Emmie's LSD Grow Log

[Emilya Green]

WHOA.

I should have known. Of course you have this. And now that I see it, I understand the extent of your experiment here. Those are FAR reds. Wow. And just 30 watts of that spectrum lights the room up. I would have never expected that level of brightness, for lack of a better word. So when do you start the UV specific experiment, or in conjunction with these reds? After you gather the data from this run? Lol. Yup, I would expect you to get a noticeable frost increase from this, yes? What an interesting experiment.

Yes it is. It is my belief that the red before dawn reduced stretch by 66% and that the red dusk adds 2 hours to the night period, allowing up to 14 hours of daylight, not only adding to the DLI, but also reducing total Bloom time required to finish out. I have done this before but not with nearly this quality of light and this present run confirms the first experiment and the hypothesis. With a few more runs I'll be sure what I am seeing.

 

[Jon]

Yes it is. It is my belief that the red before dawn reduced stretch by 66% and that the red dawn adds 2 hours to the night period, allowing up to 14 hours of daylight, not only adding to the DLI, but also reducing total Bloom time required to finish out. I have done this before but not with nearly this quality of light and this present run confirms the first experiment and the hypothesis. With a few more runs I'll be sure what I am seeing.

So the red dawn effectively extends the night period by two hours cuz it's not enough to trigger them that it's daytime but enough for trichome production in that time, and then also allows for what you say here? And what effect on the buds do you think the stretch reduction will create?

 

[Emilya Green]

So the red dawn effectively extends the night period by two hours cuz it's not enough to trigger them that it's daytime but enough for trichome production in that time, and then also allows for what you say here? And what effect on the buds do you think the stretch reduction will create?

sorry, just edited my typo. The red that extends past dusk is what instantly puts them to sleep and gives 2 hours extra of night. A lot of trichome development happens at night, so extending this period seems advantageous.

I think that the ability to reduce stretch necessarily increases penetration of all light, not just the red, mainly because of the inverse square law regarding intensity of light/distance, so the buds that are produced under this more intense light should be better in all ways to a normal stretch situation where those same buds are going to receive much less intense light, being a foot or more further away from the light.

 

[Emilya Green]

WHOA.

I should have known. Of course you have this. And now that I see it, I understand the extent of your experiment here. Those are FAR reds. Wow. And just 30 watts of that spectrum lights the room up. I would have never expected that level of brightness, for lack of a better word. So when do you start the UV specific experiment, or in conjunction with these reds? After you gather the data from this run? Lol. Yup, I would expect you to get a noticeable frost increase from this, yes? What an interesting experiment.

When you speak of lighting the room up, mainly what we humans are seeing is the deep red. The far red lights look very dim when comparing them to the deep red, and I actually have more of them on this strip. The green leaves are practically transparent to this far red light and it penetrates right down to the ground. I believe that we are just beginning to see the profundity and the power of the far red.

The UV is another experiment that I watched others do, way before we had cheap UV leds... those guys used Lizard Lights on a timer. They found degradation in the trichomes with full time UV while one guy with his dial a light, ran the UV for a three hour period around the plant's noontime... and it seemed that this was the magic formula. Logically, it looks like building trichomes is the natural protection against noontime UV, and then turning them off for the rest of the day allows those additional trichomes to thrive. I have an 18w UV sterilization LED light to cleanse the water going into my saltwater aquarium... I think adding one of those to the mix on a noontime timer, would show amazing effect. Unfortunately, even the best LED lights have a UV component right now, that runs full time, but then again, our sun also produces a bit of UV all the time too... it is just more pronounced around noontime because of the angle it takes through the atmosphere. I think that there will be noticeable positive effect to timing out the additional UV and I may install that into place for this next run. At some point I will buy a white lab coat so as to make my results official, and I will do some side by side tests with clones to be sure... but for now I will just use my common sense and my senses to try to figure out if something good is happening.

 

[Emilya Green]

Total age of grow: 163 days
Nematodes applied 10 days ago
Days since last feeding: 10
Bloom - 6 weeks, 5 days
Watered yesterday

Things are looking much better in the room today. After dealing with thrips and a badly timed drought because we were too sick to work with them, the plants were looking very poorly. This weekend I worked to clean them up of all the dead leaves while giving them a good inspection, and I decided that the progress they have made lately deserved some good pictures of the buds.

The lighting has remained the same since we last talked about it, but today I am going to do the opposite as I would normally be inclined to do near the end, as I am going to lengthen the day today to 13/11, with the far and deep red still running 20 minutes before and after the light change. I am fairly confident that the red lights only need to be on 20 minutes prior to the lights going on and 20 minutes after the main lights go out, but we will wait till next round to confirm that. So far I can't confirm that they are finishing any earlier, but they did stay short with only about 1/3 of the stretch that I was expecting.

The trichomes are building up nicely on most of the plants, and after pulling out all of the dead leaves the plants look almost self lollipopped. The nematodes appear to have worked quite well, and not a bug was spotted. I am confident that the thrip problem has been eliminated and I plan on using them or other natural predators (ladybugs) regularly in my gardens. Despite everything going wrong in this grow, I am still going to get a decent harvest from these girls. The LSD plants all look to be about where they should be at this time, and the Amnesia plant, a pure sativa, looks to have quite a bit more time left on her.

Here are the pictures... and not the prettiest plants I have ever grown, but they do have some positive qualities to them... mainly the massive trichomes building in on the better and more advanced plants. I will start first with the amnesia F2. She isn't going to be a huge producer, but none of them are. I expect 3-5 oz from each plant. Some of the plants have obvious fall colors going on now too, since there have been times when the grow room got into the 50's, before I turned on the space heater full time.

Sorry about the picture quality. I didn't notice until posting these pictures that I appear to have a large smudge in the middle of the lens.

 

[Nortonnabis]

... To answer @Jon's question, the Deep/Far Red strip I am running is 30 watts and runs on a little 1 amp constant current supply. ...

Emilya,
This is my first post!
Recently got my Med card and home growers approval and have been studying here for a few weeks. Love your posts the most! So informative! And you're local! What a great time we live in!
Put me on your Pre-Order list for your book!

What got me to register and post this was to ask:
What is the Deep/Far Red strip and where can it be purchased. A parts list would be great.
Sorry if I missed it some where... I've been studying here so much...

I currently have two, 6-bulb, 48" T5 HO panels and would like to have this Deep/Far Red strip as part of my room.
This is one of those brand new subjects!

I was considering adding a 600W HPS later near flower. Is that still a thing? Can the T5 HO with the Deep/Far Red strips do the whole grow?
I just ordered a Lux meter after reading one of your posts. Now I can dial in the distance with this rig!

Thanks again for posting all this informative and scientific content!

 

[Trala]

Yes. All of the studies I have seen regarding this do not show an increase in quality because of this practice, no matter the stage of the grow that it occurs. After 11 days or so of mostly ignoring my plants, it is my belief that they look like crap because of it and probably would have more bulk and overall yield without stressing them out to this degree. It may be possible to grow like this, but I believe that being more attentive to their needs is better than what I have done here. Thankfully, the plant is just doing what it best knows to do to survive, so there are merits... I just think a side by side could have shown the true story.

Omg I don’t like that whole draughting thang that seems to be gaining traction in this forum.

In my mind I don’t like the thought of torturing something, whether that be plant or animal to make it tastier for me. I know that is an oxymoron considering I cut it and smoke it.

But to me it’s like beef. I eat beef. But my perfect steak would come from an animal who has been treated well, fed well and been killed without suffering. I view the same rules with my grows.

This slow torturing, making plants slowly wilt and die or driving nails into their stems for better smoke and yield is just so awful to me. I understand watering, that is watering a plant when it’s hungry, allowing them to be hungry before feeding, I do the same with my plants. But deliberate droughting for an increase of buds is a horrible practice to me. I’d rather less buds.

 

[Emilya Green]

Emilya,
This is my first post!
Recently got my Med card and home growers approval and have been studying here for a few weeks. Love your posts the most! So informative! And you're local! What a great time we live in!
Put me on your Pre-Order list for your book!

What got me to register and post this was to ask:
What is the Deep/Far Red strip and where can it be purchased. A parts list would be great.
Sorry if I missed it some where... I've been studying here so much...

I currently have two, 6-bulb, 48" T5 HO panels and would like to have this Deep/Far Red strip as part of my room.
This is one of those brand new subjects!

I was considering adding a 600W HPS later near flower. Is that still a thing? Can the T5 HO with the Deep/Far Red strips do the whole grow?
I just ordered a Lux meter after reading one of your posts. Now I can dial in the distance with this rig!

Thanks again for posting all this informative and scientific content!

Hi there @Nortonnabis and welcome to the forum!

I recently retired and am going to earnestly start working on that book as soon as the puppy mill that our house has turned into, calms down just a bit.

The deep and far red strip mounted on a sturdy aluminum heat sink is from a company in Austria called Cutter. Their very professionally assembled strips are everything they were advertised to be and I am a very happy customer. I ordered the one that had an even number of deep and far red LEDs so as to be able to take full advantage of both spectrums. Back 10 years ago I ran T5HO with purple agromax bulbs, and got some great grows in using the SCROG technique so I could get those lights no more than 4" from the canopy. You really don't have a lot of choice when it comes to distance... you need to be close, especially in BLOOM. Unless you are running a SCROG, I would no longer recommend T5, even with the new LED replacement bulbs... There are just too many good LED rigs available these days. They are a little expensive to get going with, but 3 grows with a 600w HPS would easily spend what it would take for the initial LED light cost, and then after that reduced electricity costs and no bulb replacement costs will easily be much less (half?) than the cost of running HPS.

 

[Emilya Green]

Omg I don’t like that whole draughting thang that seems to be gaining traction in this forum.

In my mind I don’t like the thought of torturing something, whether that be plant or animal to make it tastier for me. I know that is an oxymoron considering I cut it and smoke it.

But to me it’s like beef. I eat beef. But my perfect steak would come from an animal who has been treated well, fed well and been killed without suffering. I view the same rules with my grows.

This slow torturing, making plants slowly wilt and die or driving nails into their stems for better smoke and yield is just so awful to me. I understand watering, that is watering a plant when it’s hungry, allowing them to be hungry before feeding, I do the same with my plants. But deliberate droughting for an increase of buds is a horrible practice to me. I’d rather less buds.

I am not convinced that draughting produces better buds. I see my buds that got 2x 11 day droughts because we were all too sick to manage the plants and knew they would survive. But even today after apologizing profusely and only going 4 days at the max since then, the buds are obviously smaller than they should be at this point in the grow. Without a side by side test, I can't tell you that my buds are better in any way as a result of this treatment, and I suspect that despite the prolific trichomes I am getting, they would have been even better with better treatment.

My idea of draughting is not nearly as drastic as the folks are trying in the popular threads. For the last year I have been suggesting that one water aggressively, cutting a day off of the wet/dry cycle established at the end of stretch, but every 4th watering, I go an extra day between waterings, just to draw a bit more oxygen down deep into the roots. I would never (except this last time) purposely attempt to hurt the plants just for more trichomes. I can see that the extended draught that I was forced to do twice this grow, killed part of the root system when I did it. The plants have gone from a 2-3 day wet/dry cycle to 4 days, and I equate that to damaged roots. How in the world could this be beneficial? Someone should do a clone side by side, while wearing a white professor coat, with someone with a PhD supervising and documenting for peer review, the paper describing what happened.

 

[Trala]

I am not convinced that draughting produces better buds. I see my buds that got 2x 11 day droughts because we were all too sick to manage the plants and knew they would survive. But even today after apologizing profusely and only going 4 days at the max since then, the buds are obviously smaller than they should be at this point in the grow. Without a side by side test, I can't tell you that my buds are better in any way as a result of this treatment, and I suspect that despite the prolific trichomes I am getting, they would have been even better with better treatment.

My idea of draughting is not nearly as drastic as the folks are trying in the popular threads. For the last year I have been suggesting that one water aggressively, cutting a day off of the wet/dry cycle established at the end of stretch, but every 4th watering, I go an extra day between waterings, just to draw a bit more oxygen down deep into the roots. I would never (except this last time) purposely attempt to hurt the plants just for more trichomes. I can see that the extended draught that I was forced to do twice this grow, killed part of the root system when I did it. The plants have gone from a 2-3 day wet/dry cycle to 4 days, and I equate that to damaged roots. How in the world could this be beneficial? Someone should do a clone side by side, while wearing a white professor coat, with someone with a PhD supervising and documenting for peer review, the paper describing what happened.

I actually become very fond of my plants and I work hard (while constantly failing) for them to be the best they can be. My goal is always to get them all the way to the end of flower as well as I can. To then deliberately torture them and have them slowly die before my eyes gives me anxiety.

My climate is really hot, and if I get home from work to find droopy girls (which I often do on hot days) I’m apologetic and rushing to give them a drink. I know I couldn’t stand back and watch them shrivel day after day. My heart would be so sad.

I know it’s all about finding your own individual grow groove and that style of grow ain’t mine lolll. I can remember reading somewhere in here that a poster banged a nail into the stem, I think it was Billpopy, and omg I clutched my pearls in horror. It obviously worked for him coz he grows great bud, it’s just not a technique for me.

I have read quite a few growers choosing this drought style. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

 

[Emilya Green]

I actually become very fond of my plants and I work hard (while constantly failing) for them to be the best they can be. My goal is always to get them all the way to the end of flower as well as I can. To then deliberately torture them and have them slowly die before my eyes gives me anxiety.

My climate is really hot, and if I get home from work to find droopy girls (which I often do on hot days) I’m apologetic and rushing to give them a drink. I know I couldn’t stand back and watch them shrivel day after day. My heart would be so sad.

I know it’s all about finding your own individual grow groove and that style of grow ain’t mine lolll. I can remember reading somewhere in here that a poster banged a nail into the stem, I think it was Billpopy, and omg I clutched my pearls in horror. It obviously worked for him coz he grows great bud, it’s just not a technique for me.

I have read quite a few growers choosing this drought style. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Well, I am guilty of using stress at the very end. My preferred weapon is a drywall screw. I use it much like putting them in the dark for the last 36 hours before chop... I screw that big screw right in there an inch or two above the soil. The idea here is to let them know in no uncertain terms that their world is ending. Some people throw ice water on them at this point, blare loud music... the idea being that they will throw their last energy into the completion of the buds, if all of this is done at the right time. Many times I have seen the plant give up the ghost, right here at the end, and water usage stops. In my mind, all of this at the very end isn't torture, it is simply convincing the plant that its natural lifecycle is at an end. This is different than shooting a plant in the foot in mid grow... that just seems mean.

 

[Trala]

Well, I am guilty of using stress at the very end. My preferred weapon is a drywall screw. I use it much like putting them in the dark for the last 36 hours before chop... I screw that big screw right in there an inch or two above the soil. The idea here is to let them know in no uncertain terms that their world is ending. Some people throw ice water on them at this point, blare loud music... the idea being that they will throw their last energy into the completion of the buds, if all of this is done at the right time. Many times I have seen the plant give up the ghost, right here at the end, and water usage stops. In my mind, all of this at the very end isn't torture, it is simply convincing the plant that its natural lifecycle is at an end. This is different than shooting a plant in the foot in mid grow... that just seems mean.

OMG!

Me:

Lolllllllllinggggggg!

Neither of those techniques is the way I roll. I guess we just need to find our own fit.

I mean it is just a plant. Me taking staggered trim portions over the week come harvest is no different.

I do like the sound of 36 hours of dark. Like that big beautiful sleep.

 

[Azimuth]

I can see that the extended draught that I was forced to do twice this grow, killed part of the root system when I did it. The plants have gone from a 2-3 day wet/dry cycle to 4 days, and I equate that to damaged roots. How in the world could this be beneficial?

Well, to be fair, the study suggested starting the draught in week 7 for eleven days, so right at the very end of the plants life after the roots are pretty well set so I don't think you'd be killing part of the root system as much as you might have done doing it earlier in the grow.

I'd agree if you were talking about fattening up the buds which typically happens right at the end, but then I'd question how much of that is water weight that you then have to dry out before you cure anyway.

And, while the "evidence" is mostly anecdotal, there are what I consider some very good growers that know what they're looking at that have indicated a substantial increase in trichomes by using the technique.

I've never done it, but I'll try it next round and see if that is something I want to continue with or not. Doesn't mean it's for everyone, but as you've said, you stress your plants out in other ways.

This is just another tool in the toolbox for a grower to use, or not.

 

[Nortonnabis]

The deep and far red strip mounted on a sturdy aluminum heat sink is from a company in Austria called Cutter. ... I ordered the one that had an even number of deep and far red LEDs so as to be able to take full advantage of both spectrums. Back 10 years ago I ran T5HO .... I could get those lights no more than 4" from the canopy.

Emily,
Congrats on your new phase of life! You won !!!

I'm right behind you!

I had no luck tracking down 'Cutter', but I'll keep trying.
I found quite a few horticulture articles discussing what you are talking about with these deep and far red LED's. I can track down emitters or strips that are in these ranges you posted in the light curve. I don't know about getting 30W worth and how that power is divided up between the two bands.

And SCROG !! I learn something new more than once a day on this site!
I'd love to try SCROG! Looks like fun!

I've been using these T5HO for years as Light Therapy and veggie garden starters this time of year.
I know about staying close, but I didn't know it could be that close (4"). The LUX meter I'm getting will confirm this?
But then at 4" from the canopy, where would the deep/far red LED strip(s) go in this SCROG / T5HO set up?

Anyway, until they stop working I'm going to stick with them. I'll skip getting a 600W HPS to supplement them, unless you think these two ~250W T5HO arrays and a 600W HPS could play well together..

I may get into modern LED's at some point. What would be a typical LED size for the legal 6 plant grow in the great state? But then, with my first legal grow just in the planning stage, I'm not sure about the end game.
I'm a light weight. What would I do with a big harvest? Do some only do one or two grows a year?

Thanks again for your work and every thing you post here!

 

[Emilya Green]

Emily,
Congrats on your new phase of life! You won !!!

I'm right behind you!

I had no luck tracking down 'Cutter', but I'll keep trying.
I found quite a few horticulture articles discussing what you are talking about with these deep and far red LED's. I can track down emitters or strips that are in these ranges you posted in the light curve. I don't know about getting 30W worth and how that power is divided up between the two bands.

And SCROG !! I learn something new more than once a day on this site!
I'd love to try SCROG! Looks like fun!

I've been using these T5HO for years as Light Therapy and veggie garden starters this time of year.
I know about staying close, but I didn't know it could be that close (4"). The LUX meter I'm getting will confirm this?
But then at 4" from the canopy, where would the deep/far red LED strip(s) go in this SCROG / T5HO set up?

Anyway, until they stop working I'm going to stick with them. I'll skip getting a 600W HPS to supplement them, unless you think these two ~250W T5HO arrays and a 600W HPS could play well together..

I may get into modern LED's at some point. What would be a typical LED size for the legal 6 plant grow in the great state? But then, with my first legal grow just in the planning stage, I'm not sure about the end game.
I'm a light weight. What would I do with a big harvest? Do some only do one or two grows a year?

Thanks again for your work and every thing you post here!

I don't think I am allowed to actually give you the website for a non sponsored light, but I am confident you can find them. Try some of the common .xxx's along with the company name, and remember that the URLs for some countries puts a final suffix indicating the country of origin... such as .au or .uk

30w is one strip, but the problem is going to be light distribution within a 4" height and you might have to wait till you can get a light that allows for a little more height before you will be able to play with the far red. My big 3'x3' actual sized NextLight Mega allows me to get 18" away from the canopy and that allows for a large enough light spread (5x5) with just one far red strip mounted right in the middle of it.

Check out some of our sponsors for the lights they have. Some of the economical LED arrays should have a pretty decent footprint, just check out the stats and see how large of a space they cover in bloom. I have several footprints available to me here, a couple for 2x4, one with a 3x3 footprint and the big one does 5x5. Several of our sponsors offer discounts too. I would hate to see you trying to grow with 10-20 year old technology when the new full spectrum LED lights are so cheap and effective, run so efficiently and last so long. Save up for one... you won't regret it.

As far as harvest size goes, you could probably get enough yield with 2 or 3 plants to last you for a long while, and you might find that you can get by with one or two grows per year. I am a medical provider and several of my patients require 3-4 oz per month, so I keep a fairly constant operation going and am working toward a perpetual grow that produces a 3-6 plant harvest every month. Growing just for yourself, you won't need that much, but trust me... when you have all the homegrown pot you can handle, your usage and your tolerance of the product will increase.

Lastly, a scrog is a whole lot of work. The method was devised to allow us when growing pot was a federal crime, to keep our plant count very low and use the low heat generating T5HO lights to avoid getting caught. SCROG will tie you down to tucking and weaving the plants under a 10 inch high screen for at least a month at the end of veg, spending sometimes a couple hours a day maintaining the canopy. Once started, the plants can't be moved, so your nute program needs to be carefully considered because at some point you may need to flush the soil of built up salts... how are you going to manage the 3x the container size water overflow, stuck under a screen? SCROG while effective is a pain, and we only did it because we had to. Spend a bit of money up front for a good light today and you are going to move you operation twenty years or more into the future.

 

[Nortonnabis]

I don't think I am allowed to actually give you the website for a non sponsored light, ...

30w is one strip, but the problem is going to be light distribution within a 4" height and you might have to wait till you can get a light that allows for a little more height before you will be able to play with the far red. ...

As far as harvest size goes, you could probably get enough yield with 2 or 3 plants to last you for a long while, ...

Lastly, a scrog is a whole lot of work. ...

Understood. I'll keep looking for the DIY strips, but I found an off the shelf system.
Looks like $175 ea for the Red and Far Red. Each light draws ~35W. Name Brand...

Probably overkill for my 3 plant grow! Thanks for that advice! I'll be that guy that buys the '3 seeds'.
You bought or built a strip that has both elements, correct?

Cheap alert...
I will be upgrading someday, but the T5HO give off useful heat this time of year! I'll have a decent vent system.

So here's the plan! What about hanging the T5HO's in an inverted ^ with a gap in the center to mount the R/FR strip, (once I figure that out)? I think that would be ~500W of power used. Would that cover 3 or 4 plants?
And SCROG also sounds like fun! But I'm sure I'll get sick of it as summer gets here.

Sorry if this is derailing your grow thread, but I think this is the only place you are talking about using the R/FR strip,
as far as I know.
What a cutting edge subject !

Thanks again for the work you do and sharing it here!

 

[Emilya Green]

Understood. I'll keep looking for the DIY strips, but I found an off the shelf system.
Looks like $175 ea for the Red and Far Red. Each light draws ~35W. Name Brand...

Probably overkill for my 3 plant grow! Thanks for that advice! I'll be that guy that buys the '3 seeds'.
You bought or built a strip that has both elements, correct?

Cheap alert...
I will be upgrading someday, but the T5HO give off useful heat this time of year! I'll have a decent vent system.

So here's the plan! What about hanging the T5HO's in an inverted ^ with a gap in the center to mount the R/FR strip, (once I figure that out)? I think that would be ~500W of power used. Would that cover 3 or 4 plants?
And SCROG also sounds like fun! But I'm sure I'll get sick of it as summer gets here.

Sorry if this is derailing your grow thread, but I think this is the only place you are talking about using the R/FR strip,
as far as I know.
What a cutting edge subject !

Thanks again for the work you do and sharing it here!

First, the cost. $175 is way too much. The strips that I bought were like $25 and I only needed one for a 5x5 area. Second, your inverted V idea would work to mount that light high enough to cover the area, but then your T5 lights are going to be way too high in the middle to get a usable amount of light. Buy the cheaper strip that I am trying to point you to and use the left over money for good $300 full spectrum LED light.

I was wrong about the company location, they are in australia. Use this screen shot of the light strip that I ordered so you can search for the company name, Cutter, and the part number that I am using.

 

[Nortonnabis]

Thanks! Found it, but shipping is more than the strip.
Looking for another source for this strip, or similar.
Thanks for the LED price point. What is an ideal wattage for a 4 plant grow?

 

[Emilya Green]

Thanks! Found it, but shipping is more than the strip.
Looking for another source for this strip, or similar.
Thanks for the LED price point. What is an ideal wattage for a 4 plant grow?

I looked for a long time for exactly what I wanted and this is why I have taken such pains to have you find it. Yes, the shipping is more than the product, but you wont find a product of this quality for three times the price... in deep and far red this is the best I found, especially at this low price

There is no ideal wattage... there is no standard in the LED game. Go for at least 800-1000 ppfd and pay attention to actual draw from the wall, not the claimed led wattage. Trust the big names who are also sponsors of this forum.

 

[BubbaKush909]

Hi Emilya! Just caught up, and I'm glad you're feeling better. I'm wondering about your day/night temps during stretch. I found that if they were the same or very close to it the stretch would be minimal. Could that be a factor for you?

It's always fascinating reading your threads. Lots to think about. Take care!