Quote:

---

cheezymold said:
Your plants look super healthy.  I bet you could pull an elbow with some training and little longer veg time.  How do you like the light so far?  I was kind of eying that one out too for later.  The thing I don't like about the led that I have is the hanging cables are way too long.  You might need to rig it with something to get the light higher.  The bleaching doesn't seem to make much difference IMO.  Once you dry and cure the buds, the spots that are bleached are miniscule.

---

Quote:

---

oeric mckenna said:
That bottom pic on the post 3 days ago looks very odd man!

---

Quote:

---

cheezymold said:
Good stuff man.  An elbow is a pound.  Maybe some LST or a scrog will help with yields and height limitations.  It's really great that LED technology has come so far for growing.  Hopefully that means lower prices on quality units in the future too.

---

Quote:

---

cheezymold said:
Looks like she is getting close.  Crazy frosty man. 

---

Quote:

---

loco801 said:
Amazing buds bro! Looking mighty dank!

---

Thanks man, I really excited to see how this turns out. Gives me great hope for this setup in the future

Quote:

---

cheezymold said:
They could be heavier with the new light and not exactly fatter.  I'm sure you are going to have a higher quality bud.  Does each plant have the same amount of main colas?

---

Yes definitely going for quality over quantity.

Some plants have more tops than others and all of these have more tops than the last plant I grew, I didn't consider that. More tops means smaller tops, duh. I know when I switch to SCROG I'll have smaller buds but I didn't think the pruning I did here would trigger the same effect.

Regardless of how much yield I get it'll be some bomb buds and that's really what matters

Quote:

---

cheezymold said:
Might be a good thing to have smaller, but more numerous colas.  I'm worried mine might mold in my tropical climate.  I have to use an A/C to grow.  I still wouldn't count them out yet though.  Could just be more dense.  You will find out soon enough.

---

Quote:

---

phychotron said:
I'd give those another three weeks at least. I go by how the foxtailing is. Either before or after it does a lot of it. If you do it before you nugs are nice and uniform and can trim smooth. If you let it foxtail, let it go until it fills in. Not all strains do, but you need to see how your genetics respond to it. Never in between foxtailing, as they are thin leafy and stemmy protrusions until they fill in. Afterward they are nice and rocked up and have those round 'buds' all over the nugget. That's what I consider "Bud".. When it foxtails and fills in little flower buds.


Like here, you can see the white parts that are all budded.

---

Quote:

---

phychotron said:
I just got done with my first XML 650 run, it was a really good experience but I wasn't in my house much and had my friend watching my plants for about a month and a half and wasn't able to get any photo's up... but its a sweet light.

Your ventilation should vent outside and draw fresh from the room its in. Somewhat for heat, but mostly for humidity.  I kept my exhaust fan on a temp/humidity control that would turn it on if either was too high. Then fuck the carbon filter, Ozone generator right after the fan that also turns on when the fan is on.

Those long ass hangers are a joke, I had to get some heavy duty chain and hangers to swap them out with.

Make sure you have good air circulation in the tent, get a tower fan or two moving the air back and forth in the canopy.

I like Scrog style with the LED lights and getting them a bit closer than they say.

Bud size depends on how well you trimmed it up with scrogg. You might have too much under brush on those plants sucking the flower power out of it, you need to get the proper amount of branching and canopy density to get the fat nugs. If you leave a plant untrimmed it will usually have a bunch of thin lanky leafy growth down at the bottom, trying to flower and use the plants resources.

Also plant genetics, clones are not as fat as seedlings (but can still produce as much per sq-ft). Nutrients and getting the light just right. I keep mine like 10-16" even with the bright ass XML 650.

Check the links in my sig for my setup.

---

Quote:

---

cheezymold said:
They still look like nice buds to me.  Is the leaf problem from a shortage?  They look like when I burned mine from too much nutes. 

One thing you might wanna do is lollypop up to the second week of flower and leave them be.  Stressing the plant out late like that will cause it to throw out nanners.  I'm not the most experienced, but I think it will be focusing on recovering more than trich production now that it's been cut like that.  Might ask one of the veteran growers about that though. 

I was reading an interesting topic on another forum about a training technique that will eliminate most of the popcorn buds.  Try looking up "mainlining" by a guy called nugbuckets.  He has some really impressive looking grows that have all even colas without the need of a screen.  It will add some time to the veg time though.  I'm going to give it a shot with my next batch of seeds.

---

Quote:

---

greenthumbd said:

---

Quote:

---

phychotron said:
I recommend only one strain at a time for easy canopy management. Its hard when your plants are 2' taller than others next to it

---

Quote:

---

phychotron said:
Oh, let me also point out that most plants that say 8 weeks always take 9 or more. And some of those are really 11-12 week plants, but they go through that foxtail phase before plumping up, so they tell to chop at week 9 to avoid that.

I personally think you should let it go to 10 or 11 and really see how she fills in.  Its tough getting those extra few weeks out of the plants sometimes, but if you can get it those extra weeks you might be in for a pleasant surprise.

One thing you can notice when the buds end their peak production is that one day they will usually stop using so much water all of a sudden, that's my indication that the plant has reached its potential.  You'll go from watering every day to every other day and know that production is slowing.

But if they're SUCKING down water and nutrients its because the plant can still find a spot for them.

---

Quote:

---

phychotron said:
I've never done DWC so I can't help you on that. One thing I go for is to let the plants use the available nutrients in the medium (Coco coir) so that they are loosing green and yellowing in the shade leaves but DWC shouldn't have any if its a fresh tank of water.  With coco I can flush then feed plain water and they'll be yellowing big time by the third or fourth day. It only takes a little bit for the plant to use what it has already absorbed, then it'll start pulling from its nutrient reserves(leaves) to focus on reproduction(bud, hoping for a piece of pollen to create a seed)

Strive for something like this when you flush-- it was all green a week prior. I let the leafy bits (non-shade leaf) yellow up until before they start touching the bud.


Oh, and watch out for your friends advice who've been growing for years, those are the people who don't understand that LED's have different variables, such as ambient room temperature (mid-low 80's, not 70's like with HID), nutrient and water uptake or flower time.  Some of their advice won't sync properly with your new technology. HID'ers go by traditional knowledge ("I'been doing it since 1985 and blah blah blah he's wrong")and will not get the most out of the LED lights, thereby giving them a bad name because it creates a gentler environment they're not accounting for.

---

Quote:

---

phychotron said:
ahh, right. What about building some sort of insulation zone around the base of the plant? Like a 4x4 foam piece that has slots for the plants, Think plywood but out of Styrofoam ... or just a water chiller... It might be good anyway if your already battling temperature. I've thought about it for my plants as a means to keep falling leaves out of trays and potential bug barrier.

You can use ice to cool you buckets, freeze bottles of water and put them in the tank, or you'd probably be able to surround the buckets with frozen bottles until you find that sweet spot.

Because your not projecting a lot of useless energy on everything like with HID, the plant and walls have less heat/energy to shed. Temperature difference drives the cooling rate, so to keep the plant tissue in optimal energy/heat levels with HID you need to shed excess energy via a greater temperature differential. LED's project less useless light and you don't need to cool the plant (and environment) as much to keep the tissue in the optimal range.

---

Quote:

---

phychotron said:
OH, and make sure to filter the air intake for best results.

---

Yup I'll have 160 CFM on the intake at the bottom and 400 CFM on the exhaust above the light. That will leave 240 CFM being exhausted, so I'll replace my air out of the room entirely in a little under 30 seconds

I might actually have trouble getting temps up to 80+ degrees since I don't keep my house that warm and only have the light to heat the tent up. We'll see though, I was over 90 degrees without A/C and only 160 CFM on the exhaust.

Do you just use like a fish net for a filter?

Quote:

---

phychotron said:
you've got nutrient burn on your tips. The first sign is dead tips like that. Next it'll start on the ruffled part of the leaf (side tips) that you can see starting.

---

Quote:

---

oeric mckenna said:
Phosphorous deficiency is another known cause but your leaves look chemically cooked...

---

Quote:

---

phychotron said:
You'll find you only get exactly ONE shot at growing the dank bud. If a plant fucks up you can't unfuck it very much, and if you mess up drying it you won't get the cure to even happen.

Its very frustrating to have a problem early on in the plants life, only to watch it over the next few months NOT producing like it should.

I doubt its from heat but what is your humidity like? I'd guess low maybe, but its probably a nutrient problem--unbalanced, too much or too little uptake of one nutrient, possibly a pH issue.

Your garden is an entire system, if one variable is out of balance the whole system is out of sync.

---