I love my t6 fans.
3 Likes
Thought of the Day
Boy, reading through the thread:
Gets you thinking, have humans been working this weed for 10,000 years or has it been working us! 
Well, it is a symbiotic relationship, but I think it is slanted in Cannabis’s favor…
Cheers
G
6 Likes
Nerding out on the new light
Once I hung the light I played with it for 3 days, I basically figured out how not to run it. 
What I managed to do was find a reasonable compromise between height and power.
I settled on 51 inches (1.3 meters) for the height. I can adjust it but it’s PITA.
Cruising the interwebs, I found a few references to power levels measured in lux. The best was Royal Queen Seeds but the others agreed with minor variances:
5~7 Klux = clones & seedlings
15~50 Klux = Veg
45~65 Klux = Flower
75 Klux = max recommended
Based on the above I set the light intensity (a la Dr Meter lux meter) to 15,000 lux on the center of the floor. Next step was to measure the intensities at 6" (15cm) increments to see what the plants will encounter as they grow.
(height is in inches and Klux for the rest of the data.)
| Height | Veg | Fwr |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 14.7 | 20 |
| 6 | 17 | 22.7 |
| 12 | 19 | 25 |
| 18 | 22 | 30.5 |
| 24 | 25 | 34 |
| 30 | 30 | 43 |
| 36 | 37 | 53 |
| 42 | 47 | 60 |
These measurements cover the specified ranges but in order to tie them back to solid ground I next measured the watts (wall watts) for each (Veg & Fwr). These numbers include the drivers as well as the strips.
Veg = 356 watts and Fwr = 487 watts. My floor area is 16 sq ft. so that works out to:
Veg = 22.25 watts/sq ft
Fwr = 30.4 watts/sq ft.
I know I’m on the low side but these should be good starting points to dial the setup in from.
Cheers
G
11 Likes
Those veg and flower Watts per sq ft are where I am at basically.
In flower I am keeping my light 24 inches above canopy, in veg it’s higher, I lifted it to move my veg plants into flower 2 weeks ago, and forgot to lower it again, the new veg plants seem to like it where it is, so I have left it there for the time being to see how much they stretch at that height.
2 Likes
Purp Walk!!
Time to check out the mug shots of the team. They are all showing varying degrees of phosphorus deficiency. Same soil mix for the Sour Strawberries and sativa CBDs and they are fine so I conclude the Jamaicans are heavy feeders.
Starting with #51.
This one is showing female pre-flowers
Next up is #52. This one also female
Check out the narly trunk on her!
And here is #53 (part 1)
It leapt out of the seed and just kept growing. It looks like a male (…surprise…)
and #53 (part 2)
Next is #54. Looks like another male
and #55 Too early to tell yet, other than it is the biggest nute hog.
now #56. Not a pre-flower nub to be seen
and #57. This is looking like a male
and finally # 58 The Runt. Pre-flowers are just undifferentiated nubs. It has a style all of it’s own!
I’m eliminating the Runt from the open pollination due to all of the genetic weirdness but it is still my favorite of the bunch
Cheers
G
15 Likes
Here’s the tent at the moment
A distinctly over-watered CBD3.
Back pot is a Sativa CBD
the pot forward of that are a couple Sour Strawberries
the balance are the Jamaicans
And in the front right corner, another pot of Sour Strawberries
Cheers
G
18 Likes
The Lee Valley 4" pots with your cool runnings logos are great! Love these little pots, start my veggie garden in them every year.
4 Likes
Time to discuss pollination protocol.
The aim is to collect separate and pure batches of pollen from the males.
Then apply the pollen selectively to each female.
The end goal is for each female to have several branches where each branch has been pollinated by one known male. Sort of like ornaments hanging on the Christmas tree and the present will be that the top branch(s) are seed free.
Nomenclature
I find it easy if I think of the genetic line-up as a grid, females across the top, males up the side.
The females will be identified by letters (A,B…) and the males by numbers. The seeds off individual branches would be identified at the branch level eg, ‘B4’.
I’m going to segregate the males once they are getting to flower and collect the pollen.
For the females, I’ll expose one branch, pollinate with a cotton swab and let stand 2 hours. Then everything that pollen might have landed on gets misted and cleaned up.
Each branch will get a colored tie wrap that matches the male.
Rinse and repeat for each male.
Cheers
G
12 Likes
Time for a mid veg update.
Those nutriment hogs, the Jamaicans… 
We have 3 males and 3 females and two undecided
I got them mostly sorted out - weekly doses of Wegener’s 8-6-6. I say mostly because a couple are still grumbling a little… Meanwhile, I’m really grooving on the Sour Strawberries! They are great.
On another front, I have my first batch of clones going. I was checking the power consumption of the pump and I was getting 9.4Watts, I was thinking “man, that’s efficient…” so I went back and checked… the VA was 24.6 & power factor of .66… 
Happy tent!
Back right corner is a CBD, two pots of SS on the right side
the rest are the Cool Runnings crew
The Clones
A bucket of sour strawberries 
Cheers
G
16 Likes
Very interesting information, I really appreciate everything you do here for us
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Well thanks brother, I appreciate that 
If I can shed a little light, I’m happy.
Cheers
G
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@Gpaw so much info thank you for taking the time to document it all 
lots and lots of
helpful stuff in here
I will really need to take the time and not be stoned to the bone and read it all as there is
need to know things
all the very best and thanks again
Dequilo
4 Likes
I have similar numbers in my notes . I’ve been monitoring my light output this grow and they seem like a fairly decent ballpark. Although I must say that I measure lux via an app on my phone so it’s far from accurate. I should get at least a decent lux meter (Apogee’s PAR meter is a wet dream, but I can’t justify the expense for my micro grow), but it’s still better than nothing…
One thing I noticed is that intense light “tires” the plant out. I have my bigger plant at roughly 40K lux at canopy level, and I notice the plant looking exhausted 3-4 hours before lights out (I veg on 18/6). I guess that she just gets pushed too much and I could safely reduce intensity by 10% or so:
The same plants a few hours earlier, probably around 12 hours into her day cycle:
And for contrast, this is my other plant under a blurple that puts out around 10K lux at canopy level, looking much “fresher” towards the end of the day:
Guess what I’m trying to say is that we need to keep a close eye on plant response to different intensities. It’s easy to overdo it with today’s monster LEDs.
12 Likes
Purp Walk. HA!! I love it!! I’ve been on the other kind a couple of times, this sounds a LOT more fun. 
Man, I’d encourage you to leave the runt in the open pollination. That plant has its own unique combination of the parent’s genetics. Most everything on Earth is diploid, it has two sets of chromosomes. In order to create offspring with only 2 sets, each parent has to reduce it’s genetic material to a single set, or haploid.
Haploid gametes are created by the process of Meiosis. Within that process, operations like crossing over, and independent assortment, “randomize” the placement of genes on the chromosomes. That means every ova, every pollen grain is a unique, randomized presentation of that plants genetics.
IMO, the entire point of an open pollination is to maximize the genetic potential in the next generation. If you pull the runt, you’re reducing the genetic diversity of the strain, and the seeds you make will not have the same potential for variation as they will if you leave it in. That “genetic weirdness” could produce something remarkable in the next generation.
For a breeding run, that’s exactly what you want to do. Pop a bunch of seeds to find the traits you want, then selectively prune the gene pool until you can recreate that plant in the seeds.
I believe you’ll be better served to make those selections from the deepest gene pool you can find.
SAVE THE RUNT!!!
11 Likes
Wow, big difference between perky and tired!
Mr Sparkle has some great info on exactly what you are seeing. DLI (daily light interval), mols/m2/day is the unit of measurement.
Nube also had some info in the LED light thread as well now that I think about it…
Basically the plant can only use so many photons a day. As I understand it, in your situation, you could either lower the intensity of shorten the on time.
Lower the light intensity to 35K lux (this is ‘back of the envelop’ calculations).
{40K * (18hr-3hr) / 18hr}, 40K over 15hrs is roughly equivalent to 35K over 18hrs. The plants will grow the same.
Cheers
G
7 Likes
You know what? You’re right, I will keep the runt in the crew.
The runt is looking better every day, …and every family needs a little bit of weirdness in it 
Everything I read said be ruthless but this is a preservation run…
So preserve.
Cheers
G
15 Likes
Dequilo my brother, good to see ya stopping by! 
I love your grow log, I’m really looking forward to see what level of magic you are going to pull out of the enormous crop you have on the go!
Amazing work! 
Cheers
G
5 Likes
Wow! You do some good work! Im gonna tag along and take in some knowledge if thats ok!
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Hey @DefNSmokn, glad to have you along!
This is my first pass at this sort of project so major learning experience for me. Feel free to join in the fun!
Cheers
G
4 Likes
I watched Bugbee’s videos on DLI a while back, the info is stuck somewhere in the back of my mind . Wish I had a proper measuring device for light intensity, but even with my caveman tools it’s obvious that DLI theory is right. It’s the second time I tried pushing 40K lux and for my environment and this particular strain, it doesn’t help. Once I flip to 12/12 I will be able to increase lux to maintain similar DLI to what I’m getting now. Your formula will help with that, thanks 
2 Likes