Screw in grow

A few pics of my first legal grow here in CO. 4 Sour Lemon, a Mammoth and a Mob Boss all crosses with an unknown baby daddy.

They are in 17 gallon bins with about 15 gallons of soil each. Two per bin.
It's a mix of Bush Doctor- Coco- Loco, worm castings and compost. Have been using both compost teas and SST's. They are under about 250 watts of screw in LEDs. The switch was flipped to flower two days ago.

Looking good

Every "entry level" LED user should look at this....
So much time spent "splitting hairs" over efficiency and output for smallish spaces, this goes to show how getting caught up in techy stuff can be counterproductive to the end goal...

I, for one, tip my cap to you good sir!

Nice!

Yea I've been using some screw ins as supplimental lights for my corners and different spots, real happy. I was gunna build some and then thought wow, I'd have to gain a lot a lot of efficiency to overcome the efficiency of $1.50 each plus some inexpensive bases!

This hobby is full of overthinking and over engineering, and I at times am more guilty than anyone for it.

I've had good luck with the 15w spot light cobs.

nmibud said:

I've had good luck with the 15w spot light cobs.

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You will have better luck running quantum boards, strips or COBS at much higher efficiency !!!!

Congratulations

Dave455 said:

You will have better luck running quantum boards, strips or COBS at much higher efficiency !!!!

Click to expand...

While I'm sure this is undoubtedly true I'm also sure it would be hard to get 250w for less than $70. I'm also sure that once the globe is removed the advertised lumens per watt go out the window. Point being, of course you are right but I doubt these are as bad as some might think.

I will likely be doing strips on panels for verticals grows in the future. With the plant counts I do want to maximize the space as best I can. This light got me growing rather quickly after an expensive move across the country.

WxMan said:

Congratulations

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Woot woot.... tx mang

NoTillPhil said:

While I'm sure this is undoubtedly true I'm also sure it would be hard to get 250w for less than $70. I'm also sure that once the globe is removed the advertised lumens per watt go out the window. Point being, of course you are right but I doubt these are as bad as some might think.

I will likely be doing strips on panels for verticals grows in the future. With the plant counts I do want to maximize the space as best I can. This light got me growing rather quickly after an expensive move across the country.

Click to expand...

The thing is, you don't need 250w to compare to your screw in bulbs. The new Samsung strips for example are almost twice as efficient as a typical led bulb. In other words, you could easily replace your 250w of bulb power with 150w of strips or QB board/s. Strips cost $5-$10 each and you'd probably only need 3 or 4 to fill your space, plus a driver. So, possibly closer to $100 but you'd also be using far less power and creating much less heat.

I've seen plenty of grows like yours, going back to cfl's. I started growing using cfl's also and migrated to led bulbs then cobs/strips. People will often use whatever is cheapest or easiest for them to get growing with. There is nothing wrong with it. It's nice to see caveman grows once in awhile, it reminds many of us where we started off.

Have to say, having grown half my life (42yrs old) with HPS and MH I'm seeing superb growth for 250 watts. Very tight internodes on most of the plants. No unwanted stretch and the plants look tired after anything longer than 14-15 hrs under lamp. I now lift my veg light up for the last couple hours and run 16/8.

Sadly had to pull three of six plants that ended up male. I gambled on some bag seed that I was expecting to be fems from nanners because the grower only had clones in his outdoor grow. Turns out a nearby grower must have let a male spit pollen. Could be worse as I had plants to fill in with but would have preferred they veg another coupe weeks. Staggering them in there late would just create more problems when the next round starts so in they went.

The big girls are ending week one. The three smaller plants are 2-5 days in. The one on its fifth day seems like it may stretch enough to fill in the canopy, which leaves me hope it will all fill in decently. Fingers crossed !

Lol "caveman grow" ....... that hurt a little this deep in the game. Hilarious and insulting at the same time.

No worries, I type this with a smile on my face.

NoTillPhil said:

Lol "caveman grow" ....... that hurt a little this deep in the game. Hilarious and insulting at the same time.

No worries, I type this with a smile on my face.

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Your plants look great bro, better than most of the cob and QB growers

5 days later..... 3 in full flower mode now..... 2 with some stretch left in them and one just getting into stretch mode.

Gnats have been my only issue. I have two girls that went from 1 gallon to 10 gallon pots and due to the amount of time it took for the roots and air to dry them, the gnats were able to get going. Some extra fans and letting them dry has slowed it but still have a few. Honestly gnats were my biggest concern using these large bins but coincidentally they came from the 10gl smartpots. Definitely grower error though. Guess I needed a reminder on why potting up in steps is best.

Chip Green said:

Every "entry level" LED user should look at this....
So much time spent "splitting hairs" over efficiency and output for smallish spaces, this goes to show how getting caught up in techy stuff can be counterproductive to the end goal...

I, for one, tip my cap to you good sir!

Click to expand...

No question, I know of people who have been put off growing because they think they MUST have seriously expensive lights, etc, so they won't even think about trying to grow.

It's why I tried making my own lights, and, so far, my second one does seem to be doing the job.

Just finished third week. Have one girl that just didn't stretch at all. Front left...... hopefully doesn't drag yield to far down. Frost is coming on heavy on the MOB Boss. One Sour Lemon phenom is a total winner so far, we'll see how she smokes. Of the five lemon I would grow two of the phenos again. Other three have week stucture IMO. This week I'm going to Chuck some pollen and make a couple crosses.

Day 35..... had some pollen from hermi sac get loose on me about a week ago.

looking good. watch your temps as that can cause hermies. I also use 10w Deep Red/Royal Blue cobs from ebay for about $4-8 each and a MW lpc-60-1050 driver that maxes out at 52v and the cobs Vf is about 8-10v each. great job on 250w. I use 300w for a 2x4 area.

Agreed, I have had high temps in the past cause hermies. This time around I have no clue what caused it. No light leaks and temps consistently in the 68-75 degree range. I suspect it's just poor stability in the genetics. Though I have read that pruning in flower can cause it and I did do some excessive LST and light pruning on lowers during first week of stretch. Maybe that's it but it's something I've always done without issue.

40 Days inda hole