I went with Kingbrite, I gave Meiju a good look, but a couple people recommended Kingbrite so I went that direction.
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They’re good, too. A little more expensive, but they have a solid reputation. Congrats!
Jerry at Kingbrite was one of the early champions of the Cree COB LEDs, and his company, along with a few US companies later, paved the way for that revolution.
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Mmm… got me drooling over here… she really stacked up, didn’t she? Mine are getting close to sample time 
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Thanks man. At this point I’m just trying to not muck it up. Each grow is an adventure. I’m such a newb that I always worry till they’re in the vape.
I was just starting to get curious about the smoke report on your 2x4 harvest, but I guess it hasn’t been that long. I figured you’d wait until they’ve had a couple weeks in jars at least.
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I had a look at the kingbrite website a few years ago, that was my first time on a chinese website and a very odd experience. As I was browsing a chat message applet popped up in the bottom right hand corner, and messages started to come in.
“hello this is raina from kingbrite how may I assist you.”
followed with-
“hello raina from kingbrite ready to assist you NOW!”
I responded
“I am just browsing your website”
the reply came back
“That is OK. For now.”
A little too ominous for my tastes haha.
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Haha, yeah I still feel this way too… I’m a perpetual newb.
Yeah, Dank Sinatra is in jars now curing. Will probably sample within the next few days, then a few weeks later to give a full report. PV’s are still hanging, but I cut one top from PV1 early to sample because it looked yum. It’ll be dry enough to sample in a few days, and I’ll give a preliminary report after 
The cure really brings out the best of everything though… my BT’s are just now coming to their potential after being jarred for a while.
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lol I think there’s a language barrier. They also apparently sometimes send selfies to entice lonely young American men to buy lights. Silly stuff, but they’re trying to sell and it probably works. They still have great products and service, although I would say Meiju is producing better fixtures. Their new F8-MAX 650w fixture with the 385nm and 730nm diodes is crazy good for the $700-800ish USD delivered price tag. Making me rethink DIY!
Agreed! Although some will disagree, I think the high changes considerably between being barely dried and a few weeks in jars with stable humidity. Sometimes even the potency changes, usually for the better. I’m no highfalutin connoisseur though.
Here’s a quick update on the garden at day 49 from flip. Smells are lovely, mild sweet candy outside the tent, pretty dank lemon lime candy inside the tent:
Top colas on everything are 5-9" from the lights, and temps up there are 85F with about 50% humidity according to the AC Infinity T6 sensor. Not showing any bleaching or anything with the lights at 550w or about 75% of max power.
Here’s a closer look at PV1 and TKI7 up front.
That PV1 up close:
And the TKI7 up close as well:
Lastly, PV7 behind the TKI7 on the right. She bulked up more than I was expecting and has some really nice pinecone buds.
I think these will have to come down by day 63F, if not before. A couple of them look like you could take them down now but I know they have some swell and ripening to go.
Anybody think I should turn down the light to maybe 450w for the last 10 days or let it ride at the higher temps and higher light intensities the whole way through?
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I say turn the light down. Cooler temps and less light intensity should increase trichome production. At least, that’s what I’ve read haha… If nothing else, it should help them finish up a little quicker. Plants look real good, though! Excited to see how they smoke for you. After reading that review on higherthought, I wanna see how other people’s Pura Vida smoke.
What’s the TK you’re growing again? I half-assedly scrolled through the thread to see what it was, but I didn’t find it.
I agree. My Time Bandits have been smoking much differently lately, after three months in jars. It’s still got the same “up then down” high, but the first hour has gotten much more cerebral lately. Almost uncomfortably so. And one of the Goji’s comedown is now a little too heavy for my liking, unless I smoke it before bed. Wasn’t like that after a month and two months in the jars.
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I thought I’d read stuff like that about lowering temps/intensity in the past, but I didn’t bookmark it and I don’t know if it’s bro-science. Would you or anybody else mind pointing me to the data or published research that shows lower temps and less light intensity at the end of flower creates more trichs and terps?
Let’s just say I’m not convinced. I mean, professional growers run high 80s and high CO2 with no reduction of light from their Gavitas, and get huge numbers in lab tests, right? I’d love to have some data on the subject but it’s kinda hard to search for in research journals.
I often get similar results on jarred weed - just like some wines, it gets better with age. It’s like potency increases somehow, up to a point. No idea how that happens but I experience it almost every harvest. flavors and effects and potency change after a couple months in jars. Not for every pheno, but definitely some.
The TK I’m growing was bodhi’s collab with Strayfox - Triangle Kush x Iraqi (TKI). B took the TK cut and hit it with his selected male from the heirloom beans brought back by Stray’s brother from his time in the military stationed in Iraq. I got them as testers and found 5 phenos. Full tester growlog and review are in a big post in the bodhi thread, but here’s a couple pics labeled by pheno:
People say the Iraqi line imparts a sativa quality, but I don’t really get that aside from some psychedelic visuals from my primary keeper. Bodhi made a small one-time release with the label “BSS01” and then donated his remaining beans to the Strayfox benefit auctions at Headiegardens.com a few months ago.
I made open pollinated F2 with all 5 females and 5 males. @Torontoke has grown them out and found surprisingly big yields of oily shop rag and brake fluid weed that is knockout potent. That’s about the profile the two other testers of this strain found, but the F1 were low yields.
My TKI2 keeper is all time greatest hits type of weed, but it’s the smallest and leafiest of the 5 phenos I found and it tastes like mint and dill pickles after a few months in the jar - not exactly mouth watering, but the effect is incredible and so damn potent.
This round, I’m trying to decide between two other phenos for a second keeper. TKI1 is tall and lanky like the TK and has the TK flavor profile, but isn’t the strongest. TKI7 visually looks like the female version of bodhi’s Iraqi male, but also has very low yields (cookies type yields), and the mint/dill flavor, but is nearly as stony as the TKI2.
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It’s bro-science for sure, dude haha! I definitely have not read any peer-reviewed scientific reports on the effects of lowering temps/light intensity, just anecdotal evidence on various weed-growing websites. Having said that…
I trust those lab tests about as much as I trust all of the glowing reviews on Greenpoint’s website. Which is to say, not at all. I was just looking at some vendor’s website that a buddy of mine told me to check out. Said they had a Blueberry pheno that tested at like 29% thc or something ridiculous like that. And all of their strains somehow miraculously tested at like 29, 30, 32 percent thc. I mean, I guess it’s possible. But it seems to me extremely coincidental that at a time when the majority of consumers have become obsessed with thc levels, thc levels in every strain suddenly jumped ten percentage points. Or more, even.
Anyway… Yeah, I thought the “I” in “TKI” was Strayfox’s Iraqi, didn’t realize the TK was the Triangle Kush. Sounds good to me! It does look like a low yielder, though, just based on those pics. But I mean, sometimes you gotta make concessions… haha! If the weed is stellar, I’ll sacrifice yields.
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I always thought it makes sense, here is why:
The natural function of the resin gland is to essentially protect the plant and it’s developing seed from extreme conditions like UV rays, cold weather, pests etc, and this way it works to preserve the genetic reproduction (the seeds) and ensure the continuation of the line. Taking this into consideration, it is possible to find a way of taking advantage of cold conditions and, if the timing is right, harness the low temperatures to increase resin production in the flowers .
The cold, being a considerable stress upon the plant, triggers changes in the plant’s metabolism which, when they occur in the final stages of flowering, can lead to an increased resin production. If we gradually lower temperatures to around 16-17ºCduring the last two weeks of bloom , once the buds are fully grown and only need to mature, it’s possible to achieve a much greater and higher quality resin coverage in exchange for only a very slight sacrifice in production weight.
It’s also worth mentioning that encouraging lower temperatures during the later stages of flowering will retain a higher terpene content and can lead to harvesting more aromatic and flavour-full flowers . Higher temperatures during flowering, drying and curing means that the evaporation and subsequent loss of terpenes can seriously alter and degrade the organoleptic properties of the buds produced.
Edit: Forgot to say I recently have received your seeds and really appreciate your great work and generosity … 
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Turn on the juice and cut the damn thing loose! Make those top buds squeal like piggies! All Love.
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I almost had enough likes to get caught back up here lol
Looking great as always @nube and a huge thank you to you and others who got those seeds out to folks 
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I’ve turned down the last few weeks to try to hurry things along (damn GMO taking 85 days), but didn’t notice much difference. My vote is let it ride.
Plants are looking stellar man!
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Those look amazing bro… great growing as usual!!
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I’m always checking out your grows and all of the information you provide towards the plants and their background @nube. Those are some frosty buds there.
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Thanks for the link, George. I wish Alchimiaweb provided any references for their claims. Everything they say is speculative. I’d love to see some real scientific data, not just claims.
As I’ve written when this subject came up in other threads, I’m going to assume temps below 90-95F at the canopy don’t matter nearly as much as the genetics and quality of the grow. Otherwise, how would any weed professionally grown outdoors in greenhouses that routinely hit 95F+ during the day, even in fall at harvest time, have the incredible terps that many of those cultivars do? If you consider that frequent case, logically it makes sense that genes and quality of the grow matter more than temps, up to a point. What that point is, I don’t know.
I want to note that I’m completely open minded to data that definitively shows this assumption to be wrong. That’s how I feel about everything in life - I’ll happily change my mind and publicly state I was wrong when hard data proves I’m an idiot. 
I agree, there’s profit motive for labs to tweak the dials and pump out higher numbers, and there’s clearly been a war of escalating numbers, but isn’t it also possible that the baseline quality level of grows and genetics has increased since legalization? There’s retail incentive for commercial growers to grow the stuff that tests high. All dispos and rec shops say sales follow the lab test numbers.
I guess my thought process is that high lab tests and high terp tests can’t be universally wrong, can they? The style of lighting plus the temps and environment hasn’t changed that much in the five years since legalization where lab test escalation has occurred, but the caliber of growers and strains maybe has. We’ve stopped growing fluffy Dutch strains and commercial selection has focused on the big number cultivars.
Additionally, looking back at those old tests from 2010-2015 posted at places like Breedbay and elsewhere would seem to indicate that the high temps of those medical commercial grows under HPS didn’t cook off the terps or impact the potency. But that’s just my interpretation. I’d love to be able to test it, but there’s simply no way to control the variables well enough in a home grow. Pretty much like everything else endlessly debated by home growers in the cannabis scene. 
Thanks for engaging the discussion, and thanks for the kind words. I really only post to share and learn info, and I appreciate the calm discussion.
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Yeah, of course. The quality of grows definitely makes a difference. Nobody has to hide anything anymore and information seems to be flowing more freely amongst growers. Genetics seem to be shared more freely now, too. I mean, take a tightly-held cut like Triangle Kush, just as an example. You couldn’t find that anywhere for yeeeeearrssss. Now, there’s probably a dozen dispensaries/clone stores just in LA that are offering it (don’t quote me on that number, but you get the point). Whether or not it’s the real cut is debatable, but I know that All Star clones is pretty legit and they have it available for anybody who wants it.
And I don’t think it’s any secret that breeders have been breeding towards high thc percentages for decades now, at the expense of almost everything else. Still, I find it hard to believe that thc percentages could make such a huge leap in such a short amount of time, especially when it’s the same strain that tested at 17% five years ago, but now it’s testing at 27%? Seems fishy to me.
It’s unfortunate that everybody’s like,”But how much thc does it have???” Because the strains were excellent when they were testing at 17%. Lying about it seems unnecessary to me. I mean, if you don’t smoke something because the thc percentage is “too low,” you’re kind of a fucking moron haha!
Maybe I just don’t like people who lie for no reason… Or people who lie to make more money. I dunno.
I don’t think the terp tests are wrong at all. That actually does seem plausible to me, just because it seems like breeders are placing a ton of importance on terps these days. I call bullshit on the thc percentages, though. The terps thing could also be that growers are placing SUCH an emphasis on the drying and curing process these days. Although to be honest, everything I’ve seen from a dispensary in the past few years smells pretty stale to me; could be because it’s been sitting in the package for months, though. A friend of mine who loves going to dispensaries told me that he always insists on seeing the package date before he’ll buy anything. Said he’s seen some stuff that was packaged six-eight months ago.
I was just considering buying one of those personal drying and curing things, can’t remember the name of the company offhand. Looks like a wine fridge, though. They claimed that myrcene evaporated at temps higher than 68 degrees. But I think they meant during the drying/curing stage, not the growing stage. I dunno. But I held off on buying that thing for the time being.
Ive said it before, I’ll say it again: they need to study this plant a lot more. There’s too much anecdotal evidence, not nearly enough hard data.
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I agree with everything you said. I do think it’s possible that the strains are getting better and are being grown better, but you’re right - that’s not the only factor in play. There were lots of strains testing in the high 20 percents 5-10 years ago. And the cut renaming probably has something to do with it.
As well as there’s now a whole protocol for how to select the samples that get submitted to get the highest results. Time of day, location on the plant, trich amber %, etc. And I think what gets tested is often not what goes on the shelf. But there’s also obvious test inflation happening at the labs, and I think they accomplish it by telling their software that the moisture content is lower than it is. At least, that’s what I’ve read.
It’s the exact blueprint of what happens in every single unregulated capital market. Free markets historically always lead to shenanigans and abuse. It’s no different in the cannabis industry, never has been. Just think back to all the snake oil that’s been sold from the back page ads of High Times, or the ludicrous hype that’s all over IG these days. Lab tests are just a continuation of the same old, same old.
Agree about the need for research. Fucking asshats in the Senate keep shooting down the decriminalization bills and even the rescheduling bills and every single rider that attempts to do either of these things.
I still don’t get the claims that any terps, myrcene or limonene or b-carophylene or any of them, vaporize at super low temps below 70F. How does any of it exist in the plant at all since all buds everywhere are grown at temps above that. More BS claims used to sell shit, IMHO. You’d think people would learn that no marketing in the canna industry is to be trusted, and yet people still fall for it. Maybe even the majority of people. Drives me nuts. lol I guess you could honestly say that about just about all marketing. Anything that has a profit motive behind it is NOT to be trusted. Period.
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My anecdotal observation is that my plants tend to give off stronger smells right after the light comes on in the morning. After my CMH light has been on for four to six hours, I can’t smell them unless I actually touch the plant. Ideally I try to harvest right after the light turns on. Now to give myself some extra time, I just turn off my cmh fixture during the dark period. when the timers turn on the lights, they will only get light from my fluorescent vertical lighting.
As I said, this is purely anecdotal.
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