-Drewberry - Gen Hydro vs. Dutch Master Battle of the Blooms - been flowering 2 weeks

Sens: Thanks for checking in! I am stoked you got some LEDs going on! I think its one of those things where you are a bit skeptical at first but once you get one you're like... more... MORE! Since this is my first grow I am really kind of just rolling with the punches. I have definitely had better results with the little LEDs I have than with the giant HPOS I tried to cram in there, if only measured in terms of plant happiness. I am a perfectionist so I had been worried that my plants not get good density with just the LED and Flourowings, but I have given a couple of the nugs a little "love squeeze" and they definitely feel pretty dense. I don't know from experience but I imagine they will harden up more as they dry. I would definitely say that I love LED lights! Sens: you were talking about watts and actual vs. listed and that is one thing that I have no concept of... light intensity of an LED vs an HPS. Is there a guide somewhere where I can see some comparisons? Would be interesting to see a breakdown.

I don't know for sure but from what I've read it seems like you should get roughly equivalent wattage between an HID and the amount of power the LED lights draw. So the 240w blackstar has 240w of 3w led lights but only powers them at 140w or so and I believe that is about what it would be equivalent to in HID.... and I think it explains a lot of the lackluster results people have had with LEDs.. expecting a 240w blackstar to produce like a 400w or 600w HID (based on what the marketers claimed).... also with 3 240w blackstars you'd be close to my 400w HID in wattage but not penetration. I think the higher wattage lights have better penetration that's why I'm looking at the 500w and 900w blackstars. I'm thinking 2 500w blackstars side by side in my cab should be roughly equivalent to somewhere in between a 500w and 600w HID.... or maybe 1 900w.

One thing that makes it hard to compare is the intensity/ distance difference you can get. I've never used LED's, but from what I understand you can get them right next to the buds, whereas HID's you can't get all that close. Even if you cool them all the way down, they start bleaching the buds if too close. Not telling you anything you don't know... just kinda thinking out loud.

Have you seen Irishboy's grows? He does some seriously awesome work with LED's.

Here's his latest (i think at least): Irish Boy's 2011 Spectra Led Grow (Revenge Of Casey Jcnes))

+Rep for the sweet ass cab and the flowers look tasty. I gotta sub up for this one

Don't think I've seen those... definitely with the lower wattage LEDs you can keep them closer. I think the more powerful ones will still bleach leaves if too close. The plants do seem to like the LED a lot better for stress levels but they definitely are not growing as fast as under that 400w... but that's fine because I need them to grow a bit slower since they have over a month and a half til the first flower plants come out of the cabinet And I wouldn't expect plants under essentially a 140w light to grow as fast as a 400w anyway

No updates in a few days what's up with your girls Rawn?

Originally Posted by Senseimilla

No updates in a few days what's up with your girls Rawn?

Heh its been a long week already. Here are some pics from the 18th.







Notice how the leaf tips are totally curled up in this pic.. its crazy. It's like my plant is a venus flytrap throing to gobble me up. Any thoughts on whats causing that?




Anyway I have to swap nutes tonight so maybe I'll take some more pics. Only 2 more weeks to go, I think! You chop em when the hairs are almost all orange right?

That looks like nute burn to me. I think I remember you aren't checking ppms, right? You should lower what you are feeding them. I think the term is cupping, when the edges curl up like that. In fact if you only have 2 weeks left I would think about using no nutes at all. I flush the last 2 weeks... I just use water, silica, and zone. Either way, if they are that far along either use no nutes, or like 30% of what you were using, then use only water next week.