20-12, The last 3 plants gave 44 grams of dry weight, together with the first 2, the totalharvest is about 60 grams! Please remember this is from just 60 Watt. Next set-up, now with 11 plants, starts tuesday 23-12.
9-12, The last 3 plants have been trimmed, I bet these were the biggest LED-Buds ever. I will let you know the exact amount in a couple of days. Next week the new set-up will start.
See some of the Buds being trimmed. (20 Mb))
24-11, They are now getting as big as what I used to get with HPS :-) It is crazy and caused by the earlier timer problem, I think at the end of the flowering stage they went back to vegging. Later, after correcting the timer problem, they went back to flowering.
11-11, The last 3 plants are still groing, probably because there has been a new problem with the timer of the farreds, don't know for sure. They are getting quite impresive.
31-10, Today the 2 White Widows in the front will be harvested, the 3 plants in the back "Powerplants" can stay a bit longer. It looks like the Farreds don't help for the timing after all, they are definitely late. Just as late as with set-up 3, (only blue and red).
21-10, Left them a little longer because the buds are still growing. They are nice and solid, not fluffy, and I think it looks really great :-) Since this result is from just 62 watt, my optimism about growing with Leds is coming back. A lot of work is still needed, don't through out your HPS yet....
12-10, Ready for the harvest, this picture has been taken with the Led's off.
5-10, About 1 week to go, thanks to the Farred Leds they are exactly on time. Looks like a pretty good result is coming up, but.. I still need more. In 2 weeks I will start a new test with more but smaller plants.
29-9, The increase in the amount of Red vs Blue seems to work great.
20-9, Changed the panels today; for every Blue led a Red led was added in parallel, the current between them is devided 1:3. This means there is much more Red light, the total Blue/Red ratio was 2:3, it is now 1:6. This should improve flowering. The total powerconsumption is still 62 Watt, about 3 weeks to go.
16-9, Flowers are still developing nicely, 4 weeks to go. (This picture was taken with the Led's Off)
5-9, Flowers are developing nicely, 5-6 weeks to go. (This picture was taken with the Led's Off)
30-8, Flowers are developing nicely.
24-8, Finally an update. Stretching no longer continues, the front 2 plants are White-widows, the other 3 are so called Powerplants, it seems stretching depends highly on this. Adjusted the white reflectorfoil to get more light on the plants. The Farreds are now On for the last 1,5 hour of the day and stay On for 0,5 hour after the Blue and Red are switched Off.
12-8, Stretching!! Switched off the Farreds, I will not use them until the last 5 weeks of flowering.
9-8, Topvieuw
9-8, Switched to flowering, 12 hours, also the Farreds are now On during the last 2 hours of the dayperiod and the first hour of the night period
2-8, Booming is the word :-) If only flowering would be as great as this vegging....
29-7. Back from a short holiday. The new clones are doing fine, for the past 2 weeks I had them on slow-growth, just a little light. From now on they should be booming. The panels have stayed the same, 18 Reds and 12 Blues, totally 60 Watt, the 8 Farreds are not in use until flowering comes. No spider mites yet, please send me some :-)
15-7. Took a difficult decision; because of all the stretching I removed the plants. New clones planted today. Next update 29-7.
9-7. Flowers are developing like they should, stretching goes on. I wonder what is gonna come out of this test :-) Spraid against the spider mites once more.
3-7. They are racing, but only in height, a lot of stretching this week :-( Could be because of the switching to flowering, but more likely, it is a side-effect of lowering the panels to 2 inch from the plants. This gives relatively more light to the top than the lower parts, causing the top to grow much faster. From now on I keep 4 inch distance, reducing the difference between top and lower parts. Being a pioneer is taugh.
28-6. Topvieuw shows they are healthy and bushy enough. :-) Switched to flowering today, the plants are almost 40 cm high. Flowering will double the size, so it is going to be very crowded, which means pratically all light will go to the plants.
28-6. Compare this with the picture below, 22-6, as you can see there is nothing wrong about vegging with Led's, it is the flowering that is still questionable/not good enough. Hopefully this project will one day deliver a cure :-)
28-6. The panels with Farreds added. It is now a year ago that I started this project.
28-6. Farred Leds added, they run at 1 watt each. The light is hardly visible to the human eye, but the plants need it for timing of the flowering and against stretching. The Farreds run at a seperate timer; they switch On just 2 hours before the other Leds switch Off and the Farreds stay On for 2 hours after the others are switched off. Thus imitating the evening sunlight in the autumn.
22-6. Changed the system today; took out the Farred leds and replaced them by Blue ones. The doubling of the amount of Blue should make the plants bushier, and give better rootdevelopment. The Farreds will be added when flowering comes.
20-6. Please let me know if you think these plants are stretched or not? Thanks
16-6. Growth is fine, sprayed against spidermites. Because of the wide-angle reflectors (80 degree) instead of lenses (25 degree) the led's need to be close to the plants, otherwise I loose a lot of light to the sides. But since there are just 6 blue and 6 farred led's some areas will not get any of that if the panels are close to the plants. Later this week I will double the amount of blue and farred led's, and put them at 50% current. That will enable me to really put the panel 1-2 inches away from the plants and still get a proper spread.
10-6, Official vegging started today. For the coming weeks I will check for stretching frequently, I will change the lights and start over if neccessary, and I will keep doing that until the vegging is perfect without stretching. Then I will concentrate on flowering.
The new panels have been finished today. It is just like Testsetup number 3 with higher efficient Led's, reflectors instead of lenses and Farred-Led's added. The Led's are 30 times 2 watt each. They are the very best types the market has to offer. Cree, Lumileds and Seoul are the manufacturors for this type of leds. There is no use for cheaper ones, or even 5 mm leds, the efficiency is just to low.
Thanks for all the support. The new clones for test number 5 already went in. Since the last harvest was very disappointing, the panels are being rebuild, the white led's go out and are replaced by red's, blue's and far-red's. As you can see, developing a good led-panel for marijuana is not easy. If it would be easy, it wouldn't be interesting :-) Fresh soil, by the way the soil is Allmix, this is a very good special mixture for marijuana plants. It is being sold for over 15 years and used by 1000's of people. Do not want to experiment with that.
