4 Strains, 2x4, LED grow

I pruned my mothers today... that is where the thrips and mites first got into the system... I tried to remove most damaged leaves, but they are still too big in my opinion.. I was pretty lazy with them.. I will spray them down with pyrethrum as soon as the cut marks heal enough the next days. they got 24h light schedule. basicly just because I did not have a second timer available... gonna change that today to 16 hours... the NL clones are really weak, thin branches, small leaves, just like their mothers, I will probably not run these in the DWC run, maybe instead some purple CBD strain I still have to choose.... I'Ve had good runs with nirvanas Northern Lights. very stable inbread plant, but the one from seedstockers seems just so weak to me. no comparison to critical mass, both are 100% indicas I guess... the little paint drawing (sorry lol) is how I see the DWC working out next run. found some square buckets that will fit perfectly in the 2x4, only 10L each, hope that will be enough volume

hey guys, thought I do a little Diary. since I am already on the 23rd day of flowering, here some words of what happened so far:) I am growing for some time now.. It is my first grow since 2 years, but I did some. only HPS, soil, coco, hydro, DWC.. sog, scrog, etc. my max yield was about 750g in a 4x4 600W HPS. I started small again. 2x4 tent, 400W Lm301H's, I build one big lamp with 4x 120W lm301h's, and 8x 660nm epistars per board, running on full power right now (390W approx).. Had them on low power for a while, about 200 watts or less, but closer to the canopy, in fear of lightburn, then I put the lights further up, upped power to 250W approx, and they seemed to do better. I think since I put the lights on 100% they are doing again a bit better, and I now raised the lamp to 50cm, somehow It looks like the plants need that intensity from the lamp. I've read that transpiration issues do make weird problems under LED. I upped the nutes also last feeding, 3/4 dose last watering. These 4 strains, 13 plants had a rough time in the beginning, caused by .08 EC water which locked out some nutrients, so the veg took longer. since flushing, they bounced Back, this should be a selection grow, from seed, so I took clones for each plant, and another prune about one week before switching to 12/12, after the nutes were dialed in and everything. these are the motherplants flowering. Then in week 2 I finally added a net above the canopy,(in fear of them shooting up lol), repositioned the plants and cut some dying lower branches too. lots of lower leafes were falling off during stretch, so I added more N, and also I guess not enough phosphorus, so I added a bit more P to the mix. but still the upper growth looks kind of very light green or yellowish.. idk if thats light burn, or not enough nutes.. I feed very lightly every 2nd to third watering, dosage about half of what is recommended in soil. last watering I did with only epsom salts in case of sulfur deficiency, ( the yellowish upper leafes could indicate that)... last feeding was 3/4 strenght nutes NPK about 13/16/20. calmag usually 1ml/l every watering... I use RO water now. a little help with diagnosing is highly appreciated! especially for the yellowing.. I don't think it is light burn. lamps 50cm away, and since Iam pulling 100% from the lamp and give a little more nutes, they seem to do a bit better..:)

It is beginning of Week 4, day 24 since switch to be exact.lol next update will be in a week:) I really hope I will get a true purple pheno with the purple kush's, there is 2 phenos, one short bushy plant that almost died as a seed... fucked up ph.. but that one grew like a true Kush, short, one phat stem,full indica mode.. but I also topped it, maybe a mistake... but she took it, and grew a few big side branches instead... on one picture you can see it already has purple calyx, which does look good indeed... temps are really high at the moment, lights are on at night so not much of a temp diff, a purple plant that purples in warm conditions, with a nice pink or purple color calyx would be so sick.. most only purple the bud leaves... never had real purple plants indoors, well I did purple some due to temps, but that is not the same. only purplish...a purple pheno clone would be super awesome... I've seen maybe one real nice indoor purple Kush grow diary.. seems to be rare. ... I just realized that the Yellowing may really be Lightburn,so I tried to turn down the LED to approx 75%, don't have a Watt-meter, basically my lamp should put out about min. 180 lumens per watt on max power, which means about 70k lumens on full power.. I've read cannabis only takes up to about 85klux, (lumens per m² ?).. on .72m² this would mean i need about 61klux, I also don't have a lux meter.. the whole situation is kind of weird for me, since hps did not have problems like that:) It was more like: more watts, more yield... and maybe a slight yellowing spot directly where the bulb was... I always identified this as heat issues.. It should be ok to run that lamp at a little less I guess ... on full power this would mean that my lights are about 15 percent too strong ... even though it depends on many things.. like lamp height, etc.. I guess75% should be more than enough though, considering it makes the LEDs more efficient about 200 lumens or something.. 300x200lumens=60000lumens... which would be about 85k per m² and about 75 Watt per board instead of rated 120... but it is all just guesswork:) minimal power with the ELG drivers is 0.7 ma, I measured this when I built the light. it goes all the way up to 2.2amps on full power, at 43 volts. The lower growth is also still dark-green. which really hints to light burn issues. oh and I also have thrips and maybe spider mites.. I've ordered some helper critters a week ago (ambi cali's, and phytos) but I think most of them died during hot transport conditions... ordered these because of the thrips and possible spider mites (balcony had infestation) I've spotted one red mite yesterday, and wasn't sure what that exactly was,friend or foe.. saw some suspect marks on the leaves that did not look like thrips damage... but it is only minor infestation with the thrips. also have minor fungus gnat infestation.. which isn't good since I wasn't so sure of the yellowing cause... I watered nematodes a few weeks ago, which helped alot , but they came back now. I've now reordered ambi calis... I am thinking to remove my net cause stretchin is done mostly and defoliate them a bit next... I don't think defoliating is necessary, or even beneficial.. some plants of growers look riddiculous, both in bud size and without leaves:) it just makes buds leafier when people pluck all fan leaves in my opinion... but In my case with 13 crammed plants I am worried about air circulation and leaf transpiration... powder mildew stuff edit: In case somebody is interested, my lamp is made out of a 4mm aluminium plate as heatsink, cut to 100x45cm to fit the 2x4, thickness is just like the newer kingbrite lamps without heat fins. one side is painted black with acrylic paint, I've had this spray paint lying around and read that black increases IR-radiation=heat, I think that is partly why the LED heatsinks are black, also elox increases surface too. the spraypaint kind of insulates also, which is not that great but it looks neat like this:).. the KB boards I got came super fast (3 days), those are the 3oz copper board versions they use for their 4mm plate versions without real heatsinks, they get pretty warm but not hot on max power, which is only 100w per board, they are rated for 120. they heat up to maybe 60 degree Celsius, but with the fan on they are barely warm on full power. drivers are 2x meanwell 240w 2100c, dimmable from 2.2 amps down to 0.7 amps, 2 boards per driver wired in series. cost was about 130 for the drivers, 170 for the 4 Kingrite boards (mounting screws and lamp cables included by the way) including tax, and like 40 dollars for the plate, minor things like power cable 10 bucks.. oh well a few 3 inch screws to mount the drivers about 2 inches above the plate, 4hanger screws... printed some TPU washers for between the board and screws too:). Always wanted to build my own LED lamp.. so the lamp cost me a total of about 370 dollars.. still HPS cost about half with Electronic ballast, but those LED's are lower energy consumption, more even light distribution and do not degrade like HPS.. so Iam happy so far:) 3000k boards

sooo it is day 38. since my water filter was saturated, and I fed some days with base EC of .8 , (meter defective and I had to wait for new water filter inserts) I thought it would be a good idea to use one watering Florakleen to dissolve the carbonates and then flush it with .5 nutrient dosage... result was a bad CA deficiency immediately. brown spots on leaves... and some yellowing. oh well... luckily those plants are bushes, so should be plenty of leaf surface left for finishing with a decent result.... I also removed some undergrowth, that was already dying from the plants sucking out P for the flowers... I am a chronic under- feeder. then I encountered spider mites... some slight webbing too. (see pic). only on one plant so far.. which is weird. as usual the predatory mites do not work that well.. I decided to not spray them down preventative with pyrethrum/oil, one week into flower (only slight pre flowers), instead I've ordered 2 times the predatory mite package. 50 bucks down the drain. i think the 1st box I've ordered, almost all mites were already dead due to hot weather shipping conditions... I applied californicus 2 times, and that other species that is known for fast killing of the mites once... did not work out that well so far.. more thrips also spotted.. same shit everytime.. I regret not spraying at the switch to flower. always the best idea, even without any visible infestation. next time I'll do a better job at this... prolly DWC too, 4 plants:) some random pictures for you guys... oh and I bought a power meter... had the lamp at 300W so now I now I dimmed the light just perfect.. now running at 320W. the last days were pretty chill, about 20 to 24 °C here, high humidity too. so that should help for the spider mites, I decided to get some isopropyl alcohol, and spray them at 10%ISO/h2o solution the next days. buds are still pretty small, and I guess that 10% alcohol in the solution should prevent the buds from gettingany fungus... I will spray in the morning during lights on, (dimmed down) and before the evening probably..not gonna let them be wet during night cycle.... still have to wait for that ISO though. so far still acceptable.

just more pictures:) this time: drenched in 15% /85 Isopropyl alcohol/water mix. 200ml 70% ISO plus 750ml water... seeems ok to spray this.. I am a bit worried about the trichomes, since I spray that stuff above/on the canopy... and also on the buds... I tested this solution on one mite I found. not sure but I think that mite dissolved from that mixture. people talk about all kinds of mixes with ISO, and that basically trichomes have a patina that does not dissolve instantly by spraying ISO, I am sure 50/50 would not be that great for trichomes though. that is why I've chosen the lower percentage range... should be ok and the only thing I can do in this plant stage. next time I will apply full mite genocide mode in veg. even before I see anything crawling lol... I could get them out and spray them one for one, but they are in the screen and I would surely cause some damage also there should be some predator mites left somewhere... those are more robust and prolly also in the lower parts of the canopy. I think spidy mites love the dry top of the plant... I spray 15 mins before light on (mites are on the top of the leaves mostly at night). I don't really worry about mold (yet), so far 2 days of spraying in the morning, maybe I'll do 2-3 more or so;)

it is week 7, day 55 of flower. some things went wrong, I tried to do something for the mites again, so after I was worried bout spraying iso and water I tried h2o2, tested 3% on some leaves first, as all the "documentation" on the net is very missleading. you read everything from a 3% h2o2 solution can be sprayed directly on leaves... and stuff like that. what they mean is 1/10th of 3% or something. 1 part 3%h2o2 and 9 parts water, which would result in a 0.3% solution I think.. well ok I tested this.. then I realised people are just stupid. some even think cause they are using a certain h2o2 product, everybody uses the same. man so many people just write "you can spray a 3% h2o2 solution no problem" or shit like that. ok after realizing such statements are false, I mixed it to 0.3, tested again, seemed ok... but after the whole spraydown there are still spotted leaves from the weak solution now.. white spots.. great. I even did approx 0.28 h2o2.. then I realized that it probably wasn't that good to spray this stuff with a brass nozzle on the plants... not so nice on the buds cause h2o2 is an oxidizing agent, altough the ammount of dissolved copperoxide and zincoxide should be very very minimal..... most people probably wouldn't even give it a second thought... a recomendation for any type of plant spraying from my side (especially if you have to treat in the budding stage), is to get one of those acid or chemical resistant plastic sprayers... they are all plastic, nozzle, tank, plastic coated springs against corrosion... most are made from PP or PA, depending on the usecase.. I think both are ok for h2o2 mixes... but I will still be doing a budwash at harvest day as I am allergic to dust (cause of mite shit and their bodies in it) anyway... so it will probably the most clean bud I have ever smoked after the wash despite the copper spraying that probably mostly exists only in my head.. lol... the white spots you see in the pictures are mostly from the 3% test spray.. I also forgot to take a clone from the best purple kush I think... I took a small one in flower, but it died... tried to root it, damn... as is is by far the best pheno, the only one that went full purp mode and with nice, wide fatty buds, i has the best bud type of them all... so I might try to cut one more branch more with smaller buds on it and try to root and re-veg it. the kushs already look almost ready to harvest.. other than that I might have overfed some miniscule ammount... I just reduced the micro and grow parts and bumped up the PK a bit (hydro schedule on the first gallon cause I confused that...).. I then fed these 2.5 gallons with quite some drain to flush just a bit to not drive the ppm in the pots too high and get an even new nutrient level. my h2o2 treatment probably caused more harm than the few mites I had on my plants.... but still it is looking pretty good and everything.

alright guys... it is day 68, Harvest day. I've had a hard time to wait for the 70 days I knew at least the Northern Lights or Bluedreams needed... the purple kushs (those who turned purple) were already done 10 days earlier, but still not too ripe at day 68. now the critical mass plants had the worst spider mite damage... the mites really took over the last 10 days... some webbing on the buds too.. almost panicked lol.. aside from the critcals the infestation was minor.. crazy cause they were crammed as hell in there. one particular critical mass (number 4) stood out above all the others. different buds, not as swollen calix, more pine tree like structure, almost no bud leaves, pretty and big buds, I bet most yield(for the critical) from this pheno, plus no spider mite damage at all.. two critical mass had budrot, and I think one "not" purple purple glam kush had it also... the budrot came from the mite damage/webbing mostly. total bud rot loss probably between 5g and 10g.. only minor parts of a few big colas were partly rotting, except one cola that had more damage. one blue dream pheno also kicked ass compared to the others, one other blue dream had almost nothing on it though, one other blue dream also just shit small yield. check out the picture description, I made single pictures of each plant, CM 1, 2,4,5 , one seed died NL1 and 2 , one seed died bd1,2,3 , two seeds died pgk 1, 2, 3 and 4 one seed died not sure why so many seeds did not make it this time, 18 seeds, 13 plants... I think it was ph problems. blue dream 3, Critical mass 4, Northern Lights 2, and then.... one Purple Kush Pheno kicked ass... shit thing is, I think I have no clone from this guy, I mean girl.. I confused some shit with the Kushs, and I have now 2 mother plants from the 2 not so nice leafy-greenish phenos (luckily identifiable), that had shit and loose bud structure. then I have one unnamed clone, which is probably one of the purple phenos, maybe the winning one, but can't remember.. I also made a monstercrop? clone from the number one purple kush, which already died /no leaves, and now I will try to re-veg the winning pheno seedplant post harvest it is a really sad re veg try, cause I did not think of it at harvest and only left one littel mini- bud on that thing... I also had the mothers almost dying.. I continued to spray them sporadically with alcohol water solution, but the damn mites just did not go away.. my blue dream favourite also started slight pre flowering, I guess due to stress and only 16 hours of light.. so the mothers are kind of on the edge. I hosed them down today with the shower head.. one clone already just rotted away from too much mite damage.. today strong iso- water spray, then hose down, then dunk in soapy water. I expect something between 150 and 250 grams from this harvest... little bit disappointing for my first LED grow with basicly 300W most of the time. but basically still ok for soil with small pots and for selecting good phenos... my goal in this tent is a pound lol:) next run DWC 4 plants . lets see... I will also specialize on lollipopping next run cause man.. I hate these small popcorn buds. I will make a full weight in and harvest update when everything is in zip locks and fermenting and post the dry weight in about a week or so! oh and I did a bud wash... 4 buckets with 2.5 gallons each 1st one 28ml 12% h2o2 and RO water ( same dosage as one cup 3% h2o2 per 5 gallon) just like cervantes method. then one bucket with 50ml soda and lemon juice, last 2 buckets just water. I did half the buds, then water change then the other half...

nothing to complain. it seems to be a true purple pheno, all purpled, 50% purpled real nice... love this strain.

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