you can check at your earliest convenience.

Is there a way to measure that or is it on the specs of the light? Sorry for all pestering about lighting though. One thing I was told is to make sure the light runs full spectrums.
 
HugePeckerhead said:
@SmokeSara I'll be sending a note shortly if you can check at your earliest convenience.

Is there a way to measure that or is it on the specs of the light? Sorry for all pestering about lighting though. One thing I was told is to make sure the light runs full spectrums.
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all the commercial lights will have a spectrum chart so you can see what they output. Compare that to the "full spectrum" output of our sun, and that is how we get the CRI rating.
 
HugePeckerhead said:
@SmokeSara I'll be sending a note shortly if you can check at your earliest convenience.

Is there a way to measure that or is it on the specs of the light? Sorry for all pestering about lighting though. One thing I was told is to make sure the light runs full spectrums.
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Got your msg and replied. :)
 
Good Friday morning Em. I think using the recharge like I am too this grow, is the easiest and cleanest thing ever. My plants seem to be loving it. I'd have to agree that more folks will be interested in LOS when they see how easy things are. I even had the chance to brew up a batch of microbes and said to myself, self, go upstairs and light up and take care of what ails you tonight. There's no worry, microbes inabag got this.
I do plan on some custom brews but having a cushion is real nice when I'm not able to get it done otherwise, or when it's a surprise. I'm dosing 1 tsp/gal every other watering at present.
 
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