36 Watts or Bust!

Now if only we can go past stealth and get a plant that gives it’s spare energy to a device lol. Grow weed and go green🤣

Probably can’t happen, but I can dream

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Maybe at one point I’ll convert my old PC from 2008 and gut it for a micro grow. Damn thing has been collecting dust since it’s motherboard, ram, and graphics card all failed at once in 2010🤔
I could use the fans in it for the grow too LoL

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I’ve seen people convert all sorts of things into micro grows: mini-fridges, armoires, PCs, stacked Rubbermaid totes. It’s really cool to see how creative people can get.

Oh and on the idea of a plant giving excess energy to power devices: technically hemp/cannabis seeds can be made into oil, which can be put directly into special generators that can run on veggie oil, or the oil can be converted to biodiesel and used in a regular diesel generator.

It might not be practical (hopefully it is in the future), but it definitely is possible to do what you said.

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I had actually meant the sugars it releases or something while it’s growing being used as energy. Preferably to grow itself lol, but unless someone can figure that out real clean green energy is just a pipe dream

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TBoneShuffle at GC grows her in hydro…I think he picked her up from Nirvana though i’ll have to ask to be sure. I guess she likes a lot of punishment yet stays nice and compact without topping/fimming :wink:

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Sounds like my type of plant LoL

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OK, so I looked up pinching, and from what I could gather, is that you lightly crush the top growth with your fingernail and not remove the growth, and that is like a gentle FIM. I ended up leaving nasty fingernail gouges in the top growth then figured that this might be a vector for disease, so I then grabbed the snippers and just FIMmed it.

I does look like it’s time to start getting serious about training because I can tell it’s getting big!

MomOnTheRun, that’s exactly what I was thinking about. And espaliered fruit tree. I’d like to build a little trellis out of bamboo skewers and begin to tie the growth to them so it grows laterally taking advantage of the length of the lights.

Instead of Wonder Woman it’d be like King Kong where Fay Wray was lashed to a bamboo raft lol.

Of course we’ll see how well I can manage that. I have a bunch of magnets with hooks I could use to help tie branches down and stuff but that’s my idea for now.

Here we are this morning, you can see the nub where the haircut was!

Well sorta!

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Looks good! Now when those 2 (or more) main branches start growing you can train then sideways

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I’ve got the trellis built but I want to wait for top growth before I attach it to the plant and pot and start tieing down.

Just slowly chugging:

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I can tell growth has slowed probably due to the FIM, it’s a little droopy since I just watered it. Even with the larger “pot” I can’t really let it go for more than two days.

I’ve watered heavily without any nutrients and let it run off just to kind of flush it during it’s haircut. Just plodding along:

We’re at 20 days from seed crack and 16 days from sprout so far.

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Much better growth than mine has. Hopefully the fabric pots will change that for me, but I’m just happy the crystal candy popped out TBH. I really don’t want to dig them out :sweat_smile:

I see the fim. Is it a lighter shade or is it my eyes playing tricks on me?

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@zap_rowsdower if you are going for stealth, maybe a speaker box. I know they used to sell them on Ebay and maybe Amazon? I’m not sure but I had purchased one and never got to use it. I ended up basically giving it away. I just wanted go shoot some ideas at you for when they get bigger. A speaker has more height. Just a thought. I haven’t read all the post yet so forgive me if you’ve already discussed this. I saw the thread and immediately was reminded of my speaker box. Anyways looking good though. Welcome. You are in good hands here.

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A old fridge works also if you can work with it.

For anyone who is good at engineering a fridge might be a great option TBH. Sealed, negative pressure, and a decent amount of space.

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More than likely. Keep in mind that cutting into the plant (topping) will slow it down for a few days…give a healthy dose of LIFTA until she recovers :wink:

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im not sure if its been mentioned but file cabinets and i have 2boxes i made from dressers they work great just gutted them nailed the drawer fronts in place and took the backs off andput hinges on them grow on brother i dig it

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Here’s mine, I’m just now retiring it.

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@zap_rowsdower how long does it sit in its runoff for and how much water did you water with, and why the flush?

… add a circulation fan if you can and pickup a cheap “temperature/humidity” weather station which are only $5-10 at most big box stores.

As knowing your temps and humidity at lest jsut baselines for how things are running will help you as you go on as well.

… Sprayglued aluminum foil is a better reflector than white spray paint :wink:

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Hey all,

I love the bar fridge idea, but it would seem out of place where I have it now. Speaking of file cabinets, and in sort of keeping with Mr. Sparkle’s Ikea retools, the Hallan looks like it’s perfect for a little grow box:

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S89291312/

Only problem it’s steel, so cutting holes for ventilation would be a little tough, but with enough patience and going slowly could be done.

Right now the PC is doing OK, and blends in well, it’s just a little narrow in terms of a grow area. But as the plant is doing now, it’s got plenty of room.

I think the main choke point right now is the light intensity. Based on what I’ve seen so far, 36 watts is doing OK for veg, the real test will see in flower. I’d say for this current dimension at least 50 watts would be a good balance between light intensity and heat buildup.

I was always under the impression that flat white was better than mylar in terms of base reflectivity. I must have read wrong!

I decided to stop feeding with the regular mix I’ve made up since the FIM, I let a bit run out the bottom, then let it drip dry. I try not to have the plant sit in it’s own juices so at most there are a few dribbles that run off. I figured I’d just go water while it was recovering from the FIM. Just noob superstition I guess lol.

The mix I’m using is fairly unsexy, it’s just three teaspoons of Fox Farms grow big, one teaspoon of superthrive, and a milliliter or two of ph down just to take the edge off the hard water I have here per gallon.

I’ll see if I can stick a thermometer/humidity meter in there. I originally planned for a fan, but I got lazy and didn’t want to punch more holes to run 12 volts into the cab hehe!

Here it is this morning:

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^^^ mini version

Tin snips makes cutting easier.

happen to have a ppm meter or ph checker “the aquarium drop ph testers work fine” ?

Just other points for references, as don’t adjust pH unless you know what you have.

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Hi Mr Sparkle, I used a crummy soil test kit which stuck my tap around 7 or so. After running a few tests I realized that a teaspoon was way too much and would bring the PH down to 5~5.5 per gallon. So I backed off to 2~3 ml per gallon and that brought the PH down to 6~6.5 or thereabouts.

I can post more than one picture, so I’m going to post a shot of the seedling a few days after it emerged. And a shot of the plant this morning, it’s definitely slowed, but this is good so I can see what to expect. That growth from seedling is pretty crazy! Maybe we’ll get another spurt during flower.

Here it was on the 1st of the month:

Here it is this morning:

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