Evil's Adventures Continue...........era of the AutoCob's.........

Evil-Mobo

Well-Known Member
How close do you let your lights get to the plants?
I had been having good results with most strains at 14" from the canopy. I find that any closer makes the plants stay smaller and feed more aggressive and start having deficiencies. However I am.now messing around with having my lights further away and it's only been a couple of days but so far so good. The lights are currently at 30" away ..........
 

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
I had been having good results with most strains at 14" from the canopy. I find that any closer makes the plants stay smaller and feed more aggressive and start having deficiencies. However I am.now messing around with having my lights further away and it's only been a couple of days but so far so good. The lights are currently at 30" away ..........
I've had similar results. During stretch I'm always trying to lower them... I guess to make sure the stretch is normal and not impacted by too little light. But it never works out, I always end out raising them again. I've read a bunch of grow threads where guys running them at 50w+ keep them much closer, just doesn't work for me. Maybe only hydro can get away with that?

Speaking of alternative media... Evil, what's your conclusion of your experiments with SIPs? It looks like you aren't using them anymore?

Next run (starting in January) I'm still planning on doing a sip/non-sip comparison, since I'll be running two of the same strain in the 2x4. Maybe I'll come to some sort of conclusion, that one will be a long run from seed so it'll be May before it's over.
 

Evil-Mobo

Well-Known Member
I've had similar results. During stretch I'm always trying to lower them... I guess to make sure the stretch is normal and not impacted by too little light. But it never works out, I always end out raising them again. I've read a bunch of grow threads where guys running them at 50w+ keep them much closer, just doesn't work for me. Maybe only hydro can get away with that?

Speaking of alternative media... Evil, what's your conclusion of your experiments with SIPs? It looks like you aren't using them anymore?

Next run (starting in January) I'm still planning on doing a sip/non-sip comparison, since I'll be running two of the same strain in the 2x4. Maybe I'll come to some sort of conclusion, that one will be a long run from seed so it'll be May before it's over.
What I have found so far with the SIPs indoors growing mmj is the plants get very stretchy and need a lot of support as the branches don't seem to be able to support the weight of the buds during flower. Also the individual units need very frequent watering so yeah it's easy to grow with sips but the frequency of watering doesn't change much for me with the single units. I have ideas for SIPs in a different setup for outdoors with the green house next spring but for the time being for my mmj indoors I will proceed with the fabric pots. I am looking into blumats or some type of DIY system to water the plants that's not flood and drain but still automated to some point. Right now I just want a few runs with things the same to take a break from testing this or that. But it just seems inevitable that for some time at the beginning for any grower you are constantly changing things in an attempt to improve as a grower and from learning new things. As I have said before in other threads I am okaying around with a theory of less light. I'm at about 25-30 watts/sq ft which is about half of what's popular. I think many people running 50w/sq ft are having deficiency issues because they're using too much light. But that's just my opinion. I will soon have more answers but so far using less light and these cobs I am growing some of my best medicine ever so something is going right. This is what's working for me right now you know. So I am sticking with it.
 

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
I've also found that less light can make for happier plants. I love the variety of strains I've grown, but the downside is that I don't have solid grow-to-grow comparisons. I think that when I've dialed down the lights and grown under less w/sf (or kept the lights higher), I've had greener lusher plants that suffered from less deficiencies -- but I've gotten less dense buds and less overall weight. It seems like on subsequent grows when I've turned them back up, the buds got beefier and maybe even frostier. I'll be curious to see if you find something similar.
 

Cannadab1s

Well-Known Member
Ok, cool. I just figured since im at 50w cobs too id try and run a comparison. Im at about 10 inches from my tops right now, was looking for bleaching and canoeing signs but had no clue too much light could stunt a plant. I had my lights closer and plant still stretched like crazy so im thinking it may be a genetic stretch (bagseed unknown)
 

Humanrob

Well-Known Member
Ok, cool. I just figured since im at 50w cobs too id try and run a comparison. Im at about 10 inches from my tops right now, was looking for bleaching and canoeing signs but had no clue too much light could stunt a plant. I had my lights closer and plant still stretched like crazy so im thinking it may be a genetic stretch (bagseed unknown)
This is one of the things that makes getting to the bottom of these topics difficult -- we're all growing different strains with different medium and nutes -- when the lights are the only thing we have in common it seems to me that we're comparing apples and oranges. It's still interesting though, if we get enough data and look across it, we might see trends after a while.
 

Evil-Mobo

Well-Known Member
This is one of the things that makes getting to the bottom of these topics difficult -- we're all growing different strains with different medium and nutes -- when the lights are the only thing we have in common it seems to me that we're comparing apples and oranges. It's still interesting though, if we get enough data and look across it, we might see trends after a while.
That's why I like to share my grows. If a bunch of us do the same maybe as you say we can find some trends.
 

Evil-Mobo

Well-Known Member
Oh no!

Do NOT let this guy get bored!

:bigjoint:
Once they bounce back I'm taking cuts and flipping to 12/12. Four of the plants are not retail strains. I got a Fookies going and the first three beans of my second cross. It's cool to be able to grow different strains :) Aside from that it's (3) Dark Plasma from Ocean Grown Seeds. I have quite a pile of OG beans and these are the first I have decided to try out. One of the three is massive and looking good.
 
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