First LED grow light test

As soon as I started to see the first proper leaves appearing I thought it was time to start adding some A+B to the waterings. There's much more root activity going on at the moment than anything above the surface, so there's no point giving too much....it is an auto after all and they don't like large amounts of fertiliser and can easily get nute burn if you're not careful. No EC or PH measurements going on at the moment since the nutrient solution is so weak I don't see the point. Shortly some grow media PH and EC logging devices will be getting put in to the grow media, and the nutrient solution and run off will be getting closely monitored as well once the waterings are of reasonable volume. At this stage chasing things will just get me in a twist, so simplicity and lighting control is my main priority. Approximate light per plant has increased to PPFD 220 since the plants have grown a little closer to the lights. DLI is somewhere around 16 so they should be fairly happy for the next few days if I don't move the light or change the dimmer setting. Planning to start adding some Silicon to the nutrient solution (Buddha's tree solar green power) but I can't find any in Germany. Maybe someone can suggest something similar that's not going to change the npk of the feeding. Decided to move the plants a little further away from the light after the 6th day just to see if they respond a little differently, they had a little turning up at the points on the leaf edges so wanted to see if the light intensity was too much for them at this stage even though technically it should be around the perfect level for them if 25% dimm setting really does mean 50w. After all this grow is simply a light quality test so not doing anything with the growing techniques

So after some adjustment with moving light distance, changing feeding pH levels and concentrations, turns out the lights are as stated by the manufacture with the exception of 100% intensity which is actually a little lower....had what I thought was light stress, but turns out these are very very nutrient hungry for autos which caught me by surprise. Increased the nutrient solution concentration and also made some larger than usual pH reductions (dropped to the usual level with suphuric and then bumped further down with citric to get a wider pH swing) and that quickly solved that problem. Less than 24 hours later and they look as good as new again. The run off pH and grow media is still approximately 6.5 but there for sure will be hot spots of around 5.8-6.2 to give the plants all that they need nutrition wise. Run off and grow media EC is down in the 800ppm range which is somewhat lower than perfect but it's stable and that's the main thing. Light intensity has been increased to 50% now (still 2 under a single) and the DLI should now be approximately 18-20 for the current height above the plants and 20 hour lighting schedule. I am considering turning the second light on next as opposed to increasing this single lights intensity to 75% as I feel this will give a better spread of light over the whole tent and will give each plant more total light as opposed to have a single point of high intensity light. Considering if I want to supplement with co2 but I think that would be best kept for another experiment once I know both lights are similar in intensity and give enough total light to warrant a co2 addition when the lighting demands are highest later in the plants life

Doing alright, had some difficulty getting the lighting perfect as they decided to begin using ALL the nutrients I could throw at them and became deficient and I thought it was due to lights..... actually it turned out to be a combination of feeding strength and light stress

Started the sumo boost actually right before the pistils started to show, then as soon as they began to develop in went the pk13/14. At this point I began some rigorous calmag foliar feeding as they began showing signs of deficiency and adding it to the nutrient solution was just raising the ec for no benefit.

Doing well, and absolutely soaking up the pk booster. Feedings are going in around the 1700ec mark and run off was dropping each day, in the end after it reached 1200 I gave them a spike of a+b with no pk in it just to dose up the Coco before I cut it out much more and went all in with the pk

Switched out the silic rock for rhyno skin, the only reason I decided to do this is because I know rhyno skin is potassium silicate and wasn't sure of the silic rock, so I went with the extra available potassium. It's insane how much these are lapping up the pk and the EC is not raising at all, at some point this week I will switch out the pk13/14 for some shogun 9/18 and run that to the end. Smells really good and definitely not complaining about the led grow lights. Two are more than enough for this tent size and the plants are outgrowing the tent which I definitely didn't expect going into this considering the brand of the lights (they both draw 180w at peak so that would explain the lower than advertised PPFD measurements at max power) Not going to back off on any PK until I start to see the run off EC rising, or I may keep the current PK profile and then switch when I see the run off EC going up and then assume that indicates the plant needs less P now so it's building up in the coco. Not 100% sure but I am fairly certain the tall plant isn't white widow. The terpene profile and overall growth behaviour of the plant doesn't fit with what I expect from a white widow plant. The short stocky one is definitely white widow....peppery, earthy, green and musky scent, whereas the tall one is sweet candy, slight fruits with a bit of pine. Shouldn't be long now before it's finished and we can know for sure.

So after consistent feelings of more than 2000 EC and the run off still not going above 1400 EC I decided to lower the input EC to see how things transpire. If I keep going in at 1500 and it's still 1400 then the plants are just absorbing stuff they don't need. They're doing well and a little less for a few feedings won't hurt since there are more than enough fan leaves for the buds to take what they need from. Had to add a dehumidifier as the humidity was alarmingly high with the lights off at 85% so now it's back down to reasonable levels at 55%. Also added another fan because the small plant has some very thick dense buds coming and I'm afraid of them not having enough air flow and beginning to go soggy and rot in the middle. Don't think it's time to think about flushing just yet, but not changed out from the pk 13/14 to pk 9/18 so that may not even get used this grow if things keep going steadily and there are no signs of deficiency or mad EC swings occurring. Can't wait for it to be finished now, it's looking and smelling lovely!

Very impressed so far with the small plant, however it's beginning to look suspiciously like Amnesia haze all except the fact that it's small and fat rather than tall and thin... Large plant is certified not white widow at this point, however I can't complain because it's looking beautiful and although it's a pain to deal with two strains at once (nutrition requirements, watering quantities and flowering time to name but a few differences) I can't wait to set them on fire and inhale the fumes. Definitely do not under any circumstances waste your time using any calmag product in the nutrient solution! Just don't. Get yourself a spray bottle and make up a foliar feed. Every single time I've added calmag to nutrient solution it's only ever made the problems worse and never better. Each time I've had a random spike in run off EC it's always been directly after adding calmag of various producers e.g. canna, shogun, Vitalink etc. I guess it solves the lack of calcium and magnesium, but in the process locks out other nutrients and they just get left in the grow media and just get washed out in the next feeding. Also don't believe the whole "don't foliar feed with the lights on" Chinese whispers, never hurt any of my plants and ALWAYS solved the problem. The whole myth comes from UV light breaking down the minerals which are found in the foliar spray which only happens to specific minerals and only in direct sunlight. You're not going to get a sun tan from a grow light no matter how long you decide to stand looking at your plants, so indoor growers just ignore that part. Also it is true that the stomata are fully open closes to sunlight and sunset, but the plant still has to perform respiratory functions during the daylight hours since it takes in carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. The stomata are more open during the day since the plant is performing much more energy intensive operations it needs more oxygen and more carbon dioxide than during the night, and hence when lights are out is in fact the worse time to spray your plants....not to mention the fact the lights are off so there's less heat to evaporate the remaining standing water on the leaves and it's more likely to cause a mould problem. Moral of the story, literal minutes after a foliar feeding the colour of the plant changes for the better, during light hours where the plant is actually performing the work needed to actually use the nutrients you have just provided. Anyway moving on, but first, I'm never using Calmag in the nutrient solution ever again 😂 In the end a drip feeding system was acquired to save some time, and I was getting irritated trying to feed the large plant since the root mass is so big that the watering would just take forever. It was like pouring water through a pillowcase, more than about 20ml per second and it would just start spilling over the side of the pot. Even with the drip feeder on there are some pockets of standing water appearing on the surface 😅 Nutrient solution concentration is now being reduced slowly, and also dropping the pH back to 5.5-5.8 so that when the pure water flush starts the media is buffered a little low so it doesn't immediately swing above 7. The tap water here is above 8 pH which is quite annoying because it requires quite a bit of citric acid to bring down.....but there's my next moan. Never had any problems with Citric acid, always worked well and yes it's biodegradable so over the course of a few hours the pH does rise in the nutrient solution, which is actually a benefit in my eyes because you can use that pH swing to good effect and bring the pH of the grow media and therefore nutrient uptake right through the optimum range of all nutrients needed by the plant...not to mention when used in foliar sprays to set the pH, it protects against mould and nasty weed destroying critters, and not to mention it is beneficial to terpene production. Not trying to turn this into a lecture, just fed up hearing garbage repeated over and over again that's actually of no benefit when it's portrayed as the cure. Next time out I'll be using 20L pots again, definitely didn't expect these cheap LEDs to do this good (backed off to 75% dimmed because they were too bright on 100%) which is why they're only in 12's, I thought 12's would be more than enough, turns out I was wrong. I'll probably cut down the tall plant with the white widow, and flush it together with it. Since I don't really know what strain it is at this point I'm not too bothered about it reaching full maturity, although it would be nice to send it to the end and see what it actually is, I don't want to use up the whole tent for only one plant that i might not even like in the end. You may notice I've only done very minimal defoliation and the white widow is incredibly bushy. Well I removed basically everything that wasn't directly or one node away from the nearest flower site, and that's definitely helped with bud development up until this point. Maybe doing a lollipop helps get better buds on some plants but I'm absolutely certain it would have ruined this one. I'm not one to break my own solar panels and then wonder why my TV won't turn on.

Last week now, very happy with the small plants progress over the last week, the larger plant however seems to have less dense buds and has already started to put out some amber trichomes on the sugar leaves. I will definitely cut them both down together, which is a shame because the larger plant I'm sure could probably do with another week or 2 from how the buds look even though amber trichomes are appearing. Feeding regime is cut right down now and the next waterings will be water + sumo boost + citric acid for pH regulation, and the last 3 days will be pure water from the tap and nothing else. Haven't cut out everything just yet because I feel like they need just a little more nutrients so the leaves will only be sucked completely void of all nutrition right when it's time to cut them and not before. Nitrogen is cut already so they leech that off first before taking anything needed for bud production from the leaves, and hopefully that will give a better final taste and burn quality. This could possibly run for 10 weeks if the fan leaves aren't looking totally dead before then, as I won't harvest until the plant tells me it's ready. This may give enough time for the larger plant to finish doing it's thing, but that ain't up to me...

Last week now, it's going a little longer than I thought it would, as the small plant run off EC was not creeping up until yesterday (nutrient uptake finished) so now it's going to be cannibalising it's self and a flush can begin. Sumo boost is not being stopped yet since it contains flowering hormones and will suppress any desire for the plant to Hermie on me while it's panicking to survive. Large plant definitely not finished, run off EC is still going down with the lowered nutrient solution EC. Bud density and size is not completely there, but it's ripe enough to flush and let the buds ripen with what's stored in the fan leaves, although it's not the perfect situation it will give some ok bud quality and smoke, even though it's a little too soon. Unfortunately weed isn't a banana so it won't continue to ripen much after it's chopped, however I will leave this plant on stem to dry so it gets a few steps further towards perfect while it's drying. More than pleased with the small plant, the bud density is very much level A-/B but I would have liked to see some less upward growth and more outwards. Large plant has too much upward growth in my opinion and has fairly long and thin buds, which may have volume but not mass, so I'd say at this point C/D+ at this stage. I'll let you know the overall rating after the end of week 10 flush and the weight at harvest.

I'll edit this later