Gelato (Fastbuds) + LUMA 1800 LED

INTRODUCTION Hello and welcome to my grow diary. My goal with this grow is basically to try and produce the highest quality buds with the highest possible yield in the shortest amount of time. I have tried to optimise the tent design for maximum available floor space, and I am essentially doing a sea of green using recent release autoflowering genetics from Fastbuds. During the grow I will attempt to provide the optimal environment for each stage of plant growth via manipulation of light intensity, temperature, humidity and nutrient strength. For this grow, I am using the LUMA 1800 LED Grow light. This light is built and designed in New Zealand by www.herbals.co.nz. OVERVIEW OF GROWING SETUP This grow is being conducted in a 1.2m x 1.2m x 2.0m Grow Tent. The plant stock consists of 9 Gelato Autoflower plants from Fastbuds. They are being grown in 11.5L Fabric pots, using 70/30 Canna Coco/Perlite medium with a layer of Clay balls at the base of the pot. The nutrient range for this grow will be a single part base nutrient and various additives manufactured by Flairform. The expected total grow time from seed to harvest is 12 Weeks. THE LUMA 1800 LED GROW LIGHT The LUMA 1800 is a 9 COB LED light designed by the New Zealand company www.herbals.co.nz This light features a number of features not found in any other light. The LUMA features huge passive heatsinks which extend out of the case for excellent cooling of the COBs. One of the most interesting features of this light is its custom COB, the XP35. Modelled and benchmarked against the ubiquitous CXB3590 along with other market leading COBs, this LED achieves a very respectable efficiency (within 5% of the CXB3590) with a much lower investment cost. The XP35 is a 35mm diameter CPB and is built on German engineered aluminum board with 168 top-tier BridgeLux 2240 diodes, and a proprietary phosphor coating. One of the key advantages of this COB is the customised light spectrum. It has a nominal output spectrum of 3100k which allows the COB to be heavily geared for a lush and prosperous flowering/fruiting cycle. As well as this however, the XP35 has slightly higher values of UV and 330 - 460nm meaning that the XP35 is also a strong contender for the Vegetative cycle and therefor is a true full spectrum Grow Light. The LUMA 1800 LED runs at an extremely efficient 56w per COB for a total of 512w at maximum intensity. The light itself is well engineered with solid construction and a range of practical features such as a dial to set the light intensity, and daisy chainable power sockets to allow multiple lights to be linked together and powered from a single cable. Given I am growing relatively short autoflower plants, I have decided to remove the lenses from the light. The unscrew easily, and the PPFD charts show that the light gives a more even distribution over a 1.2m by 1.2m area without them. With the lenses you get greater light penetration, but it does come at the expense of the light intensity at the outer edges of the grow area. The LUMA 1800 LED Grow Light can be found at the following link (note as yet they haven't updated the details regarding the new XP35 cob) https://herbals.co.nz/collections/led-grow-lights/products/luma1800ledgrowlight The specification and testing results for the XP35 COB can be found at https://herbals.co.nz/blogs/spectrum-led-grow-lights/4seasons-xp35-cob-ppfd-winner You can view a video of the LUMA 1800 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpf62E4zx58 DEEP/FAR RED SUPPLEMENTAL LIGHTING In addition to the LUMA 1800 this grow will also be using a 660nm/730nm Sleep Initiator LED Light from www.herbals.co.nz. This light is specifically suited to work alongside an existing light source in the grow space. The LED is to be used during the typical on time for the main lights, however it will be timed to run an additional 15-30 minutes after the main grow light sources have timed off. This is to trigger the plants to go to sleep at a much faster rate where they can begin to photosynthesize almost immediately. Information on the use of the far red supplemental light https://herbals.co.nz/blogs/spectrum-led-grow-lights/sleep-initiation-with-far-red-the-emerson-effect NUTRIENT RANGE Flairform Greendream 1 part Grow Nutrient (3-1-5) Flairform Greendream 1 part Bloom Nutrient (2-2-6) Flairform CMX additive (Calcium, Magnesium and micronutrients) Flairform Grostorm additive (Kelp Extract and Humic/Fulvic Acids) Flairform Budstorm additive (PK supplement - Potassium and Phosphorous) Flairform Silikamagic additive (Silica) ADDITIVES Trichoderma Powder by Plantmate (Beneficial fungi) Endoboost Concentrate Powder by GreenEden (Endomycorrhizal fungi Species and Beneficial Bacteria) Citroshield Disinfectant Spray (Budrot treatment and general disinfectant) Florakleen by General Hydroponics (Flushing additive) PH down is done with Nulife 81% w/v (very concentrated) WEEK 1 DAY 00 - Seeds were placed in paper towels to germinate and the pots were pretreated by drenching to 20% run-off using PH'ed tap water (to a PH of 6.0) DAY 0 - Seeds have germinated and are being placed into the pots one by one, as they reach around 3cm length. I gave the pots 1000ml of solution comprising 1.2ml/L kelp extract additive and 1/2 tap of endoboost powder in 9000ml. I also added a dash of Trichoderma powder. The idea here was to get some fungi/bacteria action happening, and the kelp extract is to feed that growth. DAY 1 - No changes today. Plants have started sprouting. DAY 2 - No changes today. Plants continue sprouting. DAY 3 - No changes today. DAY 4 - No changes today DAY 5 - No changes today DAY 6 - Initial Seedling Feeding. 500ml per plant of nutrient mix with EC=0.8 and PH=5.9 - Nutrient mix comprises Base nutrient, Calmag additive and Silica additive. DAY 7 - No changes today. Good growth for this week so far!