My LED grow > 1g/w?

[RackitMan]

Juts harvested my third grow. One plant. No official weight yet, but with the main cola the length of a champagne bottle and about half as thick, the secondary cola about 2/3rds the size and 15 smaller colas about 1/8th the size, I am going to guess 5 ounces - dry.

Used a 120w tri-band (no name E-Bay fixture) LED with 1w bulbs; red, orange, and blue - 6/1/1.

How did I do it (if indeed I have)?

1. Genetics: Big Bud * Northern Lights
2. Scrog (first time)
3. Hempy/earthtainer (posted on advanced techniques, but got no interest).
4. Eight week veg time.

What is amazing is that my grow area is way too dry (14% humidity); too hot (90 degrees), has weak circulation and only 3 reflective walls. Why do I mention this? Because I feel my yield was only about 70% (a guess) of what is possible if I could control all the variables.

I think #3 was the key difference. I get air directly to the roots, use reflective plastic on top of the substrate - and I send water and nutes straight to the bottom of the reservoir so that the plant cannot get nute burn or be over or underwatered. It uses only what it needs.

This method is awesome because I can leave for a week and not worry and don't mess with PPM and ph meters. Ferts? Used generic dry hydroponic nutes for veg and standard orchid bloom for flower. K.I.S.S.

Even if my uneducated guess is way off; this harvest is 3 times my last 4 plant harvest.

Pics to follow very soon.

[RackitMan]

BTW, this was a quick trim and I will do a fine trim later.

The oval trays are 14" x 11".

[attachment=o252460]

You can't see it in this photo, but the top 2" of the main cola is bleached pure white by the LED grow light. As the beam was too wide (120 degrees?) for my setup and the main cola was so tall, I had to place the light almost touching the top.

As a reference, the small bottom cola weighs in at 8 grams wet. Also note that the picture is deceiving in that the main cola (top) weighs almost twice as much as the secondary (middle) cola.

[attachment=o252461]

This batch is 3-4" deep. At least 12 of those (not the skinny, stemmy ones on top) are about 5 to 8" inches long and 1 to 2" in diameter.


What do y'all think? Did I under or over-estimate?

I will update with real-world weights in a few weeks when dry and fully trimmed.

[khyberkitsune]

Looks like you got about the same as I did with a 120w and four plants. I'll bet 3oz.

I've been taking tester nugs since day three so I can't say jack abotu my weight :D Yep, I'm guilty. Tired of smoking GDP shake for three months straight.

I'll bet on your drying time being shorter due to the higher resin content. at three days, it only took 30 seconds in a microwave per grsm to push the rest of the water out and leave me at .75g. Lemme tell you, even with a light nute regimen, and a 4 day flush, this stuff is smooth.

I'll have to let calihiking tell ya if he drops by.

Still looking awesome

[RackitMan]

Thanks!

My scrog attempt was only partially successful in that the main cola towered over everything else making my light less effective. If the beam angle was maybe 60 degrees, I could place the light much higher and get more even coverage.

When I do build my light (coming soon) I will get several different lenses to do some experimenting with various beam angles. May also make the individual LEDS moveable in an XY plane and pivotable.


Back to hydro for a second, my success here tells me that many make the whole deal (for a small private grow) way too complex with additives and meters and feeding and watering schedules and all. I doubt all my nutes actually used cost more than $2.

[RackitMan]

Quick question: Due to heat requirements I cannot add much more light, but I see some commercial 135 watters with 3w LEDs. Do you think it would make much difference? I know I am missing lots of information as to specs, but give me an educated guess.

[RackitMan]

Khy, you are amazing! The final weight was a few grams shy of 3 ounces making my grow a still decent 0.68 grams per watt.

[khyberkitsune]

Apologies for such a late response. I've had to do some traveling and expo-speeches.

Yes, many over-complicate their hydro growing.

The 3w diodes, if not single-chip, tend to be less efficient than 1w didoes with a closer spacing. Added resistance pushing the power to three diodes instead of one causes a loss in efficiency and adds heat.

And I'm pretty spot-on with most of my weight guesses. :) Thank you for the compliment.

[dadogg]

I'm really looking into doing the whole led grow. How much did you pay for the 120w led on ebay.

[Bloodyeye]

Hi. nice job guys. I'm going to buy a 120w led panel my self. I just have one question. i'm gono buy a 7/1/1 red/blue/orange 660nm,462nm,615nm, is it good? or should I buy it with two different red and blue spectrums like 630/660nm and 425/462nm?