Plushberry Clones In Soil

[Kriaze]

Thanks for the words of advice fellas, greatly appreciated. I'll take advice from both of you and the day after tomorrow I'll try and supercrop and defol underneath/lollipop. If I do these both together and at a slightly lesser rate I think the plants should withstand the stress. They should do, these plants have been stressed in every way in their lifetime, thanks again

GB if you go through my two journal's you'll have nightmares pal lol, my last grow was saved by members of 420Mag helping me out but I left it a little late to ask and my plants nearly kicked their buckets. This time I'm not making that mistake

LA thanks for coming helping me out, thanks pal. I'm running 5w LED's if that's the same as diodes, I just feel underwhelmed as I expected more. I still keep thinking it's a dodgy light but seeing as GB has the same brand I'm more inclined to believe it doesn't have the same penetration as I initially expected. Could just be an LED thing overall but around 10" lower with such a serious light loss seems wrong somehow. I didn't ask you before as I know you don't run the same brand as me, but how is the penetration of what you do use. Is there a noticeable difference between yours and mine? Not out to compare products at all, just opinions

 

[uhewekguilw]

I believe it's a penetration issue in general with LED'S. My hps was about 12" from the tops of my plants and 2' down is where I started plucking branches that didn't reach the canopy and pulling popcorn buds. I doubt I'll keep anything below a foot with this LED grow. I will definitely check out your other grows to see the horrors... lol We have all been there, everyone has problems, and that's how you learn!
GB80

 

[Light Addict]

He he My light is called GOD for a reason lol honestly my lamp has one hanging height and that's at the very top of the tent! You don't even want to use their own hangers as they're too low lol. I get awesome penetration even at this height!
At the end of the day though my lamp is a little expensive compared to most, so they're best be a reason behind that lol.

Again though my growing styles are for the very reason of maximizing the basics of what we get to work with!

 

[Kriaze]

Hey LA, yeah I love your flux growing style. I'm not at that level of confidence yet where I'll try it but soon, soon as I have enough smoke to last me through a fail grow

I've had a bit of a change of plan today. We're having a bit of a heatwave here and I went into my tent today to find the temps in my flowering tent at 29.1 degrees celsius (84.38 degrees fahrenheit) and the plants were looking really unhappy. So first things first I fed them micro, grow, bloom along with additional CalMag and some of Humboldt's Secret Golden Tree, if that doesn't help them out I'm doomed, well they are. I gave them a full 6 litres apiece and still had no runoff, I think anymore than that and I may drown them though.
Then it was onto what I'd promised I would do, the lollipop! I had a busy day yesterday so there was no way I was going to get it done, but today with scissors/secateurs and garden wire in hand I got stuck in. I'm not sure if I've overdone or underdone it so any advice will be greatly appreciated. I also tried to spread the branches out and only succeeded in snapping one of them, luckily this was one lower down and I've managed to hold it up with some garden wire. It didn't snap off fully but it's innards are gone, maybe this will help it heal. Here are some before and after photographs:

Before the lollipop and water/feed. My poor girls

This is after the lollipop and water/feed

What do you think guys and gals, more off tomorrow or leave it as is? Thanks for looking in and as always your help and advice is welcome. All the best

 

[Kriaze]

Also I decided that I won't be crossbreeding on this particular occasion. Instead I decided to run the Mars-Hydro Reflectors (2x 96x3w) in a comparison test against the Mars-Hydro II 1600w. Now you might think this test will work out in favour of the Mars-Hydro II 1600w, but I'm not so sure. It seems to me that the reflectors are giving off a higher depth of penetration than the 1600w so I've flipped the switch on the veg tent and now they're running 12/12 side by side. The only way I can make this fairer is if I was to put another plant in what was the veg tent, I don't have one though so I can't do that. Still it'll be interesting for me to see what sort of yields and potency each setup produces. Here's some pictures of the veg tent:

Lonely Girl from the bottom to the top:

One of the lights:

Both of the lights:

The girl herself:

Distance from the light:

If anyone has any input or anything to say please feel free to jump in. Thanks for looking and all the best

 

[arellanobrian]

thats weird the reflector 96x3 is brighter? those lights have 3 watt diodes and should at the very least seem the same bright as the mars 2 that has 5 watt diodes, there may be something wrong with the lights. not 100% but my mars 2 looks brighter then my 48x3 reflector series. and i keep my mars 2 at 2' above canopy and have some pretty good growth for another 8-12 below that depending on how thick the canopy is. just some input from my im sure all our environments are a bit different

 

[Kriaze]

Hey arellanobrian, yeah I was quite surprised too. It's only because I'm a Photographer and used to lighting situations for my photographs that I realised I was having a difference in exposure value much higher up in the 1600w tent than in the reflector tent. I have a light meter with which I'll take another set of reading and photograph them to show you what I mean. I can't do this now as it's lights out but tomorrow I'll certainly get onto it. I keep feeling disappointed with the 1600w but am wondering if I've received a faulty light. The heat is there though and maybe I'm reading too much into it, this is why I think a grow test is in order

 

[Kriaze]

OK so yesterday I managed to get a few pictures of the Lux meter thanks to the help of my lovely assistant (her indoors ). I'm still uncertain as to whether the results prove anything conclusively but maybe when I have them up in order here I'll see a little more clearly. One thing I noticed is that one of the reflectors seems to be brighter than the other, but that could be due to the height they're hanging (less foliage in the way higher up). Anyway enough rambling and here are some pics

18" comparison:

1600w @ 18"

Reflectors @ 18"

24" comparison

1600w @24"

reflectors @24"

30" comparison

1600w @30"

reflectors @30"

Conclusions to follow

 

[Kriaze]

OK so looking at that I see that at 24" and above the 1600w is in front on LUX readings by a fair old way, but and here's the funny thing, at 30" below the reflectors actually have the higher LUX reading. So from what I'm seeing it looks like for lanky plants the reflector series may be better for penetration below, but how much growth will 4360-4410 lux actually give? Whereas the 30200-30600 lux on the 1600w vs the 11800-14190 lux at 18" would probably mean for scrog the 1600w will blow the reflectors away. If anyone has any thoughts feel free to jump in. All the best

 

[Kriaze]

Looking at the website I can see that the 96x3w is supposed to have the same lux as the 1600w Mars II according to Mars-Hydro. I think that they undervalued both the Mars II (immensely) and the Reflector 96x3 at the 50cm range, quoting 9880 lux versus my reading of 30200-30600 on the Mars II, and 9880 versus my reading of 11800-14190, end result? I feel better already .

Well it's Saturday night over here so I'll be off to smoke a celebratory roll and have a drink. Hope my ramblings made sense, and I hope this helps anyone considering purchasing LED's. I may even throw the 600w HPS back in the tent in a few months and take the lux readings from that. I know lux isn't everything, but I'm pleasantly surprised at the end results!

LA, I would love to see what the readings are from that beast of a light you have there. Any chance of playing with some light readings for us?

All the best everyone

 

[Mono]

Subscribed

I know it's all been covered with your grow style and LED. In your space, with your growing style a 600 watt hps with a dual spectrum bulb would be the best light source

Looking forward to how things progress buddy!!

 

[Kriaze]

Hey Mono thanks for dropping in! My last grow (my 1st ever) was under a 600w HPS. Unfortunately my wife loves having the heating on way too high all the time and it kind of almost killed, or contributed to the factors so I'm scared of running it again. I think my tent hit over 40 degrees celsius at one point . I'll just have to learn to train I think but I want to get enough smoke behind me before I try any of that, I've seen the end results and they are beautiful, but I haven't the knowledge, or even balls to try that just yet

I'm headed on over to check out your journals if you don't mind. Again thanks for dropping in and welcome aboard the new grower express, headed who knows where lol

 

[Kriaze]

Well Mono I've just been over to check out your current grow and I have to say that is some clever training. From what I'm seeing on the magazine 'just' growing plants is far from the norm, and in a good way too . I may be attempting tying my ladies back like they're ready for a whipping in around 3 or 5 years looking at those sweet pictures . For now I'll be happy if my plants survive, it's all a learning curve for me and I'll get there slowly and steadily, I'll keep on reading and trying to absorb it all until I know the plant first and foremost. One day though for sure, one day. All the best

 

[Dennise]

Hey fellas and fellettes, just a quick update at the moment as there isn't much going on just yet. First of all this is the Plushberry clone that I will be trying to seed with the Afghan Kush once I've got them planted and grown for a couple of months. I'll be growing an LSD feminised seed too in the hopes that I can also crossbreed with that. Here's the vegging tent with the 2x 96x3w Reflectors, I like these reflectors, they don't kick out too much heat and the my plants seem to thrive under them:

Now for some not so good news. Not only are my plants in the flower tent still having problems but the feeding of extra CalMag doesn't seem to be correcting the problems. I've read that it can take some time so I'm hopeful. One thing I'm really disappointed in though is this 1600w light. It doesn't seem to have the penetration that my HID bulb had, in fact I'm not sure it even has the penetration of the 96x3w Reflectors, faulty light maybe? If anyone has any advice for me on this that would be greatly appreciated. I've got some pics that may show what I mean, I've had to increase the exposure to bring some detail out of the darkness that is left when exposing so as I don't blow the highlights out at the top. Also the plants are in my opinion a little too close to the light, unfortunately due to the timing issues I mentioned in my previous posts they were vegged for longer than I wanted, what with me being afraid to try and attempt to train anything. I'll try all that when I'm happy with the quality and amount I have stored to smoke Here's some pics to hopefully show you what I mean:

Coverage pictures

Distance from the lights at the top

As always I hope that you are all well and that your life is good and green. Would anyone recommend that I use supplemental lighting in the flower room? I would have thought that a 1600w would be more than ideal for a 4'x4'x6' tent. Thoughts please? All the best

I'm a true believer there is no such thing as to much light but the rule of thumb is 37-50 watts of real draw from the wall per sq ft.... so with a 4x4 tent that is 16 sq ft and that would = approx 800 actual draw divided by 16 sq ft is approx 50w actual draw.....so you should be golden IMO.....

 

[uhewekguilw]

Plants are looking good after the lollipop. Also, 85*F isn't too hot for your plants, it's about ideal temp wise. I try to keep mine near 80*F but I don't worry till it gets around 89*F. If your temps keep getting higher than your comfortable with, concider using some type of kelp additive if you don't use it already. I would recommend Age Old Kelp, because it works and is one of the least expensive. It will help with any heat stress your plants may or may not get, plus it will help you feel better when temps go up again. Good luck man! I'll keep an eye out for your next pictures, I can't wait to see what that 1600 can do!
GB80

 

[WelshFarmer]

Nice grow mate... Was interested about those posted lux results. I'm about to buy a few more lights and will probably save the dash by going with some reflectors over the Mars II. Has Sara been in contact with you about this by chance?

 

[Kriaze]

Hey Dennise thanks for coming over I was hoping the 1600 would be plenty. I got a little worried over a couple of pictures that I took which showed a lack of light penetration but I feel a lot better after the lux test

Hey GB, kelp will definitely be on the cards. The heatwave is over for now and temps were much more respectable than the previous few days but prevention is better than the cure so I'll look around, pretty sure I'll be able to get it or something similar

Hey WelshFarmer, a belated welcome to 420Magazine and welcome to my journal . I've not had any contact from Sara that I know of as of yet but it's the weekend over there so she may be taking a well deserved break. Saying that, I've not had chance to read through everything just yet. The reflectors are great value, I think the reflector helps with lower penetration, how much that helps grows like mine I'm unsure, there's only one way to find out though, hence the flick of the veg tent switch to 12/12

All the best everyone, here's to an easy Sunday

 

[Kriaze]

OK so not much going on today. I've fed the 2 ladies today 6 litres of water each with 15ml each of AN Micro, Grow, Bloom plus 15ml CalMag along with the usual unmeasured amount of Humboldt's SGT. In addition I also added 15ml of Canna Boost as (wahey!) they're showing some signs of flowering . The lonely girl in the other tent had a feed of all of the above minus the Canna Boost as she isn't showing any signs of flowering yet, I would think another 8-10 days for her. Here are some pics:

2 ladies in the tent:

I took a darker pic here to highlight the spectrum of the Mars II 1600w:

My lonely girl:

I did do a minor piece of lollipoping on lonely girl after I took the pic. Nothing too serious though as I want to see if the reflectors extra penetration (compared to the 1600w at 30"s and lower) creates any nice buds.

Baby flower pics!

That's all I can think to add at the moment. I hope everyone is having a great weekend

 

[CO Finest]

Outstanding lolloping. That is going to allow awesome growth on your colas. The main advise I would give would be for your next grow is to get them girls a little lower. The pic shows there is not much room from the tops to the light. Having about 30-36" before going into finial stretch. Keep a very close eye on the tops for light bleaching, you do not want top of buds to get burnt of crispy from being to close. Being that is summer time you might want to add kelp and B1 into the feed to combat the higher heat levels.
Forgot to add, The last pick is showing a little heat stress with on the top leafs starting to taco to make shade for them self's.

 

[Scarfinger68]

Keeping an eye on you Kraize.

Looking good!