First grow - Easy Ryders under CFLs in soil

enonumus said:

Day 67 and Tiffany has been chopped and harvested! Wow, that's a lot of work, even with just one plant. This was my smallest plant, and total wet weight was 75.9 grams I think, which includes a fair amount of stem of course. No clue what the dry and mostly de-stemmed weight will be, but visually it's definitely at least a 1/2 to 3/4 of an Oz (I'd guess closer to 3/4 but I could be wrong). I was amazed at how fast it started to dry once it was cut and trimmed, I wonder how long I'll need to leave it hanging. Pics to follow later...

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Finally! Congrats E! Can't wait to see your final product, and most importantly, a smoke report. Looking forward to the pics. Are you hanging the plant whole, or did you divide her up in sections?

Thanks! I trimmed her (mostly while still on the plant in the soil for convenience) and chopped each branch separately as you'll see from the pics shortly. My battery went dead on my camera, but I'll snap a pick of them hanging and put it up today or tomorrow after my other pics. I don't plan on smoking any real soon, I'm going to let it dry and cure properly to the best of my ability. I really tried to do everything right in terms of soil, PH, nutes, flushing for the last 2 weeks, and darkness for the last 3-4 days (probably doesn't need that long in darkness but I had company), so it should smoke pretty good and not be harsh.

Trichs were between 50-75% amber I'd guess, but it's so hard to quantify in terms of a percentage. Even with such a high percentage of amber there was still a little new growth, so I really couldn't chop her any sooner. Same situation with Sarah who's 5 days older and who's Trichs definitely look ready, but she has a lot of new bud growth still so I'm holding off a little longer.

enonumus said:

This isn't my daily update. While taking pics of my oldest girl last night I noticed what I believe are the first hairs, but this is my first rodeo so I welcome independent confirmation from someone who knows. My full update with daily pics will follow.

Sarah - Day 19 (first hairs?)
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Wow dude that is the best pic i ever saw of this.... excellent photography... you rock

newgrowboxgrower said:

Wow dude that is the best pic i ever saw of this.... excellent photography... you rock

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Thanks. Credit the camera, snapping a lot of pics to get the right one, and some cleanup work in Photoshop.

Ok, it's been a long and windy road, and one that I'm still traveling on with 5 other plants, but today was a huge milestone on the way to the finish line. Here are the pre and post harvest pics of Tiffany on day 68 from seed. I put some objects in some of the pictures just for scale, but you can never really get a feeling for how big something is just from a picture. That's a 16 ounce soda in some of them.

awesome .... great pics, I love when there is something to scale... waiting on a smoke report since you had so much amber....

bobhamm said:

awesome .... great pics, I love when there is something to scale... waiting on a smoke report since you had so much amber....

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Thanks, I really work hard to make sure all of my pics look good and are in focus.


Here's a harvest update. Tiffany (smaller pheno Easy Ryder) is still hanging out and drying, and I could tell her weight has already changed dramatically as soon as I picked up her main cola a couple hours ago. Not sure how much more her weight will change but it feels pretty dry already (although the stem doesn't break yet). Just from personal experience with size and weight of typical bud I don't think it'll lose more than another 10-20% of its weight. I re-weighed the main cola which was originally 34.3g, and it now weighs 12.7g. If I extrapolate that out to the total original weight of 75.6g after chopping and trimming, it would weigh exactly 1oz currently. If it loses another 20% of its weight that would put it very close to 21g totally dry and de-stemmed, which would meet my high end projections from weeks ago of 1/2 to 3/4 of an Oz., and I'll be very pleased.

Checked the Trichs on all my girls this morning. Sarah (small pheno Easy Ryder) at day 75 currently is definitely ready in the Trich dept. with at least 50% amber, more in some places, less in others. She still has a smattering of buds with white pistils though on top of her colas and I hate to chop her when she's still growing new bud, so I watered her modestly this morning and I'll flush her good on Friday morning, put her in the dark, and harvest her Saturday night or Sunday. Her main cola looks bulkier than Tif's and overall I think she's just a little bigger, so I expect her to yield a little more. Best guess is 3/4 to 1 Oz. dry, depending on what Tif's final yield is.

My 3 remaining Easy Ryders (Jennifer, Stella and Scarlett), all of which are the larger pheno variety, are between 2-3 weeks away based on Trichs and overall appearance. That puts the harvests between days 80-90, mostly closer to 85-90!!! That's just crazy for autos, and I probably wouldn't grow Easy Ryders again for that reason among some others. I might have to harvest Stella slightly earlier than I'd like because of the coming holiday and company, but all plants will be well within the max potency window. Best guess on yield will be around 3/4 of an Oz. per plant but it will vary, and I could easily be off by a 1/4 Oz. or more come harvest time.

Bringing up the rear is my poor stunted auto Onyx Amber. For such a tiny little plant she has great looking, compact buds, with very nice coloring and structure. She looks to be ready for harvest in about a week, so I'll probably chop her a day or two after I harvest Sarah. She currently only has 5-10% amber, mostly cloudy and a little clear, but I'm not going to take her to 50% plus amber since she has almost no new pistils. Best guess on yield is 7-10 grams dry since she was so stunted, but I'm really not complaining after how badly she was stunted.

sounds like thigns are rapidly moving to a close for your grow, been fun keeping up. Yeah Id have to agreee on probably not doing ER again, I do have one seed left that Im sure Ill use at some point, but with the expectation that it could be up to 90 days....I chopped mione at 80 days and they could have gone for another 10 easy Id say, way too long for an auto, or at least what I would use an auto for anyway

Quick note. I re-weighed the main cola again just now and it's down to 9.7g from 34.3 (.28% of wet weight). That extrapolates out to 3/4 of an Oz. dry weight currently for everything I harvested, including some stem that will need to be removed. Really hope it doesn't lose too much more weight! Of course my projections have been 1/2 to 3/4 of an Oz. for at least a few weeks so it's definitely right in line with that, but it's hard not to feel a little disappointed when you're watching your bud vanish right before your eyes lol. I think Sarah is going to yield more Tiffany though, she should be at least 3/4 of an Oz. dry I'd imagine.

Seems like it loses the most weight in the first 2-3 days. Even the smell while hanging starts to die down by then.

Congrats on the harvest BTW.

Congrats on the harvest! Looks good can't wait for the smoke report! I plan to harvest mine in a week or so. Probably gonna be around 70 days from seed. Due to circumstances I have to harvest next weekend. I can't wait to start drying and curing! Anyway good job, it's gonna feel good to be done and smoking my first grow!

Quick update. Tonight I flushed Sarah (day 75 from seed) for the 3rd and final time in a little over 2 weeks, and put her in darkness. I took some pics of her that I'll add later today, but she looks almost identical to Tiffany. I also sort of flushed Amber (day 66 from seed) and put her in darkness as well. I say sort of because there are no holes in the bottom of her pot (long story), so all I could do was give her a larger than usual watering with straight PH'd water. I'm going to chop and harvest them Saturday night or Sunday, and I'll take plenty of pics of course.

Tiffany is done drying and spent a day in a paper bag (no clue what that's for but it's the recommended process). I just put her in a jar tonight to start curing. I weighed her after she was completely done drying but before I put her in the paper bag, and she was just a tick under 21g with the stems. Didn't re-weigh her after spending a day in the bag and after I completely de-stemmed her, but my guess is she's probably around 17 grams dried, de-stemmed and jarred.

I've decided that I don't like the bud being quite as dry as it gets by the time the stems will break, so I'm not going to dry them quite as long next time. I'll probably dry it for no more than 36-48 hours, then 24 hours in a paper bag before jarring. I must say, for some of the skunkiest/stinkiest smelling plants I could possibly imagine while they were flowering, she really lost almost all of her smell by the time she was harvested and jarred. I'm seriously disappointed with that, but if there's anything that could be done differently to retain that smell I'm unaware of what it is. At least she doesn't smell like hay or anything, I've seen people complain of that. Maybe she'll get a little of her smell back while she's curing, that's what I've heard.

Looks like my Pro-Grow LED is supposed to be delivered today. I'm excited, but I won't be putting it to use for at least a couple weeks.

ChroniCDooM said:

Congrats on the harvest! Looks good can't wait for the smoke report! I plan to harvest mine in a week or so. Probably gonna be around 70 days from seed. Due to circumstances I have to harvest next weekend. I can't wait to start drying and curing! Anyway good job, it's gonna feel good to be done and smoking my first grow!

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Thanks! It's been a long hard journey and I'm really glad there's light at the end of the tunnel. It can't get here soon enough for my large phenotype Easy Ryders, 2 out of 3 of them are just about devoid of any leaves. No question that this stupid leaf problem has affected the yield and growth.

Look forward to seeing all the details of your harvest too since you're growing the same plants, but with your LED vs. CFL. Be sure to take pics as you harvest and dry, and definitely get wet/dry weights so I can compare. 70 days sound about right for the smaller pheno Easy Ryder, but definitely early for the larger pheno. Don't remember which you've got but I hope it's the smaller one so you're not harvesting prematurely. All of my larger pheno ERs are going to go to at least day 83-85, maybe closer to 90, especially with Stella. My smaller pheno ERs were first harvestable around day 65-70, but I waited an extra 10 days or so for one of them to finish growing and maximize the yield, and because I'm going for couchlock with heavy amber.

Anyway, good luck with your harvest and thanks for stopping by!

Woohoo, my new Pro-Grow 250W LED arrived today! Won't have the opportunity to put it to the test for at least a couple weeks, but I did turn it on and test it out. Here are some of my observations:

My first observation was that the casing was a little scuffed and scratched up. Nothing major, but it was either handled roughly during manufacturing and packaging, or it was remanufactured/previously owned. Makes me wonder if that's why they sell some of their units on eBay? I took pics of all the wear that I could find and I'm going to email Hydroponics Hut shortly with the pics so they're aware the light was already scuffed up when I received it. It's not bad enough that I would even consider sending it back, but I don't want them blaming me later and not refunding the full amount if I return it.

I turned on the light, and noted that the power supply fans are moderately loud, probably in the range of 50-60db but that's just a guess. It's not super bad but it's quite noticeable within 20 feet. They should document the db on the product page since it's a factor, just like fan manufacturers and resellers document their db.

As far as the LEDs themselves, there are 35 1W blue LEDs for Veg (they look more like white to the human eye once they're warmed up), and there are 84 3W red LEDs for Flower. There's are two green push buttons on the underside of the light, one for each bank of LEDs, so each bank can run separately or combined. Now here's the curious thing... I tested the light with my Kill-o-Watt meter, and it draws exactly 35W while in Veg mode, which sounds right I guess since it has 35 1W LEDs. However in flower mode it only draws 120W, running 84 supposedly 3W LEDs. With both modes running concurrently it only draws 150W total, which is a little less than the combined wattage of the separate modes (also interesting).

Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't it be drawing around 250W just for the flower mode alone if the 84 red LEDs are 3W, and another 35W if Veg mode is on, for a total of around 285 watts? That doesn't jive with it being a 250W light, nor does the fact that it only draws 150 watts when both LED banks are running regardless of the wattage of the LEDs. I fail to understand where the 250W number comes from. If there are any LED experts out there (I know there are at least a few on this board) please chime in and enlighten me. I'm also going to inquire to Hydroponics Hut so I can understand how a 250W light can produce 250W if it only consumes 150W.

When I had the light turned on I took the opportunity to measure the heat generated from it. 1" in front of the LEDs it raised the temperature from about 81 degrees to 96 degrees, and about 6" from the LED it raised it from about 81 to about 86 degrees. Since the light is supposed to be around 6-10" from the plants I believe, you can expect it will raise the temps about 4 to 5 degrees at the top surface of the plants. Now in an enclosed environment like a tent, if there aren't any fans it's going to raise the overall ambient temperature in addition to the focused heat directly in front of the LEDs, but I don't think it will be very much. Aspyre said it raised his ambient temps by about 3 degrees I think. This means that if your ambient room temps are at or under 75-80 degrees a person should be able to get by without any additional cooling, although circulation is always desirable of course.

That's about it. Obviously if this thing does what it claims and it only draws 150W max with both modes running, it's a huge energy savings over CFL and a gigantic savings over HPS/MH. Aspyre is already testing his and I'll start testing mine in a couple weeks. If it doesn't come at least close to the manufacturer's claims it's going back within 90 days, but I obviously hope it does everything it's supposed to.

this led is supposed to be the equiv of a 600w HID? if at 150 watts draaw its rasing temps, at 250 it would raise them even more.... thought leds were cooler than that. I realize its a lot less than a straight 600w, but throw on a cool tube and youre even probably.... but it will be interesting watching, in a real stealth grow , assuming it does what it claims, I can see the adfvantages, but with your red leds running at only 50% power thats troubling, theres no "overdrive" switch?

bobhamm said:

this led is supposed to be the equiv of a 600w HID? if at 150 watts draaw its rasing temps, at 250 it would raise them even more.... thought leds were cooler than that. I realize its a lot less than a straight 600w, but throw on a cool tube and youre even probably.... but it will be interesting watching, in a real stealth grow , assuming it does what it claims, I can see the adfvantages, but with your red leds running at only 50% power thats troubling, theres no "overdrive" switch?

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Cool tubes cost money, so do the inline fans and the ducting, as does the HPS/MH and ballast of course. Add them all up and you're looking at a higher cost than the LED for sure, and you're using 3 times more energy between the HPS and the fan, even if the light were running at the wattage it should be (4+ times at the current wattage). LED is definitely the future, the question is whether or not this particular light is the future lol. I don't really feel that an increase in temps of 3 to 6 degrees from a single light, with no other light needed, is that bad personally. And no, definitely no "overdrive" switch .

By the way, they should have supplied it with a power cord that has an elbow or 90 degree angle on it. It uses a standard computer style power cord that sticks straight out the back of the unit, so it adds a few inches to the distance that the light has to be mounted away from a surface. Could've reduced that by an inch or two with an elbow cord, and I know they make them. Oh and one more thing, the cables that come out of the back of the light aren't retractable. They're fixed and tied together with a single hook so you can hang the light from a single point rather than 4 separate points, but it's up to you to provide a mounting system that allows you to raise and lower the light.

Amber has been harvested on day 69 from seed, pics to come later. Just about 41g wet with a little bit of stem, so she'll probably wind up just about 8g dry I'm guessing. I was estimating for quite some time that I would only get about a good 1/4 from her, so it's right in line. Disappointing of course, but completely and totally expected for almostbthe last 2 months, ever since she was stunted from the heat. Heck for a while I didn't expect her to produce anything at all.

Sarah is next, but I'll probably take a break for a while and harvest her tonight.

Update regarding my new Pro-Grow 250 and my contact with Hydroponics Hut. I emailed someone from the company last night with my pics of the scratches and scuffs, and talked about my concerns that the light was only drawing 150W total with both modes activated, and only 120W in flowering mode. He responded that he thinks I received a unit that was intended for repair or parts, because they're missing one of those units, and said he'd send me a return shipping label right away if I wanted to return it (duh). He also indicated that the 3W flowering chips are not tuned to output 3 full watts per chip because it would dramatically shorten the lifespan of the LEDs. He said they're tuned to a little more than 2 watts per chip.

Some simple math would indicate that the 84 3W flowering chips should be running at 2.5+W per chip in order to produce around 250W total when combined with the 35 1W chips. Sounds like they don't have them tuned quite that high or he would have said 2.5 watts per chip rather than "a little over 2 watts per chip", and as such it apparently doesn't actually output 250 total watts, probably something closer to 210-220 watts. Still, my light was only drawing 1.4 watts per chip and that actually includes the fans, so realistically they were only outputting a little more than 1w per 3W chip!

My $20 Kill-a-Watt meter that I bought a couple years ago definitely paid for itself today. I would have never known that I had a defective, underperforming unit. I would have just assumed that was as good as that light was capable of, and in fact it probably would have done a pretty decent job since their 140W version equates to a 300W HPS, and that would be just fine for my growing needs.

enonumus said:

Update regarding my new Pro-Grow 250 and my contact with Hydroponics Hut. I emailed someone from the company last night with my pics of the scratches and scuffs, and talked about my concerns that the light was only drawing 150W total with both modes activated, and only 120W in flowering mode. He responded that he thinks I received a unit that was intended for repair or parts, because they're missing one of those units, and said he'd send me a return shipping label right away if I wanted to return it (duh). He also indicated that the 3W flowering chips are not tuned to output 3 full watts per chip because it would dramatically shorten the lifespan of the LEDs. He said they're tuned to a little more than 2 watts per chip.

Some simple math would indicate that the 84 3W flowering chips should be running at 2.5+W per chip in order to produce around 250W total when combined with the 35 1W chips. Sounds like they don't have them tuned quite that high or he would have said 2.5 watts per chip rather than "a little over 2 watts per chip", and as such it apparently doesn't actually output 250 total watts, probably something closer to 210-220 watts. Still, my light was only drawing 1.4 watts per chip and that actually includes the fans, so realistically they were only outputting a little more than 1w per 3W chip!

My $20 Kill-a-Watt meter that I bought a couple years ago definitely paid for itself today. I would have never known that I had a defective, underperforming unit. I would have just assumed that was as good as that light was capable of, and in fact it probably would have done a pretty decent job since their 140W version equates to a 300W HPS, and that would be just fine for my growing needs.

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This is madness! I'm ordering the Kill-a-Watt ASAP. Any ideas as to where I can get one locally, maybe radioshack? Since i'll have two unit in my possession, being that i'm having power supply failure, I hope to test them both before i send the old unit back.
On a lighter note, Amber looked great. Even though she was tiny, she looked pretty killer. It just sucks to invest so much time for a quarter. The one i'm looking forward to is Sarah. What are you estimating your yield to be for you larger phenos? My Large pheno is reaching about 1.5 feet. This thing is out of control. I'm hoping these larger ones have a considerable better yield.

Aspyre said:

This is madness! I'm ordering the Kill-a-Watt ASAP. Any ideas as to where I can get one locally, maybe radioshack? Since i'll have two unit in my possession, being that i'm having power supply failure, I hope to test them both before i send the old unit back.
On a lighter note, Amber looked great. Even though she was tiny, she looked pretty killer. It just sucks to invest so much time for a quarter. The one i'm looking forward to is Sarah. What are you estimating your yield to be for you larger phenos? My Large pheno is reaching about 1.5 feet. This thing is out of control. I'm hoping these larger ones have a considerable better yield.

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Yeah that would be really great if you could measure both of your units so you could see whether my situation was just a fluke, or whether they're falsely advertising these things with respect to the wattage. The guy I exchanged the email with reiterated that he thinks I'm going to love the unit once I get it replaced, and said that they're 100% sure they'll equal a 600w HPS.

A lot of places sell those meters online, and Newegg will get you one fast (usually within a few days with their cheapest shipping). If you want to find one locally just check the websites for those store and if it's on their site, call the store and see if they stock it. Radio Shack might carry it, perhaps Best Buy and similar stores, maybe Walmart, but your guess is as good as mine.

Yeah, Amber turned out looking pretty good, just a complete and total dwarf as far as branches went. She had several branches that had bud, they were just all very, very short and compact. Definitely a bummer to only get about a quarter after all that, but she was just along for the ride in the box with the others, and it was a free seed, so it really didn't hurt to let her grow and see what she would produce. Besides, I wanted to have something other than just Easy Ryders to smoke when it was all said and done.