Graytail Goes LED - 810W Intelligent-Gro II w/ High Brix

[SmokeyMcFly]

2-3 INCHES???! How in the bloody hell do you do that, grow the damn thing horizontally?
If greytail doesn't mind, id like to see a picture of one you've grown like that, I'm a very visual learner

Cant wait for an update greytail!

I think he meant feet...

 

[Graytail]

Thanks for all the support, friends!

I'm in a manic work phase for the time being, and I've had to neglect my hobby. Ack. Life - whatcha gonna do. I took a full set of pics last weekend and didn't find the time to post them, so if things go well, I'll get current ones today and get them posted tomorrow ... I hope ... fingers crossed, etc.

Temps have been down dramatically for the past week in my part of the world, and the Intelligent-Gro 810W doesn't heat the room worth a crap. Last year I had a whole bunch of hps heat to play with and got a kick out of heating the room, and after diverting the outside vent, the house. Not so much this year. This panel just doesn't put out any heat! Sheesh. I'm still stunned by it.

So far, I haven't seen any dramatic difference in the plants' growth, but I'm not the kind of person who draws large conclusions from small details. For instance, I've never "seen" the instant changes from sprays and drenches that the other brixsters have. They may have been there - I just didn't make any firm conclusions about effect and cause, etc. My growing environment is iffy, so there are too many other variables to determine what causes what. Over time, I certainly see changes but I'm hesitant to attribute them to anything in particular. So when you see me make a firm conclusion, it's not my imagination, it's the real deal.

Having said that, I'm pretty sure that I'm seeing increased trich production on the Carnivals. Dey sparkly! We're about three weeks into bloom with another month to go and I'm pretty sure this is the best they've done. I've run Carnival three times before this, and those were much better specimens when they went into 12/12, but this pair under the Intelligent-Gro is doing the best. I took a few quick pics.

Here's a Carnival top next to a Grapefruit. The Carnival is 18 days since pistils and the Grapefruit is 38.

They still have another month to go.

So I'm really happy with the Intelligent-Gro. Virtually no heat and ramped-up trich production? - what's not to love about that. And ... I've been using the custom spectrum programming, so I'm drawing much less than 540 watts - probably in the 400 range - compared to the 600 watt hps. For those who didn't get in on the first page and aren't familiar with Intelligent-Gro, these panels have three bands of mixed spectrum - blues, reds, and full - that can be individually timed to produce a variable spectrum throughout the day. For morning, they start dim and tilt toward blue, then brighten for a couple hours for full power during the day. In the evening, they dim slowly and tilt toward red. Very cool stuff. For now, I'm using the program that Dave, the designer and owner, developed, but I'm sure I'll be tinkering with the settings in the future. Fun panel!

 

[brightlight]

Really nice frost Gray! How far is light from canopy? Where does the heat go...would think 400/540 watts generates some degree of heat?

 

[Graytail]

Really nice frost Gray! How far is light from canopy? Where does the heat go...would think 400/540 watts generates some degree of heat?

I have it at 15-18 inches in the bloom room, primarily to get enough coverage in the beam-angle pattern - much closer, and it doesn't fully illuminate the corners well. Ideally, I'd like to hang an additional 100 watts in each corner. That way, I'd have 800 effective watts of LED in a 4x4, and penetration and spread would be very good at 12-15 inches, which is as close as you could run these COBs, I think. Maybe I'll buy myself a xmas present.

I'm as startled as you are at the lack of heat. Apparently, some LED driver designs are more efficient than others, from what I've been reading recently. Intelligent-Gro must be one of the more efficient. At room temp ranges, 70-75 degrees, I get a 2 degree rise with a weenie little 50 CFM 4 inch vent, vs 8 degrees from the 600 watt hps. I have 40 sqft of concrete wall exposed to the outside, and with recent temps - 40 at night, 55 day, the room didn't reach 70 degrees.

 

[Duggan]

Hey Gray...If you really wanted to go max.....get two of the dorm grow 90w. all red ufo's..for each side of your main lite....then get one or two additional dorm grow 240w. (bloom only) baby's for angling in ,at the canopy. That's my exact set up but with only one 240w. for now. Space in effective grow area is 42" x 52" x 7ft.h. Two plants only,in this space. When growing them real thick and bushy...it's nice to have the pars coming from everywhere.When it's small ...like our set ups are, we can afford to maybe go "bigger" than we need! It's great eh Gray....Your baby's look absolutely delicious, cheers!

 

[brightlight]

Good info Gray. Hahaha, duggan & I have almost the same thought except I was wondering how 2 of your Intelligent Gro's side by side might be. !!!

 

[Duggan]

Good info Gray. Hahaha, duggan & I have almost the same thought except I was wondering how 2 of your Intelligent Gro's side by side might be. !!!

Hey Brightlight.....At some point ,it's not about the penetration from above...it's what could be better from the sides ...or topcorners,pointed in ,at the canopy.So much leaf and lush growth the way some of us grow em eh. My "Dream Light" would be the new budmaster2, series.The quality is really over the top....but so are the prices. I have one of there 675xg's. (BID's. test), Two G8 (Dorm Grow) all red 90w.ufo's and one G8 240w bloom only . This way ,those pars that we crave so much are coming from all over.Cheers bro!

 

[Graytail]

Icemud started a thread on canopy penetration - what people mean when they use the term and what produces more or less penetration - and in the process of doing a little research, I discovered that there's something counter intuitive about it. You get deeper penetration when the lights are father away. The sun is way far away and there's zilch difference in PAR from the top to the bottom of the plant - 100% penetration. With CFLs at 2 inches, your PAR is pretty useless at 12 inches, 6 times as far away. So the best approach would be tons o' watts on the ceiling.

As far as area coverage, an ideal setup would be LEDs equally distributed across the ceiling and down the sides a bit, as far as a horizon line might be outside.

For me, since I'm already invested in this programmable Intelligent-Gro 840W, it makes sense to add 4 of his 135W panels and either daisy chain them into the main controller, or run a different timing spectrum for the corners. The single module panels run about 90 watts, so that'd be perfect for a 4x4 at 900 available watts, about 700 watts averaged through the day. I could even play with them like you suggest Duggan - tilt 'em or mount them to the walls. It would be really cool to tune them for sunrise/sunset spectrum on the horizon line.

 

[Conradino23]

2-3 INCHES???! How in the bloody hell do you do that, grow the damn thing horizontally?
If greytail doesn't mind, id like to see a picture of one you've grown like that, I'm a very visual learner

Cant wait for an update greytail!

Ok, I'm gonna show you how it looks, cause I said it, and I hope Gray won't ban me for hijacking the thread

That's how it's done. The first one is Cotton Candy in 5th week of flowering. The other one is Super Lemon Haze after 3 full weeks of bloom. Both grown outdoor as bonsai plants. Hope it makes my claim real

 

[Duggan]

Mornin Gray....one more thought on our lighting bro.....Isn't it a blast to be able to add all these "pars" to our set ups ,and not have to give "heat" a second thought?? I just love it Gray, for once in a very long time ,too much heat is no longer a concern!

 

[Graytail]

Ok, I'm gonna show you how it looks, cause I said it, and I hope Gray won't ban me for hijacking the thread

That's how it's done. The first one is Cotton Candy in 5th week of flowering. The other one is Super Lemon Haze after 3 full weeks of bloom. Both grown outdoor as bonsai plants. Hope it makes my claim real

Love it, Conradino!

I kinda thought you meant 2-3 inches, but it still seemed short until you posted the pics. I thought they were more like 6 inches.

 

[Graytail]

Whew, I found time for an update.

Sorta bad news - the big unruly Utopia Haze went hermie. Thank goodness I caught it today at just the right point. It had just grown a few dozen plump pale nanners on the top buds, about four days from popping. With weeks still to gone, it was a goner - RIP big wild one. Sorta good news - I get a quarter of my room back. I recycled the whole plant.

UH1 - 100 days old - 38 days 12/12 - 24 since pistils - brix 10/11

UH2 - 100 days old - 38 days 12/12 - 24 since pistils - brix 12/12

Grapefruit is still chugging along, but it might not be worth waiting much longer. I'm not seeing vigorous new growth. It's still supposedly two weeks from chop so I'll let it run, but it looks like I could harvest at any time.

GF2 - 124 days old - 42 days 12/12 - 32 since pistils - brix 9/10

The Carnivals are looking somewhat impressive. It reminds me that success is also strain dependent. This is a great plant.

Carn4 - 102 days old - 31 days 12/12 - 20 since pistils - brix 9/10

Carn5 - 102 days old - 31 days 12/12 - 21 since pistils - brix 9/10

And Destroyer goes into the bloom room today at 77 days old. I gave it two extra weeks for LST training and ended up with about a dozen good tops.

Destroyer - 77 days old - brix 10/11

I didn't have time to get pics of the youngsters, but Buddha Haze got topped today at 15 inches and I'll get 6 or more tops from it - another two weeks from bloom. Grapefruit3 got LSTed at 17 inches and will join Buddha in two weeks. UH1cut and UH2cut will get potted up next week, and Nexus and NepJam should be ready for 1.5 gallon pots. The cuts in water are starting to suffer from malnutrition at 5 weeks+ but still alive with healthy roots. The Destroyer cuts seem to have taken, so I'm tonned-up in the veg room, with lots of options.

 

[Conradino23]

Great update, Gray! Sorry to hear about that UH, but they probably didn't care much about breeding out the hermie trait in Barney's Farm.

 

[thecanuck]

Sorry if youve already posted it Gray, but whats in your clone water bro? Thanks

 

[PotChimp]

I'm trich greedy I'd have kief tumbled the buds from that plant then recycled it Man they look nice, though.

 

[Graytail]

Great update, Gray! Sorry to hear about that UH, but they probably didn't care much about breeding out the hermie trait in Barney's Farm.

Yeah, and this isn't the pheno that blows my mind, dammit. Neither of these seeds grew plants that look like the first one I had. You can see the hazey haze in it already. I dunno, maybe the high is the same - that'd mollify me a little. But I sure loved that first one - great growth habit.

Sorry if youve already posted it Gray, but whats in your clone water bro? Thanks

This is just high alkalinity tap water filtered through charcoal to remove the chloromines, with a pinch of Doc Bud's "Roots" product, a bioactive crushed mineral inoculate. Some have gotten a slimy coating on them and had to be tossed - it's not foolproof - but it's pretty cool.

I'm trich greedy I'd have kief tumbled the buds from that plant then recycled it Man they look nice, though.

I wanted to. But I have to get off the dime and actually start extracting some of the 30-some bags of trim I have in the freezer already. A kief tumbler is scheduled for a priority project. That'd help a lot. I gotta take another crack at dry ice, too. That worked well, but I didn't like having to deal with the humidity and frost - gummed things up pretty quickly - made it hard to do multiple runs. My fallback plan is to go out into the garage some nice sub-zero day this winter when there's no hint of humidity, and sift kief all afternoon.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Ok, I'm gonna show you how it looks, cause I said it, and I hope Gray won't ban me for hijacking the thread

That's how it's done. The first one is Cotton Candy in 5th week of flowering. The other one is Super Lemon Haze after 3 full weeks of bloom. Both grown outdoor as bonsai plants. Hope it makes my claim real

WoW you really did mean inches. Nice work!

 

[SoilGirl]

Hi Graytail! Really looking lovely in here, I'm truly impressed with your results, and most of your plants still have a month to go
If I can get my indoor grow figured out (if my dad's bullsh*t legal problems go away and he stops being irrational) then I'm going to use an approach somewhere between yours and PeeJays for growing under my new mars II 1600w LED. I was considering trying a scrog after seeing CO Finest's success with my light, but idk, I feel like the screen would remove a lot of my control over the grow, though scrogs are well proven. I'll just go with lots of training, fimming, and supercropping like you do instead - sounds much more like my style.
As far as the soil, the way PJ amends his sounds great to me, I'm all geared up for a similar approach, but I still have to look into DocBud's amending kit.

Keep rocking this intelligro your updates are always awesome.

 

[CCOiler]

"SWEET" Graytail.

 

[Duggan]

Hey Gray....what up bro? How ya doin these days/ Bin a while. Pretty close race over at potm again this month.Have ya voted yet bud?
Your garden looks great as usual !I'm thinkin of entering potm again in Nov....my last two MK's are bustin out of their room again.Lots o fun.Cheers.