First LED Grow 2x Blackstar 240's

Well we started with some pre vegged plants for this grow. 3 of them. They each had a good 8 weeks of veg and were very vibrant and healthy.

1 Bubba Kush
1 Bagseed
1 Chem Valley

1 week into flower the Chem Valley got attacked with Spider Mites REALLY bad. It didn't really make it back. It's not a sickly plant sitting in the corner of the flower room and it will be lucky to yield an eighth.

The other 2 did really well for the most part considering its LED. About 4 weeks into flower now and for the most part they are OK but anyone who is saying that LED does what a 600w HPS can do is fooling themselves. HOWEVER, the energy savings have been great as has the heat issue which is non existant.

Patience not being our virtue we decided to add in a T5 in the beginning of week 4 of flower. These pics are from today and they will hit 5 weeks tomorrow.

So this is a 5week flower under 2 240watt Blackstar LEDs. Id say if we are extremely lucky we might squeeze an ounce out of the biggest plant but I doubt it.

Our next grow we will be doing the same LEDs running next to a 8 bulb T5 using Aquarium bulbs and mixed spectrum. I hear that does even better. We shall see!

Some pics. Sorry this isn't the most organized grow journal. My first one ever.

Nutes: Fox Farm Big Bloom (flower) and all General Organics for veg and bloom, Bud Candy, Superthrive, Cal Mag, FFOF soil

We just need another flush yesterday.

Hey man, looking good
Maybe next time look into ScrOG. It could increase overall yield, as the lower buds will also get sufficient light

What is the distance between the light and your canopy throughout the grow? I keep my blackstars as close as possible, balancing footprint and penetration, but basically around 8-12 inches. I have noticed that I don't get any bleaching issues until the light is literally right on top of the plant... I dunno. Just curious... Some of your plants look pretty far from the lights... I have had good pulls (3oz+/plant) in each of my last single blackstar 240 grows. I am also doing it in hydro (waterfarm), so that is big difference between our grows... hrm For my 3rd grow, I have added a 2nd blackstar 240, and I am going with 2 plants this time (still one light/plant). Check my sig if you're interested, I have plenty of pics in my albums too.

Psytranceorgy said:

What is the distance between the light and your canopy throughout the grow? I keep my blackstars as close as possible, balancing footprint and penetration, but basically around 8-12 inches. I have noticed that I don't get any bleaching issues until the light is literally right on top of the plant... I dunno. Just curious... Some of your plants look pretty far from the lights... I have had good pulls (3oz+/plant) in each of my last single blackstar 240 grows. I am also doing it in hydro (waterfarm), so that is big difference between our grows... hrm For my 3rd grow, I have added a 2nd blackstar 240, and I am going with 2 plants this time (still one light/plant). Check my sig if you're interested, I have plenty of pics in my albums too.

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Well this was a test for us to see if we were going to go all LED. We like the LED a lot. HOWEVER I don't think the yield is gonna be there.

We keep the top of our canopy about 6" from the LED. The plants have been majorly thinned out and the light is getting down into it just fine. I just don't think the 2 of them is enough light. But then again we are just into 5 weeks so we shall see how things look in 3 weeks which is when we should technically be ready to harvest.

i predict another fail blackstar grow

taking 5 to 1 thread gets abandoned

leogets said:

i predict another fail blackstar grow

taking 5 to 1 thread gets abandoned

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What does that mean exactly? Im waiting until they grow more before taking more pics. I can't take pics of future plants, today. Hope you understand that.

Lucious, Your plants looks happy and healthy for the most part. I would agree with Psytranceorgy and Nikola, they appear to be a bit stretched due to distance from the light. I can say from experience with the blackstars, you would greatly benefit from getting the lights closer and compacting your overall grow space. LED works great in smaller areas.

Couple of pointers

#1 SCROG or SOG or super crop or do something to get your lights closer to those buds, Blackstars do not penetrate that well and need to be very close to the bud sites for really great Flowers, like no more than 12 inches or so.

#2 I would start counting 12/12 once you see first sines of flowering and not just the day you switch to 12/12, thats going to be a more accurate estimate for your plants finishing, of course that changes with strain, so deffinately harvest once the plants show they are ready (aka amber trichs)

#3 Dont expect huge weight with blackstars, they dont produce tons and tons of bud like an HPS but will produce a VERY high quality product

#4 What Im saying doesnt apply to all LED's only Blackstars, and at that really only Blackstar 240's, I dont have personal experience with the 500's

#5 The only LED I own that I can confidently say acts and grows like an HPS with all the benefits of LED's is my Advanced LED grow light (true draw=180 watt), Its definitely my favorite light thus far and produces way fatter buds than my blackstar 240's. If you can get one for a good price I would strongly suggest it.

Advanced LEDs suck just as bad as these Blackstars.

We are heading into like week 7 now. Thgey never grew much. Lights were 8" above canopy so it's not a height issue. Sorry but for 2 - 240 watt lights not to be able to grow fat buds out of 3 plants just doesn't make sense to me. Would have had better results for sure with a 400 watt HPS or even an 8 bulb T5 with aquarium bulbs.

Will try and follow up with pics of the harvest too.

My 240 is doing a great job on this plant so far, lots of bud sites... The 240 is made for really small operation,you have to have it really close to the buds... I mean you have 1 bud 8 '' away from the light and the rest of the plant is SO far away!! I must say even your main bud is quite small though but what about the genetic? In 30 days I will see the difference between those buds and the one from the mother plant (close to harvest) grown under HID. I will have a hard time not using my HIDs on my next go, I am hoping for the 240 to impress me now! just a matter of weeks.

Lucius Vorenus said:

Advanced LEDs suck just as bad as these Blackstars.

We are heading into like week 7 now. Thgey never grew much. Lights were 8" above canopy so it's not a height issue. Sorry but for 2 - 240 watt lights not to be able to grow fat buds out of 3 plants just doesn't make sense to me. Would have had better results for sure with a 400 watt HPS or even an 8 bulb T5 with aquarium bulbs.

Will try and follow up with pics of the harvest too.

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Dont hate on advanced because you arent happy with your results from your blackstars. That doesnt make sense. My advanced leds are wonderful and I get great results with them.

LST or scrog the plants next time cuz 2 240w blackstars isnt enough light for plants that big. Ill be flowering with 2 blackstar 600s with 6 plants LST'd within the next week. Ill post up the thread if ya wanna check it out. good luck

Lucius Vorenus you should of totally gone with a SCROG when it comes to LEDs. Just to let your plants grow and stretch like that with LEDs seems to be a waste of time. Invest in chicken wire bro, you wont regret it. Plus SCROG is actually quite simple.

And what type of Advanced LED are you talking about DoctorCanna? hearing something thats better than a Blackstar is worth looking in to lol.

What's up with the results for this grow? I was looking into led and I'm so close to purchasing (since tax return is almost here)

wyteberrywidow said:

What's up with the results for this grow? I was looking into led and I'm so close to purchasing (since tax return is almost here)

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We moved to all T5's for flowering and moved the Blackstars into the veg room. They are great and energy saving for Veg for sure. We ended up having to add in some T5's with red bulbs at week 5 because we were unhappy with the size of the buds growing under the Blackstars alone.

I think for a couple of plants they would be fine if you scroged but not even an option to use these for any type of commercial production. Which is what we were testing them for due to the fact we are growing 24 plants for our patients.