My Single 3W LED A-Train Grow

I see so many baby plants vegged under big HID lights or like 5-6 or more 23w or larger CLFs or a 90-120W LED, when that is hardly necessary. And then the same people talk about GPW...

People did not believe the huge plant I vegged with a single 23w CFL, yet this is way more impressive. It is all about not wasting light.

Here is my widdle 8" X 8" A-Train vegged under a single 3w cool white LED. Yes, one 3W light with nothing else. The hull wouldn't come off and it was nearly dead and I was ready to toss it, but it made a full recovery and is a happy camper.

Attachment 280031


Think I am exagerrating? A standard CFL radiates in almost a 360 degree radius. This is a 30 degree LED thus the beam is concentrated 12 times and since it has 50% more LPW, that is 18 times the concentration of a comparable CFL.

Will probably flip in one more week. I am going to attempt to flower with an absolute minimum of watts and still get an acceptable harvest to see what is possible. I might have to go as high as 18w.

On a separate note, can anyone tell me if those tiny white dots are powdery mildew? I live in the desert and the humidity is very low.

That's not powdery mildew.
Looks more like mite bites.
Inspect the underside of each leaf with a 10 to 30X magnifying glass.
Also looks a bit like over-spray so if you see no mites you should be alright.

Amazing for the wattage, brah.

Subscribed,
Weezard.

Thanks Weez - and no mites. Yay!

BTW, I received a mix of unlabelled seeds from a friend and was informed that is way more likely to be The H.O.G. as it is a pure indica and not the A-Train which is a hybrid.

3watts??? Whaaaaaaaaaattt??? You've got to finish this thread now that you've started....

Let's see what becomes of this 3-18w grow....

CGI::::::

I picked a 'standard' CFL grow log at random as an example below. (Post your own or a grower you like and we shall examine it.) This grower is using over 30 watts per plant, but notice how only about 3% (I am guessing) of the light is actually hitting the leaves.

Attachment 280040

The cone of light on my plant is just slightly larger than the width of the leaves so the utilization is probably close to 75-80%. Again a guess.

Correction: this strain is likely The H.O.G., a pure indica, and not A-Train, a hybrid which grows out of control.

Just switched to flower yesterday and pumped the light up to 5 watts. It is currently 10" wide X 11.5" tall.

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Soil is spent garbage using cheap hydro nutrients. Container size is 2 quarts.

Gotta give you props for this thread. I'm reppin' ya. Will be watching through till harvest. Nice work. Curious about the color of the LED...

Warm white. I have done the red and blue thang, but here are the problems with that:

If the lights are not perfectly color mixed, not on the lamp, but on the leaves, then photosynthesis is not optimized. They need both at the same time and place.

Red and blue LEDs do not have the photonic output of white LEDs even though the spectrum of white LEDs is not designed for horticulture, but there is no problem with color mixing no matter the focal point as with bi-spectrum LEDs. The LEDs I am using for this experiment run 70-80 lumens per watt or somewhere between CFLS and MH, but the concentration is many times higher. Compare that to the normal 30 lumens per watt for most red and blue LEDs.

Now all of us edumucated folks know that lumens are not the way to talk about plant light usage, but it is a general concept until we get a new standard for PAR.

Can you grow a hydro plant under led lighting? Is your plant a clone or from a seed?