Its wild all the new technology for indoor cultivation these days. My question is what do you all think is better.
I still run MH and HPS gear like I did 20 years ago. Grow in soiless and run 3 part general hydroponics nutes.
Is the new technology better in your opinion?
Let’s hear your thoughts???
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I still run HPS and MH just because I have lots of ballasts and shades, but were I to start over I would go all LED in a heartbeat. They’re waaay more efficient, with better spectrum and more ideal coverage. There’s just no contest…
As far as medium I ran promix for years, but have switched to coco now and I really love it, but it’s definitely not as forgiving. Really it’s more or less the same difference though.
The GH 3 part is a legend, you can’t go wrong there. The nutrient needs of weed hasn’t changed, and I don’t think it will any time soon so if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!
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One huge advantage is having high quality lighting options available for different grow sizes and styles.
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Personally I switched from HPS to Quantum QB96V2 elites LED running 600-700 watts in a 4x4 tent with better coverage. Also have ran 10 of them in close to an 10x4 space as well. Was running around 3k HPS in there compared to now 1700-1800w with very nice results. Nothing going now and didnt get around to getting a final weight vs HPS but I certainly enjoy the LED a ton… quite expensive to get set up depending on what your doing, but considering electrical savings and not having to replace bulbs (I was about to have to replace bulbs and had some failing ballasts, so seemed like an ideal time to switch with LED tech being very good at this point.) I bought everything, wired up the drivers and lights, attached the heatsinks etc and made myself some DIY aluminum frames.
I am VERY pleased with the results and these lights work great the whole cycle through. I can dim the LEDs down with the driver depending on what I am trying to achieve.
The buds have been super sticky, flavorful, dense with these lights providing good penetration for me to boot. These particular LED have some added red spectrum which seems to have mellowed out the stretch a little bit and as far as I can tell sped up the flowering process by a few days to a week I would estimate.
The only downside I can really think of is that I am in a basement and live where we have cold winters. I am used to leaving my ventilation fans running constantly to scrub the air because I don’t really want my neighborhood reeking. During the summer was perfect, but heat is actually lacking during the winter with these higher power exhaust fans that were meant to cool 3 1k HPS.
May be time for smaller exhaust system, but I am not currently around the spot to work this out to hit the ideal temp etc.
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Many years ago, before I knew it was feasible to grow cannabis under lights, I relied exclusively
on the oldest of old school lighting …the sun.
Until I read a book by Mel Frank and Ed Rosenthal, I never considered the possibility of growing plants without the sun, This was around 1974 or ‘75. Anyway, I went and got me some fluorescent fixtures, and was giddy with the possibilities of growing indoors, even in the dead of winter.
Unfortunately, the only seeds available back then were those in the bags of weed I bought, and I had yet to perfect the art of cannabis self sufficiency. The largely sativa flowers (providing seeds) on the market back then produced very wispy and feathery buds which were not equal to what I could buy. My outdoor efforts usually succumbed to the ravages of cold weather before they could ripen sufficiently …I was living and growing in NE NJ.
But I persevered with the fluorescents until I found out about HID lighting in High Times magazine around 1978 or 79. I think it was 1981 when I purchased my first HID light. It was noisy, the ballast was in an orange cage, but it made better buds than the floros. The flowers were nicer, but still not as good as what I could buy.
Then, I noticed seeds for sale in High Times mag, this was circa 1985, and I ordered a bunch from SSSC. Absolute game changer. Williams Wonder made some truly top shelf buds, all of the seeds I bought produced high quality flowers. Even the Sanora Super Sativa gave me high octane buds, superior to anything I could buy, although they were somewhat wispy.
But Skunk#1 and SSSC’s Basic 5 produced flowers indoors which were solid and tight and sticky. I was able to stop buying buds and finally became totally self sufficient.
However, intrigued by the relative novelty (and total control) of growing indoors, I was drawn to return to the basics of my formative years, to grow outdoors under the sun.
So I began to start plants indoors and then finish them up outside, with as much sun as possible. Shortly thereafter, I began to realize that I could bring the plants indoors and begin flowering whenever I wanted to, as well as provide shelter from nasty weather, so on rainy, blustery days I kept them inside under HIDs
I started to notice the plants that spent the most time in the sun seemed to produce tastier flowers.
So I was curious to see if the same plants grown indoors could equal the quality of of the same plants grown mostly outdoors (except overnight dark period) using clones from the same mothers.
The clones which were out under the sun always seemed more tasty and potent when compared to their genetic counterparts which I grew under HIDs only. But the indoor flowers seemed greener and nicer, although the more rustic and browner outdoor buds pleased my palate and head more.
As a result of my experience, around 1990, I began to start all of my plants indoors, then get them out under the sun ASAP. I became convinced that the sun grown buds were consistently more satisfying. And by bringing the plants indoors, into climate controlled dark rooms, it was far easier to prevent/control PM or botrytis.
So for my own enjoyment, I have been using this basic strategy ever since then. Now, I need to mention that I have never used any LEDs other than basic screw-ins which I use to start seeds indoors Eventually I will purchase some serious LED fixtures to replace my HIDs, Although I do not think that the newest of new school technology will supersede the ancient old school sun.
So, in a way I have gone back to the oldest basic lighting tech available.
It is most unfortunate, because of legal constraints, many growers have yet to ever experience the benefits of basic, free sunlight.
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recently switched to the leds …so far really like them …but am just three weeks into flower so am not sure how that will go.
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Wow that’s really cool. It must have been hard to figure stuff out back then, but also easier to fly under the radar. I would think nobody was even aware of indoor grows back then.
How would you say the williams wonder from then, or the other strains, compared to modern genetics in terms of potency and buzz?
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Im still on hps but open to LED to try drop the elec bill a little
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That’s a awesome share mate.
Cheers.
Very similar circumstances to down here, if you can imagine it with 10% of the population twenty years later. Isolation can be a blessing and a curse lol
Aside; I still have and use my very first “grow-box” that I purchased in '97 sometime. It came with 9 Phillips 6w(?) verticle fluro tubes in blue and red. A self wicking pot. Shit kicked arse haha.
Of course it’s been butchered a lot now 
And really it sucked compared to the outdoors and what we know now.
Can’t wait for our guberment to smarten up, just a little bit.
Fingers crossed I get to see it, I’ve got dibs on blowing smoke at a few cop shops around here 
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Oops wrote something stupid that was here 
My LEDs kill it in flower!
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Hello
Your thread is interesting
I think old school is better than new school
Nutes : chimical nuts are not as good as organic nuts. I’m pretty sure
Lights : some connoisseurs say that the led isn’t as good as weed they grow with HPS and a MH at the end to increase resin. I’m trying to compare side by side with the core cut
All the best
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You should try cdm/cmh/lec ( depending how you name it ) on the core cut : )
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ive tried the led thing and i just couldnt get the density that i can from HPS, but i only ran one side by side cycle, id give the quantums a try now tho, maybe in the future. until then im MH for veg, HPS for flower, MH the last two weeks to increase resin production (it works) im a salt farmer, the one time i tried organics i had bugs in my coco. fixin to give megacrop a try cuz right now i have a full shelf of nute bottles and theres got to be a better (cheaper) way
I do not want to hijack this thread.
But when I first started growing, it was late spring 1970, my friend and I cleared a plot in what is now known as Rockleigh Woods Sanctuary NJ … latitude of 41.0 … plenty of sun. We planted around 100 seeds directly into the native soli. And they almost all became seedlings.
But there was a pronounced dearth of information available about growing cannabis available then. No Interwebs, Libraries had nothing. But I kept trying.
Did not know to separate male from female. Did not realize that the available bag seeds (sativas) could not finish by the first hard frost/freeze. The first five years were frustrating, but then in 1975 I found this book in a head shop in Nanuet NY (OM was its name) and experienced an epiphany.
People learning to grow nowadays have an unbelievable wealth of knowledge available 24/7.
It is simply amazing how much things have changed for the better.
And Williams Wonder was a real treat, as were all of the seeds I bought from SSSC.
I ran WW for about 5 or 6 years, and it remains one of my favorite strains.
Coulda-shoulda- woulda kept 'em … and in particular, a cross I made around 1988.
I crossed a Sanora Super Sative girl with a WW boy, and I really loved the result. Bubblegum sweetness with a wicked high. Those flowers provided me with an inspiring and confusingly delightful high, sometimes I found myself too high to get anything done …I had never gotten lost before driving in my own neighborhood, until I took a joint of it on my evenings gallivanting. It was sort of scary.
Anyway …
Taste and preference are highly subjective, but if I could get me some of those again, I think I would prefer them to the majority of the strains I have tried in the last 15 years or so.
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I’m trying with COB CREE CXB3590 it has good reputation
My friends tried it with the same leds, and say yes you have trichromes, but the aromas aren’t the same.
They prefer put a MH with a HPS, three weeks before the end to have resin and trichromes increase
I don’t know. That’s why I found your post interesting and I’m doing side by side test with just a lamp and a plant but the same cut, to have the answer like you
All the best
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I switched from HPS to LED this year. There is no comparison. Grow the same amount of weed with half the electricity or twice as much weed with the same amount of electricity as HID.
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Do you notice any differences in potency or flavor?
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This is pretty much how I do it. I use a 1 part nutrient (Dyna Gro) though.
It’s not better. DE and CMH can’t really be aircooled, so basement growing is harder. None of the new nutrients are any better. There are many new cheaper products though. LED isn’t the same, I bought an expensive one once and sold it after 1 “harvest”. That was 6 years ago, though, so maybe tech is better now. Coco is big now, it’s better cut 50/50 with perlite. IDK if I’d call it better than Promix or Sunshine 4. It doesn’t break down as fast as peat does, and it’s made with coconut industry waste, which is better for the environment I suppose.
If you’re still getting killer results, no need to change anything.
Try switching to 1 or 2 part nutrients though, even easier.
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No discernible differences in potency or flavor. I’ve seen a handful of lab results of side by side(not mine) and the comparison is always very close. I’d wager a human can never tell the difference.
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people tend to think new is better … they also tend to think complicated is better…i grow some pretty healthy plants with MG potting soil in a shower stall …no fancy tent or fans or mixing of ferts or grow mediums …my situation age and MS made me rethink all of that … did switch to leds to save on the electric bill …so far they are doing the trick …
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