Icemud's LED Grow - The Tangie Pheno Hunt

[SweetSue]

The leaves on the Fire OG are fascinating Icemud.

Are you seeing any favorites in the Tangies ?

 

[Icemud]

The leaves on the Fire OG are fascinating Icemud.

Are you seeing any favorites in the Tangies ?

Thanks Sweet Sue, I've never run Fire OG before, but looks very different from other OG's I have run so I am curious how she will turn out. Will be after the tangies though before I get a chance to flower the Fire OG


Well I still favor plant #4 as it has grown the fastest, most bushiest, healthiest but the others are catching up quickly and its getting harder to pick and choose which one I like. Shouldn't be long though before they are in flowering maybe a week or 2 max...

I've been considering topping them 1 more time before flowering, but they are doing so well right now I almost want to leave them alone as well.

 

[Hozona]

ICEMUD!!! Hows it been? Been back at 420 Magazine since the first of the year and have a BID memorial grow going. I was shocked to hear of his passing, but he'd been struggling with health issues for quite some time. I'll try to catch up on your journals as soon as I can

 

[Icemud]

ICEMUD!!! Hows it been? Been back at 420 Magazine since the first of the year and have a BID memorial grow going. I was shocked to hear of his passing, but he'd been struggling with health issues for quite some time. I'll try to catch up on your journals as soon as I can

Hey Hozona! Great to see ya back! Yea man, BID's passing was very tragic and unexpected and we all miss him dearly! I know there were literally handfuls of times that I would be down, or having a bad day and BID would stop by my journal, say something off the wall hillarious and get my mood back up to where it needed to be. He was a great guy, with a heart bigger than life, and even though in the physical he isn't around anymore, I know he is partying his ass off in the clouds with the Metal gods probably growing some amazing heaven weed Its great to know that his genetics live on, and a few lucky members here have the opportunity to keep them going. I miss the Big Irish Doode, Rest in peace and send some of that heaven weed to us when you get a chance

 

[Hozona]

Hey Hozona! Great to see ya back! Yea man, BID's passing was very tragic and unexpected and we all miss him dearly! I know there were literally handfuls of times that I would be down, or having a bad day and BID would stop by my journal, say something off the wall hillarious and get my mood back up to where it needed to be. He was a great guy, with a heart bigger than life, and even though in the physical he isn't around anymore, I know he is partying his ass off in the clouds with the Metal gods probably growing some amazing heaven weed Its great to know that his genetics live on, and a few lucky members here have the opportunity to keep them going. I miss the Big Irish Doode, Rest in peace and send some of that heaven weed to us when you get a chance

Thanks Icemud GOOD TO BE BACK!

 

[Icemud]

Hey Everyone!!!

Exciting news!!1

The Clones:

So about a week ago, maybe a little longer I decided to take clones of all the tangie phenos so that I can get ready for flowering. Well I looked today and all of the tangie clones have rooted except #6. I decided to take all of the clones and put them into 3 gallon plastic pots. With each pot I filled it with my premixed and recycled soil that has been cooking, put a hole in the top of the soil, and sprinkled dogget simpson #1 which is humic acid and mycos (left over from the 420 mag contest I then placed each clone into the hole, gently covered it and then gave it a foliar spray of 1-1-1 b vitamins and water. Since #6 didn't root yet, I took 2 of the 3 clones with plugs and put them into soil and then put a 2 liter bottle (cut) over the top to keep up the humidity until they root. Almost time to flower

I am going to hold of on flowering for about 1 more week or so, as I want to make sure all the clones take, and start growing before the flip. I want to have time to cut more clones if needed so I am going to give them about a week or until I see growth

The Tangie Tent:

Other than that the tangies are doing very good, and slowly growing larger each day. I noticed that a couple of the plants on the left side of the tent, mostly #1, 2 and 4 were having some leaf issue still, on the lower leaves they were browning so I thought maybe it was the fan that was causing it since they are directly under where the fan blows, so I turned it off and we will see if that is the cause. I was thinking since heat rises, the fan which is on the top of the tent was reciruculating the air, which may be causing the issues.

I also gave the girls a feeding today of just plain r/o water with some epsom salt, potassium sulfate, and equillibrium which is a cal/mag with 1-1-2. I'm not sure if I really like this humboldt equillibrium as it doesn't mix well in the water and seems to end up as almost slate looking splotches on the bottom of my 5 gallon bucket. Not sure why it settles like that and doesn't mix in, but I will try it longer and if I see issues then I will change back to my Gen Organics I sstill have on hand.

The veg tent:
The veg tent is looking good, and I still am only using the 1x XTE 300 in the tent. I have not used the blues since about 2 weeks ago and the plants seem to be doing well, and have a nice leaf posture. The blue dream and the harlequin are showing some nice new growth so I think my TLC I have been giving them is working well I added a clone of the fire OG that I had taken, it was really an experiment to see if it would root withhout any clonex, just by putting it in the root riot plug, and it did root surprisingly. So that is fine with me as I may use it as a mother and when my tangie tent is available, flower out the other one I'm sure I will get a couple male plants in the tangie tent as well, so that may even leave room to move the larger fire og over to fill up the room

 

[Hozona]

Looks like a LOT of work...tried that a couple years ago. Staying small for me works better because of my space and the temperatures here. My electric bill was outrageous the last time I got "big". I hope you have a plentiful grow...it looks like it will be.

 

[Icemud]

Looks like a LOT of work...tried that a couple years ago. Staying small for me works better because of my space and the temperatures here. My electric bill was outrageous the last time I got "big". I hope you have a plentiful grow...it looks like it will be.

I 420% agree with ya on a LOT of work.. Its fun to have so many strain choices on hand, but yea, watering each separate based on water uptake is much more tedious than it should be.. I think I may be narrowing down my genetics in the near future. I do wish I had 1 more tent though so I could seed them and then just keep the seeds. LOL been posponing my seed project for a long time now... wish I wouldn't have because I would have had GSC seeds...bummer I lost her

I do like having all 1 strain in my tangie tent, all of my past grows have had at least 3 to 6 different strains at once, and its really hard to balance out nutrient feedings since some like heavy feedings and some like light ones. Now its much easier to keep things consistent

 

[Bamalabrat]

Hey Ice. If you do not mind me asking another question about lights and showing my noobishness with my ignorance, I would like to know why wattage is so important to yield. I mean why do you and so many others compare yield to how much wattage your lights draw? Wouldn't par footprint, spectrum, and canopy penetration be more important? Just curious.

I ordered another 350 xml this past week. I will get it early this week. When I was talking with Advanced on the phone, I told him that I had the lights at 20 inches over the canopy and I was only getting about a 2.5 - 3 foot squared foot print of direct light. He said I was not the first one to tell him that. LOL. Yes I know they use a par meter and a grid at given heights to figure out the footprint. But maybe they need to rethink what they are calling core. Anyway with the third light and they way that the lights will overlap on the margins I am hoping to get about 15 squared feet of core coverage and then we will see what happens on the margins.

I hope you do not mind this post. I did not mean to hijack.

 

[Icemud]

Hey Ice. If you do not mind me asking another question about lights and showing my noobishness with my ignorance, I would like to know why wattage is so important to yield. I mean why do you and so many others compare yield to how much wattage your lights draw? Wouldn't par footprint, spectrum, and canopy penetration be more important? Just curious.

I ordered another 350 xml this past week. I will get it early this week. When I was talking with Advanced on the phone, I told him that I had the lights at 20 inches over the canopy and I was only getting about a 2.5 - 3 foot squared foot print of direct light. He said I was not the first one to tell him that. LOL. Yes I know they use a par meter and a grid at given heights to figure out the footprint. But maybe they need to rethink what they are calling core. Anyway with the third light and they way that the lights will overlap on the margins I am hoping to get about 15 squared feet of core coverage and then we will see what happens on the margins.

I hope you do not mind this post. I did not mean to hijack.

Hey Bamalabrat!

I never mind LED questions

Well I think what you are asking is why people including myself list grams/watt??

Grams Per Watt is not really a measurement that means much, besides kind of bragging rights in a way, as well as a goal for most growers to achieve. I personally track grams per watt really just to get an idea of how my grow turned out, but really there is not quantifiable rhyme or reason to it, other than my personal goal for my grow area, and a number to try and beat next grow.

Before LED lights came into the market strong, a good HPS grower was typically hitting about 1 gram per watt (according to talk around the forums and others) but now that LED is out and slightly less wattage can be used (about 20% less is typical), now you are seeing growers hit slightly higher than 1 gram/watt, and more towards 1.4 grams/watt I seem commonly. Again, this doesn't really mean too much and I will explain why.

The reason why grams/watt is really just a bragging right, and not a solid piece of data could be explained like this. Say you have 2 growers, one in hydroponics with synthetic nutrients, the other with organic soil. In most cases the hydroponics plant will yield much higher than that soil organic plant and if you were using the grams/watt, the hydro grower would have a much higher gram/watt.

Now lets use the same example, 2 growers, one hydro with synthetics, the other with soil and organics, but this time the organic grower heavy yielding strain like blue dream, the hydroponic grower has a low yielding strain like cookies. Now you would see a more even gram/watt most likely between the 2 growers.

Now lets use one more example: 2 growers, 1 hydro synthetic, 1 organic soil. They each have the same environment, same genetics, but one scrogs their plant, and the other just grows it without the training. The scrogged plant most likely would yield higher than the one without training. Again there is a difference in gram/watt even though its the same growers, same environments.

I'm tired while writing this, so I hope it makes sense. But basically I wanted to show how gram/watt has so many variables that can effect it, really you can't use it to measure much beside use it as a guideline or goal. Now one could use it if lets say they have grown the same genetics the same process for a couple years under HPS lights, then they switch over to LED, but every single other thing is exactly the same as before, only the light changed. Now lets say that the next year or 2 the grower uses LED. quite possibly the difference in gram/watt for HID vs for LED would show a slightly better efficiency, therefore the grower since nothing else was changed, could say, yes I am using my electricity more efficiently than before. But for this kind of measurement to even have a slight bit of accuracy for judgement, every single variable would have to be the exact same, except for the change in lights...


___
Now I'm not sure about the 2nd part of your question, but I think you may be referring to how some people say things like, "you should use at least 35W per SQ foot" or "50w/sq foot is ideal". This used to be somewhat accurate for HID lighting because HID lights didn't change much in technology over the last 30 years, and their output is fairly uniform, even and similar. So back before LED's, a lot of growers would refer to HID lighting by saying "50w per sq foot is good" and things similar to that and it could be deemed as decent guidance.

Now that LED has entered the picture, wattage per square foot is no longer a valid way to estimate lighting. The reason for this is LED's are very directional, usually the footprint contains a very hot/intense spot over the center 1'x1' area, and as the footprint widens, the intensity drops off very very quickly. Since LED usually does not have a uniform/even coverage, using watts/sq feet can't really show how the light would actually illuminate an area properly because different LED's spread the light differently depending on quality of chips, lenses, reflectors and other optics, led array density and other things. So the example I like to use is a flashlight, lets say a 5w flashlight. Now this flashlight has a zoom lens, and you can make it a floodlight, or a very intense single spotlight. If we were to shine it on a surface, quite obviously the spotlight would be very small footprint, but very intense, where as the floodlight setting would have a very large footprint, wiith very low intensity. Both cases though, are both from the same 5w flashlight. So if you wanted to measure a light source by wattage per sq feet, would it work in this case? nope!

You are right, the correct way that lighting should be measured is by using measurements of PAR or Fluency rate is the fancy word for it. This is how professional researchers, greenhouses and agriculture do it and cannabis is no different in the way light is measured. Now Measurements of PAR can be used in different ways.

First there is PPFD, which stands for Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density, and this measures how many photons (the quantity) are falling on a 3 meter square, every single second. The reason that PAR measurements (fluency rate) or PPFD is used by many professionals, is because it translates directly to how a plant uses photons and is directly related to the rate of photosynthesis. A plant is a photon counter basically, and it takes around 8 photons absorbed to destroy/break apart one molecule of CO2. So the more photons a plant is receiving the higher the rate of photosynthesis up to what is called the saturation point when the plant can't handle any more photons.

Now PAR measurements can be also taken in a way called PPF, or Photosynthetic Photon flux. This is typically measured in an ulbricht sphere or integrating sphere, which is a highly reflective sphere, a light is placed in, and it measures the total photon output in all directions of the light. This type of measurement doesn't have much application in LED since many things effect a LED and the way it outputs light, but is very useful for HPS and MH bulbs. What PPF is used for mainly is showing how many photons a bulb at a certain wattage puts out, vs another bulb at the same wattage, or photon efficiency. Since the bulbs are placed in a reflector of choice, and the reflector doesn't change the light output between bulbs, the PPF will show which light is providing more photons, which then can be reflected down to your plants (total photon output is PPF)

Now is using PPFD perfect? well yes and no. for judging plant lighting in the aspect of coverage, it is ideal, but there is a problem with PPFD and PAR readings. PAR stands for all the photons between UV and IR (violet to deep red) and sometimes even includes some UV and IR depending on the meter and who is measuring it. These are the photons that plants use for photosythesis. Now the problem is that each photon is given a counted number, but does not tell what color/wavelenght each photon is, it measures them all equally. Some photons will be absorbed better than others, for instance green is typically absorbed about 79% where as blue and red/orange is around 99% and deep red around 95%. So for other things that can effect plant growth like photomorphogeneis, PAR doesn't help at all. And this leads into the spectrum part of your question.

Plant lighting and the proper spectrum is not quite known by scientists and botany researchers as of yet. We have a good idea of what spectrum is ideal (the sun) but there are many conflicting research papers about how each species of plant uses these spectrum differently, and how they effect the plants growth. Since the Perfect spectrum is unknown and the area as a whole needs a lot more research, there really is no answer of what spectrum is better than another...and no way to measure it or quantify it. We do know certain things, like plants absorb more red and blue then green (slightly) and that when using red light, adding IR will help increase photosynthesis (Emerson effect) this is why you see a lot of LED lights with red, blue and white chips in them but this is also the reason that every LED company has a "proprietary spectrum" and they are all different.

The fact is, nobody really knows what is ideal. And there really isn't a way to measure it, unless we measured a specific strain/genetic phenotype with a lab and a largely controlled study, using machines to test the rate that the plants use the available CO2 in a sealed container. We would have to test each band of light/wavelength and then plot the results to get an idea but even this could change with different genetics, even if its the same plant species. Most complex land plants will be similar, but still act independently of each other if you get down to the details. So to answer your question, spectrum is not really a way to quantify a light better than another, because at this point, we only know so much about spectrums and how plants interact with them, so mostly is a educated guess choosing between spectrums.

=========

Canopy Penetration is another word that is tossed around a ton, without most people really understanding what it means, because it really isn't set with a single definition or measurement or solution. To one penetration might mean a super bright intense light has better penetration because its brigher. To another penetration might mean that the bottom leaves are getting enough light. Now does penetration always equal a brighter light...not exactly. Since there is no proper definition of penetration for plants, or a way to measure it, the way I consider looking at is as the "range of acceptable light" meaning that a certain light will illuminate a plant from the top, to the bottom, with the right range of intensity or PPFD (photon count). Or another way of saying it "is my entire plant getting the right light from top to bottom"

A plants needed light is called in the horticulture world DLI or daily light integral. This is the total amount of photons a plant needs during its daylight period. To simply explain it lets use our favorite plant cannabis. Its said in the reasearch I have done that cannabis needs a DLI of 22-65 Mol/Day/meter squared to grow properly. If we were to break this down to PPFD, this would mean in a 24 hour daylight cycle, a cannabis plant would need a PPFD of 255 micromoles/m2/s-1 to 751 micromoles/m2/s-1 with no dark period. Therefore if you are vegging plants, this tells you the PAR measurements needed to be at optimal light for optimal growth. Now if you wanted to know for flowering, in a 12/12 schedule, you would multiply those numbers by 2, since you are removing half of the days light (12 hours vs 24). This would mean that cannabis needs aat least 510micromoles/m2/s-1 up to 1500micromles/m2/s-1 for optimal light during flowering.

Now back to penetration and the acceptable range of light. Knowing now what PPFD you should need, you can determine the "range of acceptable light" or penetration in flowering should be between 510 micromoles and 1500micromoles. So by knowing this andd when you look at a lights PPFD chart over a 4x4 grid, by looking at the different readings between heights, you can see what the range of this light would be. For instance if you have a light that puts out 1500 umols at 24 inches, and only puts out 500umol at 36 inches, then you can see that the penetration for optimal growth would be about 1'. Now this penetration can be perfected by different things. You could achieve better penetration wiith lenses that focus the beams of light, to make more of a spotlight type beam, which lengthens the range of acceptable light, because light doesn't spread out as fast in a narrow beam. Another way to achieve better penetration is to use multiple lights, hung at a distance from each other. This reduces shadowing from a single overhead light, and allows light to enter the canopy at multiple angles, reducing shadowing and giving better penetration. Another way to increase penetration is simply adding reflective material to the grow area which reflects the light and increases the angles the light can penetrate the canopy. So again you see, there isn't one definition of penetration, and there are many ways to achieve better penetration. But when you see companies saying better penetration, do you think they really know what they mean? I don't since its so loosely defined and without a way to measure.

Since light spreads out and loses intensity over distance (inverse square rule) a light that we use for growing plants usually has a very limited "range of acceptable light" where as our sun millions of miles away has nearly the same intensity on the ground as it would on top of a 20 story building. Quite obviously the sun has a huge "range of acceptable light" where as a grow light may only have about 1' to 3' of "range of acceptable light)

So now you have a PHd in plant lighting...LOL j/k... I hope you followed that ok since it is a pretty in depth explanation with a lot of terms that many are not familiar with. I also hope it helped explain plant lighting to you so you can understand it much better.


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As far as the advanced led panels.. thats awesome you are getting another. I really don't know why pretty much every LED company I have come across online stretches their coverage areas on their recommended grow area/footprint. I really don't understand why they do this, other than they actually don't understand plant lighting either. One could say that some plants like lettuce have a much lower DLI than cannabis, therefore, the light actually has a larger footprint for lettuce than it would for cannabis. So I guess they could justify it as for low light crops, but unfortunately they don't and most LED companies are clueless in terms of what I just typed above. Not saying this is the case with advanced, as they do provide a lot of solid data on their products, but I still don't know why they stretch the footprint, even having done the PPFD readings, they should know exactly what size the lights are good for. Every LED company I have come across does this, I don't know why.

The overlapping of the panels will actually expand the area, as you are getting light from both panels to raise the PPFD in between the lights to acceptable levels. I would guess that putting 2 xML 350s side by side, with about 1 1/2' to 2 feet in between would give a coverage area of about 3' x 7' or so maybe even 3' x 8'.

Well now that Chapter 1 of my book is done...LOL I will be quizzing you all tomorrow, and no cheat notes either! lol j/k everyone.

Hope this helps everyone understand lighting much clearer now

 

[Bamalabrat]

Icemud,
That was a very thoughtful and informative answer. I really appreciate it. In my research and readings of the journals and internet, I saw so many different people saying things that were contradictory about light and yields and such. Just there was nothing that laid it out like you just did in your post as to the significance of gram/watt. That is another example of this is how it has always been done. I hate that kind of paradigm.

Ok so as I was thinking, uniform canopy is very important only because it will eliminate or greatly reduce shadowing. Core foot print is important because of how intense the energy output is. Next would be genetics. After these things there would be little tricks that may or may not have a effect on harvest.

So in my 4 X 8 tent I will have 3 of those 350 xml. That should give me a core foot print of 24 square feet. The last 8 square feet will be the outside margin. I tried to scrog this grow, but did not succeed very well. I am going to place a second net at the 4 or 4.5 foot high mark. I will try to get them to stay at that height. The genetics say that these plants are very heavy yielders. I am using AN nutes and supplements. So all that said, I have no idea what my yield will be. I am kinda hoping for about 2 - 3 KG. But honestly will be happy with just 1.

Again thanks for the explanation and the education! Feel free to stop by my journal and hijack it anytime you like. Sorry about doing that here.

 

[Icemud]

Icemud,
That was a very thoughtful and informative answer. I really appreciate it. In my research and readings of the journals and internet, I saw so many different people saying things that were contradictory about light and yields and such. Just there was nothing that laid it out like you just did in your post as to the significance of gram/watt. That is another example of this is how it has always been done. I hate that kind of paradigm.

Ok so as I was thinking, uniform canopy is very important only because it will eliminate or greatly reduce shadowing. Core foot print is important because of how intense the energy output is. Next would be genetics. After these things there would be little tricks that may or may not have a effect on harvest.

So in my 4 X 8 tent I will have 3 of those 350 xml. That should give me a core foot print of 24 square feet. The last 8 square feet will be the outside margin. I tried to scrog this grow, but did not succeed very well. I am going to place a second net at the 4 or 4.5 foot high mark. I will try to get them to stay at that height. The genetics say that these plants are very heavy yielders. I am using AN nutes and supplements. So all that said, I have no idea what my yield will be. I am kinda hoping for about 2 - 3 KG. But honestly will be happy with just 1.

Again thanks for the explanation and the education! Feel free to stop by my journal and hijack it anytime you like. Sorry about doing that here.

I'm happy that you find the post useful and never hijacking if you are asking a question sounds like you really got a nice setup and I'm sure you will see good yields

 

[CCOiler]

<<<<<Hope this helps everyone understand lighting much clearer now [/QUOTE]>>>>>


:surrender:

Thank you for that very in-depth explanation of how lighting works

 

[Hozona]

Sometimes I have had to say to myself am I helping or benefiting by subscribing to this journal? If my answer is no, I simply unsubscribe. If the information can be gleaned by simply searching the data base and I can't add anything, I find it hard to stay subscribed. If it is a journal that is a mutual admiration society with NO USEFUL INFO being exchanged, again I unsubscribe. I am not a typist and find myself constantly editing as I do so. I admire those of you that have mastered this skill, I still haven't! Some people's feeling get hurt if you don't comment on their journal every day...reading replying and posting journals take time...and even though I am retired, there are other things that need to be done! Enough rambling. My ONLY concern with lighting is will the plants benefit from what I am using, can I afford to upgrade, and how will it affect my energy bill? Good to see you helping people and doing your thing! With the end of the Summer growing season upon us, I will be interested to see what the Spring will bring...another great harvest I hope BTW this took about 20 minutes to type and edit

 

[Icemud]

Sometimes I have had to say to myself am I helping or benefiting by subscribing to this journal? If my answer is no, I simply unsubscribe. If the information can be gleaned by simply searching the data base and I can't add anything, I find it hard to stay subscribed. If it is a journal that is a mutual admiration society with NO USEFUL INFO being exchanged, again I unsubscribe. I am not a typist and find myself constantly editing as I do so. I admire those of you that have mastered this skill, I still haven't! Some people's feeling get hurt if you don't comment on their journal every day...reading replying and posting journals take time...and even though I am retired, there are other things that need to be done! Enough rambling. My ONLY concern with lighting is will the plants benefit from what I am using, can I afford to upgrade, and how will it affect my energy bill? Good to see you helping people and doing your thing! With the end of the Summer growing season upon us, I will be interested to see what the Spring will bring...another great harvest I hope BTW this took about 20 minutes to type and edit

I can definitely agree with you Hozona as for me being in my mid 30's and life right now being far from perfect or financially stable, I find it very hard for me to go around to journals each day or even each week and follow along and comment and such. I am happy that people find my journal and follow along, and that I can provide information for those in need, and if anything else, some new technologies being tested and shown to the community. I do feel bad sometimes that I can't make it to many peoples journals, but I also understand that I have a lot of responsibilities outside of the forums, so I just usually figure most people would understand that, and they probably don't even thing about it as much as I do...LOL funny how the mind works.

When I first started growing about 4 to 5 years ago, I found 420 Magazine and loved the resourceful information, and the people willing to help make my 1st grow a success. I was a good little noob though, and did my research before coming to the forums, because I didn't want to be "that guy", you know the one that wants to grow weed and knows nothing about anything, but wants the world. LOL So I started journaling my progress and it became a good way for me to track my grows, feedings, and other details, and gained many friends along the way. Then I decided that the lighting aspect of growing was my niche and peak interest so I indulged the last 2-3 years of my life in heavy heavy plant lighting research with plans to eventually make a LED grow light that appeals to the general home grower, but also the commercial horticulture market. Well I'm still in Research mode with that, and I have been blessed with the ability to be a good tester for many emerging and new LED lighting companies and technologies.

Unfortunately the more that my life has become busy externally, I have a very hard time dedicating my time to the forums and I do feel bad that people come to my journal to visit, say hello and cheer me on, but I can't reciprocate the friendly gestures. But in the same, since my journal isn't really the "chat party" like some, and its not the journal with all pics and no info, I see that its quite valuable to many with the amount of in depth information that I provide in regards to plant lighting, so I guess that is my time well spent I also understand that many can't come by daily, weekly, or even just a couple times a year, so I never feel bad that I don't get daily comments, but sometimes it does make me wonder why my journal has declined in views over the last few grows. I wonder sometimes if the information I provide is too in depth for many of the member and so people just say oh well, maybe later and leave, or what it is, but I do appreciate everyone that comes by and says hello, asks a question, or even wants to share something they learned that may help me It doesn't make me sad though if days go by with no comments, but I do wonder sometimes why.

I also journal for my Dad, whos is in another state, but very much a fan of MMJ and also me love ya Dad! I know he pretty much reads every post and always loves watching what I do, and I wish he was much closer to share in the experience with me, but I guess photos and my journal will have to suffice until his state becomes legal.

I've always had a fascination with lights, and even when I was young, I probably was the only weird kid in America that collected flashlights. I have no clue why, but they made me happy and thus my lighting interest was born. I was also a kid who would tear apart electronics to see what makes them work, and even play around with my Lionel Train transformer and wire lights and motors to it to make things look cooler on my train setups...LOL Then it moved on to college where black lights were popular, so I decorated my whole dorm room with glowing oozing bricks of phospherecent paint and glow in the dark stars and such, just because I liked the lighting effects, and even decked out my 1st recording studio with mood lights and accent lights of all colors, just to give the vibe artists needed to take their projects to that next level. I guess its one of my passions that never died, and so after a few years of doing nothing with it, growing brought it out again. My engineering mind, (personality type ENTP) makes me wonder why certain spectrums and lights are better than others and so I have been blessed with a multitude of sponsorships that have allowed me to try new products and keep exploring my passion. So with that being said, I guess now, my journals may be over the top for some, and interesting to others, but they are strongly geared towards the plant lighting topic, as people like DocBud do similar things, with his High Brix research and soil science understanding. I guess that is what makes forums great places, because you have 80% of the members good at many things, but then you have the resident specialists/experts that can explore topics even further than the general member and bring in new views, ideas and facts to the rest. I actually am quite happy that I even have followers because my journal is kind of boring and uneventful, but it offers what many others don't so I guess that is why I love doing it because its unique

I definitely love helping people with all those aspects of lighting, is it cost effective, debunking myths and half truths, what size light do I need, what is the right light for my grow style, and so on. Most of the time I can just freestyle type the answer since I have done so much research, but sometimes questions stump me and send me into a research frenzy feeding my thirst for answers and explanation. For instance, Graytail brought up a point a while back about lights and heat, and we had an amazing discussion on why his results were different from mine. It was a topic I lightly researched enough to feel confident in my answer, but with him asking it in a different way, and bringing up his experience, I went into about 12 hours of research for a couple days strait to even find a better answer to the question to help both of us understand the topic more, as well as he did. I love a challenge and when people ask things that I am unsure of or not quite well researched it drives me to find the answer (ENTP personality trait, we love to debate things) LOL Anyhow I always appreciate people coming by my journal for whatever reason, whether its to just say hello, or with a question, or even a suggestion for something that may improve my results. I love being a part of a community that we all share a common interest, with literally hundreds of ways to get successful results.. I find that I am always learning something from others and my journals with tons of lighting knowledge is my way of giving back

I agree also about unsubscribing to the "unuseful journals with no information" because I don't have time to read through 4 pages of "social hour" to get to the grow, so usually I just stay away from them

I really appreciate you coming by after your hiatus for a while from the forums and finding me. I do have some exciting new things in the near future I will be showing, but I can't spill the beans just yet.

 

[Icemud]

<<<<<Hope this helps everyone understand lighting much clearer now

>>>>>


:surrender:

Thank you for that very in-depth explanation of how lighting works [/QUOTE]

Hey RSOiler!

I appreciate your feedback and kudos

Its hard for me to explain lighting in basic terms because its so involved, but I try to teach it in a way that people could grasp, even if it takes a few times reading it... LOL I hope it made sense. It was about 4:30am I think when I typed it last night and I was half asleep

Hope all is well with you my friend!

 

[Hozona]

Thanks for getting back to me...I happened across a you tube submission you did last night on Magic Butter....I will be looking there alot now that harvest season is nearly over

 

[Icemud]

Thanks for getting back to me...I happened across a you tube submission you did last night on Magic Butter....I will be looking there alot now that harvest season is nearly over

Do you have the Magic Butter machine? it is amazingly easy to use and works like a charm speaking of, I need to get more butter going soon

 

[Hozona]

After what I saw it will do, I am getting one!

 

[CronicHempHog]

That was a lot to read made my eyes tired lol
I got one of those boring journals also Great Week to ya Brotha