Cabinet 2.0 - Area 51 XGS-190 (Silver Kush fem)

After completing 7 grows now (3 in my cabinet, and 4 in my PC case) I feel that I have a good enough base knowledge, that I can be comfortable spending more money to upgrade my equipment.

The best upgrade I felt I could make was lighting. While my CFL bulbs have served me very well to this point, I've always looked at them as analagous to "training wheels". While using 2x 105w CFLs (actual wattage) my best harvest was 108g dried from a Super Lemon Haze plant.

So after doing some research, I decided to explore LED lightning for my existing cabinet. Like CFL bulbs, LEDs generate little heat, which is good for the enclosed space of the cabinet. They use even less energy than CFLs too.

I ended up going with Area51's XGS-190. It fits the inner dimensions of my cabinet rather well. I used 4 screw-in hooks to mount the rope ratchets from the top. If I find that I need the 5-6" of space that got used to hang the light, I can rig up a different way to hang the fixture. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how this light performs.

I'm tossing around the idea of trying out a Scrog with this light, since I now have uniform light coverage (something which was near impossible with the setup I had before). I may end up waiting to try the screen of green until I learn how this light works in my particular area.

I started one of my freebie seeds for this run. I chose Reserva Privada's Silver Kush (fem) this time around. I used the same shot-glass method of germination that's worked for me everytime so far.

I grabbed a solo cup that had some coco in it from a previous preparation. The seedling ended up getting slightly stunted, as I mixed up the solo cups, and it must've been a batch of coco that I didn't rinse that well. She's a real trooper though and was able to push thru it eventually.

After I got the cabinet upgraded, I grabbed a 5 gallon smart pot I had on hand, and reconstituted another brick of coco with distilled water. I thoroughly rinsed it out several times over a couple of days. The last 2 gallons I ran thru it I pH'd to 5.8. I added about 20% perlite to the coco after it had dried out. There's probably only 4 gallons of medium in the smart pot. Then I transplanted my new little girl into her upgraded home.

Here are some pics of the upgraded cabinet, and the little Silver Kush plant who's a week or so into veg...

Wow mate!!

Thumbs up on the LED upgrade!!
I bet it'll serve you well!!

Wish you luck bro!

Cheers!!

Apparently she's adjusted to her new SmartPot and the new light rather well. You can see noticeable growth since last time.

I flipped the lights on 4/21. She has stayed true to her sativa genes, and is quite tall and lanky. (Reserva Privada's Silver Kush)She's almost outgrown the cabinet, most likely tripled in size easily. I've not done any topping or attempts at fim'g so she has retained that classical christmas tree shape.

I'm debating adding some lightning for the low level/side sites. On the other hand, I'm curious to see how just this Area51 light does by itself. I've already gone thru several methods for hanging the light, and am at the maximum height I can hang it at now, so I hope she's done growing. Maybe I'll give her Top Booster now to stop her from growing...

I'm trying to nail down my timing, and have a shorter downtime than what I've been doing. So I'm trying to get my next seedling going now. I have a brand new seedling/veg cabinet built so I can get the next one rolling. I'm trying to germinate a Barney's Farm Blue Cheese (fem). I did my usual shot glass method, and am waiting for her to poke above ground now...she seems to be rather slow...

Day 33 of Flower

Welp, time for an update since it's been a while.

This plant got very lanky. I have the Area51 light mounted at the maximum height possible, and the plant grew right into the light and burnt itself. So I had to take some drastic measures, and cut off the top during flowering. It was at least 2 nodes

She's responded pretty well since then. You can see that she's budding up nicely for only being 33 days into flower. This strain is supposed to go 63+ days.

I'm definitely going to do a scrog for my next plant, so I can get a nice even canopy with this cabinet and light. I have a seedling of Barney Farms' BlueCheese that's just about ready to be transplanted to a 2 gallon smartpot for veg.

Flowering Day 42

The Silver Kush is chugging along quite nicely. She's 6 weeks into 12/12 now and packing on the weight. She shimmers in the light with all the trichs like any good homegrown. She still has plenty of time to fatten up still too. I hope the swelling makes up for the long spacing between nodes.

Definitely in the home stretch now, with 3 weeks to go. I look forward to seeing this one finish up.

Flowering Day 49

Ahh...the final weeks are here. The countdown to harvest can start! My feminized Silver Kush has been flowering for 7 weeks now and getting plumper each day. The pistils are starting to change colors to a nice vibrant orange, however they have not yet receded back into the calyxes. If she finishes according to schedule, she's got 2 more weeks to go.

I have to say, I'm loving the new light! The panel makes for a nice even light distribution. The buds seems to be noticably denser than in my CFL setups. In those CFL setups the densest buds were just the cola(s) that were closest to the 105w CFLs. With this Area 51 panel, every bud on the top canopy is dense.

I was debating doing a scrog with my next plant, but since the next plant is indica domimnant (Barney's Farm Blue Cheese) I've decided to try the "main-lining" technique, as explained by Nugbuckets. His method of creating a manifold to create an even distribution of colas seems ideal for my cabinet and light setup.

Onto the pics of the flowering Silver Kush! This time I left one picture at full resolution so you can see how good she looks up close, and see those milky white trichomes... *wipes up the drool*

Flowering day 58

Sooo close. I'm not sure how many more days she's going to survive, heh. The final signs are here. The pistils getting sucked back into swollen calyxes. Big fan leaves starting to turn yellow. Trichromes are all nice and milky. So I started her on just plain water this past weekend, and also took some testers.

I did a fast dry job on the testers. Hung them for a couple days, then trimmed them up and placed them on top of a running PC's exhaust fan for two more days. WoW! This is going to be some very nice stash! Even for a fast dry I'm picking up on her haze lineage in the taste, I love that taste. I can't wait until a proper harvest and cure, should be even better!

My god that is some frostyass dank goodness right there. Great job

Good shit dragon!! Totally agree with ya and glad to see that you're mainlining your next plant. I've mainlined mine for 16 colas and just flipped her to start flowering. Mainlining is just sooo easy and the yield you get in respects to your grow area is just ridiculous. I'm sure you could mainline two monster plants in your new cab easy!

nice looking nugs

So ends my first LED grow using my new Area 51 XGS-190! She made it to 61 days of flowering. I was suprised how little fluff there was on this plant. I did trim the lower branches as she was growing up a little so that helped. All her branches were top heavy by the end, all needing support. The light penetration was quite good in this configuration and all the buds were nice dense sites.

She did have some growing pains along the way. Like outgrowing the space and growing right into the light, so she lost a couple nodes off the top. Other than that I was pretty happy with how it all turned out. The subsequent top was still a bit close but not enough to slow or damage it.

The trim job was pretty easy. I went for a wet trim, but let things hang for a 2 days before I did the babershop thing. I started binge watching Breaking Bad while manicuring my branches, that made the time fly by... I think I was done by the end of the 1st season.

I hung everything back up for a couple more days. Then after that I cut all the nuggets off the branches and put them into paper bags. Once they dried out enough from that I jarred them up in smaller mason jars w/ a boveda 62 pack to help them cure over the next few weeks.

I took it all out the other day for a dry weight, and to my suprise I had set a new personal best! Final total being 119g! The best part is that is 95% all dense fat buds! With my CFL setup it would usually end up with 50% dense buds at best and lots of fluff/popcorn.

I'm looking forward to refining my technique with this light. It can only get better from here. I have my next plant started. It's a Barney Farm's Blue Cheese. I am trying to do a "mainline" technique on her. I had a minor set back, as I snapped off one half early in the process. It ended up just setting me back a node, so not too bad. She's back up 8 tops now, and needs to veg just a bit more before I put her into flower. So I'm a bit behind schedule.

Here are some pics from the harvest and some closeups of some dried buds ready for the cure.

@demonhaze, @n0tmycupoftea, and @CommanderStrax thanks for all the kind words!

Woo man that looks awesome, tell us how it smokes

demonhaze said:

Woo man that looks awesome, tell us how it smokes

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I'll wait a couple of weeks at least, give her some time to cure properly before giving any kind of smoke report.

However, I love the punch she packs now

Nice work that was one pretty girl! It was definitely the classic silver haze form I have seen previously, long internodes with a high bud to leaf ratio. The one I had previously seen was grown with a 600 watt hps with just a slightly better yield than what you had and this one was grown under optimal conditions in a grow room, not a grow cabinet. I guess this proves once again that led lights with the correct intensity are as effective as hid lighting (at least in small scale situations).

I dig it man that one plant filled your space perfectly. Solid 4oz

primedevine said:

Nice work that was one pretty girl! It was definitely the classic silver haze form I have seen previously, long internodes with a high bud to leaf ratio. The one I had previously seen was grown with a 600 watt hps with just a slightly better yield than what you had and this one was grown under optimal conditions in a grow room, not a grow cabinet. I guess this proves once again that led lights with the correct intensity are as effective as hid lighting (at least in small scale situations).

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Thanks PrimeDivine! Far as I can tell this particular strain seems to be pretty homogeneous, at least as far as en.seedfinder.eu goes. I'm loving it, the Silver Kush is a kick ass freebie.

Thanks for the kind words too man. That makes me feel pretty damn good for being the first time I've used this light in this setup. I look forward to dialing it in! I love this LED!

The kicker is it appears I found two seeds from one of the low level fluff buds. I did find one small nanner on the plant early in the flowering process, was surprised as it was the first I had ever seen. Upon research the feminized seeds of this strain have a tendency to hermie apparently. I never saw any other male signs after the one, so I'm surprised that there were any seeds at all. I hope they're viable...I'm liking the Silver Kush.

GemuGrows said:

I dig it man that one plant filled your space perfectly. Solid 4oz

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Thanks man! Yeh I'm suprised I topped my previous record, I wasn't expecting to. To top that off I'm digging the increase in quality coming from CFLs previously. There are just so much more dense nuggets of goodness...even the smaller fingertip size buds are dense and tightly packed.