Welcome back @Fewding.
Glad you landed upright.
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Hello all. Thanks for tuning in. Time to light up and take a load off.
A lot has happened in the High Garden, but it’s all coming together. Built a flood table for the flower room. Made this one raised about 24" so it’s easier on my back and also provides space underneath for storage.
The cookies look like ass but honestly only their true mother was the only one that ever looked good. As you can tell I’m still just messing around with various pot sizes which shows me what they’re capable of.
In attempting to make my perpetual harvest more copacetic, I have committed to taking a SOG approach. This will make production more predictable as well as increasing efficiency. To do this I have decided to go with 6" round & 6" deep nursery pots.
[picture of pots]
Output is based on a simple goal of (13g/day/m²) adapted to my space = (19.5g/day/4ft²) consider mostly root space while in reality allowing more space surrounding for the canopy to envelop.
At 80 days of flower (how long it takes for the cookies to mature) we get 1560 grams. Divided in half (we want it perpetual so I want to cycles all the time) and we get 780g or roughly 28 grams. 1oz/plant/cycle or close to two pounds being harvested every 40 days…
I love math. Now obviously it’s not that simple and there are many more variables in play, but in my situation the most important variable is time. Veg time will determine if I can grow that much per plants.
Clones take about 13 days to root before transplant, which gives them 27 days to veg. 40 days vegetative growth then flipped to the flower space. I realize now that I can have clones root outside of the veg table which would free up space for cycles to veg. Meaning I could take clones two weeks BEFORE allowing me to utilize the veg space for the full 40 days.
If you couldn’t tell I’m basing everything around my size constraints. I feel confident in my veg light, but I’m also relying heavily on their stretch during the first weeks of flower.
Another constraint is my soil. Not enough airation and the roots can’t develop as easily. I have been curious about digging up a good bit of native soil from a spot on our property and mixing with perlite and amendments. Not sure how safe or how good of an idea that is.
I repeat myself a lot if you also haven’t noticed lmao
The Zella are starting to smell fantastic after a few stem rubs. 
#2 is just towering back there.
Here’s number 1. Smells like lemon pledge. Unknown sex.
Number 2. Smells like skittles. Suspected male.
Number 3. Smells like fuel. Unknown sex.
Also should. Mention that the heat from the cool tubes is being exhausted out into the crawl space directly next to the chimney.
Also I should mention the aquarium pumps are burning out so I have been hand watering for the past few weeks. Feels good to get back in the forest though.
Also I purchased a KW wall outlet meter to. Check the actual wattage on the mh veg light. Feel like it’s not really 1k, but not sure if that actually matters. Would it be more efficient to run the higher wattage bulb on a lower wattage? Or matching watts?
Thanks for stopping by. Head over to the TE remix log and check them out. 
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That’s a very good question. I did find the following test someone ran that discusses spectrum vs wattage:
which is interesting but I don’t know if it directly answers the wall plug efficiency.
A quote from another site by @Ttystikk that talks about MH as opposed to HPS but:
Running bulbs at less than their full rated output shortens their lifespan. The more they are dimmed down, the worse this effect: an hps is not as susceptible to this, but you can shorten the lifespan on an mh bulb by 90% by running it at half power! The short rule of thumb? Never dim mh bulbs.
Someone said above that running a bulb on a dimmed setting is wasteful- he is right, and here is why; the engineers who design these bulbs are working with design compromises. One of these is how efficient the bulb will be, or how many lumens per watt it will produce. That number changes with wattage, so if a bulb is designed to be most efficient at its rated output of 1000w, it will be much less efficient if it’s only seeing 60 or 75% of that. In other words, 75% power gets you 60% of the lumens, and 60% power nets only 45% of the rated lumen output. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the light spectrum output also shifts, and never for the better. This hurts PAR even more than it hurts lumens!
To sum up; dimmed bulbs are inefficient, put out the wrong spectrum, and wear out more quickly. Never dim an mh, you’ll just destroy it.
Finally, if you must run your hps bulb at a reduced power seeing, don’t do it with a fresh new bulb without a ‘burn in’ period at full 100% of its rated power for at least 10 hours first. Otherwise, it will Jack up your bulb and it will never work properly.
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OK so the ballast was actually putting out 414 so I swapped in the 400 Watt mh bulb. I’ll check the meter in a minute here.
I guess the person you got it from mixed up ballasts?
Well they were just warehouse shop lights from my old job. Very old lights with bad labels lol. Was just hoping the bass st could push 1k.
This is a good video. Has a portion that talks about driving lamps at lower than specified wattage, etc:
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Well now that I have the 400 Watt mh bulb in, the meter is reading 315… Whatever. I’ll have to fold and invest in a second digital ballast. Would be better anyway. Just glad to have the cool tube and reflector set up to make good use of all that light.
Now over in the flower area. The cookies pictured below is at 70 days since flip. She looks done. All pistils have receded and I can sort of make out a little bit of amber trichs, but my perpetual schedule is set up around an 80 day flowering cycle, so might as well take her to 80 and see what she does.
The Doogie on the other hand is going on 63 days. Might as well run her the full 80.
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Took quite a few clones the other day. Some PGSC, DH, GW, and Zella 1-3.
Here’s the fans from Zellas 3, 2, & 1.
Number 1 with the red petiole, is extremely Sour and bitter.
Number 2 in the center is a subtle sweet fruit and citrus.
Number 3 one the left has an intense smell of lemon and natural gas.
Very excited to see some buds on these. Hopefully I get at least one female and one male. But even if I just get a bunch of nuts, I’d love to make a cross with my cookies. Should be some potent crosses.
Once the babes wake up I’ll pull all of them out for a photo shoot. 
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A lot has happened today in the garden.
Moved the “mother’s” into a “tent” with my qb260. Poor girls.
Harvested the Doogie at 76 days
And a PGSC at 78
Healthy batch of clones chillin in the male room
And I flipped 19 clones
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Decided to switch it up a bit. 10 DivRyder (lowryder x la diva) seeds by @ReikoX, courtesy of @Cobra50, have been sowed into peat pucks. This will be my first time growing auto flowers. The idea of harvesting bud in a couple months regardless of light schedule is extremely enticing. Not yet sure what to expect, but I will probably make multiple inbred crosses of whatever I get. These may be used for supply or my personal headstash.
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Good luck! You will be amazed how fast these go. If you can, give them 20/4 light cycle for best yields.
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Are autoflowers light feeders or do they feed the same?
Sorry to derail the thread fewding
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Good question. They tend to be moderate feeders, pushing them can cause stresses. One thing to note, don’t switch to bloom fertilizers (or cut nitrogen) until stretch has stopped.
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They’ll be fed megacrop all the way through harvest, I’ll feed them a lighter dose until I know what they can handle.
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Sounds like a plan! 
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In other news the Zella are looking a little worse for wear. Looks like a deficiency. Maybe magnesium? Not sure. My only solution at this point is up the feed.
Number 1
Number 2
Number 3
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My three mothers are looking much better under the qb260. Turned all the way down.
These poor ladies won’t be with us much longer. Might try taking a couple more clones, but I’ve already got some to replace them.
First time she’s been allowed back into the grow room in months. She seems happy.
Purchased 1.5 cubic feet of vermiculite a week ago and mixed a good bit into my soil. Should definitely help. Seems like my root are getting choked out in the thick soil. Guess we’ll find out with the next clones.
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Nice, I like to start them in plugs too. A little myco innoculant on the roots, then into the final container (2-3 gallon).
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