LED Grow update no.2, October 1st, 2011

After 6 days the plants have come on strong except one, which is having root trouble. I took it out of the pot and applied some rooting hormone to see if that might give it a kick-start. I’m not too worried about losing just one plant out of 10 considering it was one of the seeds I got from a friend.

Today I mixed the soil mix; 50L of potting soil, 15L of compost, 15L of moss peat, 15L of perlite and 15L of worm castings. I re-filled the compressed pots (as the soil sunk about an inch or so) to the top with the new soil to promote more root growth higher on the stems. This also may make re-potting less of a shock. I also added 2.5ml of concentrated seaweed fertiliser in 2 litres of water to feed the seedlings in the compressed pots. I decided to make a rich soil mix as the problem I foresee with using the Pro-Grow 260 is the plants will need far less watering as there is so little heat in the grow room.

Everything I will be using in this grow will be 100% organic. To fertilise I’m using bat guano, seaweed fertiliser and a seaweed and tomato soil conditioner. I will be making a worm casting tea from time to time also. I hope this will be enough to sustain the plants throughout growth from vegetative stage to bloom. None of these products will require a flush at the end to get rid of salts.

The Pro-Grow 260 impresses me thus far. It uses 180 watts when both spectrum are on. At the moment it is using about half of this. The Pro-Grow is only using the vegetative spectrum but it’s nice to be able to switch between both spectrum. The Pro-Grow offers 3 setting; blue spectrum, red spectrum or both spectrum on together. But the Pro-Grow is not as simple as red or blue. It has a 14-Band LED Grow System featuring UV + IR and gives off over 14,800 lumen with its 3-Watt Cree HO Chip-set. More info can be found at the Hydroponics Hut website. The plants are looking healthy, green, and are growing quickly. I have a fan to strengthen the stems and it comes on around 8 times a day. At night it comes on for just 6 minutes per cycle and during the day for a half hour per cycle. Altogether maybe 3 hours per day. I think this is enough for now. I lowered the light to 11 inches now to stop the stretch, as the stems are 3 inches tall by now. The second sets of serrated leaves are just beginning to show. The temp is 18 degrees and the humidity is 30%. I put a pot of water in the grow room to increase the humidity.

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