Looking for experienced LED growers.

I have a thread entitled "If I don't know the answer I will find it for you" and had someone inquire about LED's and I have never used them before. Here was his concern.

ledvirgin said:

LED LIGHTS!!!!

ive purchased a 120w led panel for growing 3 plants in my large attic, ive read as much as one possibly can on growing for beginners and have been practicing all sorts but now im thinking im finally ready to take it on, my post here is basically to find out about other ppls experience growing with these and of course to obtain any advice that might help me grow a successful smoke

Click to expand...

If you guys can help please do Hope this thread is used quite frequently for the LED community. Post what you have and how you got that success Enjoy people and thanks for visiting my thread

Bumping for the LED community

Bumping for the LED community

Joker.....u The man.

You really take the time to help others if u can.

Thanks!

I do what I can man. I really do enjoy helping and people want to point fingers at me saying "reps, hes doing it for reps" Na man it's not about that with me

I grow under leds and I can tell you it is different than other lights 120 watts is pushing it on the 3 plants. In my experience you'll need more to complete your grow. Everything will go good till flowering. The type of led is important not the watts. 1 watt led aren't going to penetrate deep into the leafs of the plant like HIDS or MH. The way around this is distance you'll have to move your light closer pushing your grow area down cutting the coverage. Even with 3 watt and 5 watt this will happen. I've put together a few panels myself with both 3 and 5 watt lights. And as far as I can tell the 4 to 1 ratio that most companies sell is off. Now that being said why use leds well your yields are going to go down and now there is more money invested in equipment. Well the product is better in my opinion. The plants like the lights until you flower them. You're going to run into problems. You can finish them out with the leds but you'll be wise to add some fluorescent lights in the mix. T5 are good with warm bulbs in there. Cool white will work if that's all you got. Now if you're worried about nutrients cut them back to 1/4 to 1/2 Strength in veg. slowly add more if you can. I have found that less is more with leds. Now flowering is another story. In that phase I cut back to 1/4 of the nutrients that is recommended. Then slowly add more in the first few weeks of flower till I reach full or 3/4 strength are the final phase. The one thing I use a lot of is foliar feeding once or twice a week. Because the lights are not going to burn the plants if you do this a lot. Now with that being said I use S.A.R in veg. and two weeks into flower. This is the stress the plants need to produce a decent yield in my opinion. I'm a small grower and this is my two cents if someone else has different techniques I'd listen because this is all new to us. No one really has it totally down yet. At least as far as I know. Well I hope some of this helps you out. Later

Good shit man seriously. Keep it up everyone, I want to see what LED grows you have people

Good post clyde!

18fan said:

Good post clyde!

Click to expand...

I have to agree I am going to +rep you Clyde

Me too....ty clyde

summer time comin/here.....im bout 2 buy some leds myself!

any led panels that are the quality of the high dollar UFO;s?

Thank you 18fan and joker. I hope it helps. I'm just starting another grow in a new house. I have a ufo I bought couple years ago from HTG. And I have a couple china ufo's. The one's from china looks like crap and the $500 one doesn't. But none of them failed and the china one works as good in my opinion. I really don't know where my other 2 are right now in a box I suppose. I'm using a china one right know because it was the first one I found. The last one I bought was from these people http://www.easy-motorcycle.com/90w-led-ufo-triband-hydroponic-plant-grow-light-free-post-p-168.html. I'm not endorseing these people but I had good luck with them and they are as cheap as your going to get. I'm going to post a how to build your own led panel one of these days. But anyhow thank you for the rep. Good luck

Hello, Check out irish! hes on a few sites.
he has the 2 journals already completed.

I will Answer questions about my experiences with a UFO.

i use led i find any led under 90 watt is a waste ir light is a waste and u want 660nm red in flowering and 630nmred in veg try to find a light with quad spectrum the nutes being less is more in hydro i would disagree. with that penetration is a factor no matter what led you use yeild does not go down at all watt for watt it is par with hid and higher quality imo the way around this is mulitple pannels i use 4 90w led ufo with bridgelux and cree leds i got 2 on top sitting facing straight down and 2 on the sides lower down at 45deg or so to help lower branches to fill out do not put your pannels to close as the light needs space to mix 10 to 12 inches is about good if you cut around the edge of the glass to free it from the housing and break it out (the glass in front of the led not the glass on the led) you will increase your intensity by 10 to 20 percent and i think thats all for now oh also you get better use out of your co2 if using it as you dont have to vent your room as often because heat isnt an issue. just dont be fooled by 90w =400w not true 90w = 90w get 600 or 400 watt led and you will out produce and hid in yeild and qaulity of the same wattage

I dont think Led was ment for flowering crops, Nasa tested them on Grains and Vegtive matter.

Also when room is over heated, I replace 600watt hps lamps with china ufos for a couple of hours. I havent noticed and side affects(other than regain of temp control).

led flowers crops beautifully

Glad to see this thread is growing. Keep it up guys. Please keep posting

Just started using a 180W LED UFO

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/223945-ufo-led-cfl-closet-tent.html

Not the best grow, but it worked.

I have to agree with Clyde as well. I'm vegging with LEDs but not flowering. I guess I'm not flowering with them for two reasons: 1.) I don't trust it 100% just yet with my buds and 2.) I just don't have enough to really get the level of penetration needed. I scrog all of my crops so technically this is a good method if you're using LEDs because all of your buds will be growing evenly and you can place the LEDs directly on top of the buds without causeing any damage or heat stress.

I've found that in veg, some plants do better than others. For example my Frisian Dew, Alaskan Ice, Blue Widow, X18 (just to name a few, and yes I am bragging) seem to love the LEDs. They are flourishing underneath them while a few other strains have not shown any growth since the switch. Even though that doesn't sound great, I'm still an advocate for the technology, I just think you need to have enough wattage, the right height and the right spectrum. I have a friend that's putting together some panels with UV LEDs which is supposed to produce more THC... so that should be interesting.

BTW - I have a 400 watt HPS in my flowering room. I love the concept of using LEDs for veg but until someone can put together a panel that's cost effective as well as produces thick buds, I stick with my 400 watter.