Lowryder #2 70W hps PC case grow

Hi, I have been growing a few lowryders for a while, and I wanted to see how they would do under a 70w hps, so heres a little grow journal about it

Unfortunately, my lease runs out in 2 weeks, preventing more planting for a while.. I planted 5 Lowryder 2 seeds I had from a previous grow (purposely seeded of course).

Actually, While i think of it, id be interested to hear from other people who have grown numbers of lowryder, I see maybe three seperate phenotypes, but definately two, one is utterly delicious looking, dark, dank and crystally, the other is far more stretchy but probably yeilds more.

Anyhow, despite my previous 75% female success rate with these seeds, under the HPS i got.. ONE female out of 5, which means the box is only half full. Sadly I didnt have time to finish flowering if I had seeded some more to make up for it, so one it is.

As i mentioned in the previous post, here is the two distinct phenotypes i noticed in my last lowryder grow (excuse the size of these lil girls, i was testing

Type 1 is lighter coloured, stretchier, type 2 is more crystally. Dont know how the 2nd type would perform under decent levels of light, but I assume itd be delicious.

70W hps is LOVELY for seedlings, you can get them easily within an inch or two of the light, and crowd them around it. They love it, growth is great. Course this might be what caused 4/5 males.. but Im hoping it was just an unlucky batch.

Anyhow, heres an early(ish) pics from a day or two after I began LST on the single lowryder girl, to shape her around the bulb.

This is roughly week 3. Started sporadic feeding when she showed sex, 1/2 - 3/4 strength nutes with waterings in between.
These things can be over-nuted VERY easily.

Week or so later, shes filled out nicely

And a bit further along again..

Shes doing her best the poor little thing. Starting to look quite pretty

Hopefully she will be finished in 2 weeks, as my lease is up then..

This 70W hps has done much better than i expected, If you could get it in a box the size of a bedside table you could easily(ish) grow four plants around it stadium style, and id guess at maybe an oz yield with very little cooling difficulties?

Ima try that when this grow is done

Oh, completely out of sequence picture here, but this is what happened when I let the top cola get a bit too close to the light..

(note, only some large leaves on the side of the cola were actually too close, and none were touching IIRC)

All the large leaves curled up to make a leafy bowl of bud! Lovely, but not optimal

Some new pics, In the first one you can see just how close the plants can get to a 70w HPS.

There is some slight curling from heat on leaves which have been too close, and i trimmed some of the longer pointier leaves which were close to the bulb, so i could get more surface area closer to the bulb. As it is, bits of the plant are closer than 1 inch away with no ill effects.

Sadly I cannot remember when I planted this girl, but she looks to have maybe 2 weeks left on her. so I will have to chop her a bit early before i vacate the house.

nice plant. im bout to be doing the exact same grow. ill be watching this grow closely. good luck bro

Thanks!

If i were to start again now, id add more plants, but in smaller pots.
Im also considering moving the light back against the far wall of the box, which would maybe allow for an extra plant, one on each side and one to the front of the light. Also, id keep them a tad further away, as the light appears to have a bit more intensity than i expected.

Good luck to you also, you should be able to at least double the yield I get from this box if nothing goes wrong

Harvesting tomorrow most likely, pics to come.

awesome man keep me posted with your weights and bud pics. im starting tomorow when i get home.
also did you lst your last batch of lowryder?

do you need a ballist for that 70w hps?

Yeah, the ballast is in a little metal tub behind the box. Buzzes a bit, but its not any louder than the fans. Gets quite warm too, Putting it in the box would add quite a lot of warmth I would have thought.

Also, heres a harvest pic Not fully dry yet, so I havent weighed her, but she looks fairly decent (although obviously small) and absolutely stinks.

how hot did it get inside you box and how did you deal with the heat build up. i let mine run the otherday and it got up to bout 86ish.

There was an intake fan at the bottom, an exhaust fan in the normal pc fan position, and a hole where the power supply should have been (i was too lazy to fill it in) Got to about 86f maybe a little higher at about 1/2 inch to the side of the bulb.

I couldnt measure the temperature behind the bulb where the hot air cooling it hit the plant cause of nothing to hang the probe off, but i imagine it was slightly hotter there.

I think i should have kept the whole plant further away from the light anyhow.

With a (fake) psu, another fan would easily fit in that space, which is what im doing now, hopefully with some light and smell proofing.. but it depends on the temps

good to know thanks for the reply man. do you have any final weights for that plant?

crazytrain14 said:

awesome man keep me posted with your weights and bud pics. im starting tomorow when i get home.
also did you lst your last batch of lowryder?

Click to expand...

I never LST'd lowryder before this (but i definately would again now) however I did LST some auto AK, which is what convinced me it'd work.

Final dry weight, as put into curing jar just now was TWENTY THREE grams!
I am quite surprised, I was expecting more like 14g from this plant.

Two this size would well surpass my 1/2 gram per watt goal. The HPS in this box seems to make a lot denser buds as well as being more convenient and providing more space than the big cfl in my other box, i definately recommend going that route if you have a choice

thanks good to know. my box actually just has 4 cfls in it. i plan to lst 2 plants in it both going in opposite directions. ill let ya know how it goes

Yeah, im not opposed to CFLs by any means, I just found them somewhat harder to cool effectively (more surface area to point a fan at). Good luck with your grow. Its always nice to see more of this sort of grow, I have so many unanswered questions

Id quite like to see if more plants in smaller pots is differently efficient than bigger but less plants, growing like 8 small lowryders just for the tops would be a very easy pseudo-SOG, but im not sure if the yield would absolutely plummet like that.

yes i think yield would suffer because of the room, but i will be doing 2 plants in 4 in pots. i may have already said that. i started germinating today so hopefully plant in 2 or 3. 2 inside the box and 2 outside in pots.
cheers

nice lowryder, how big was the pot you put it in, have you grown any just through a window?? i usually grow non-autos in a tent but am moving soon and to save the hassle i thought i'd just grow a lowryder x hindu kush on my windowsill and under a 20 cfl when its not very sunny (which is most of the time). before anyone says its not worth it i dont' care its more for fun, i've still got loads from my last harvest to last me.

yeah so was just wondering what pot size you were using and what your predictions for my yield would be, it's about 1 week and a half old and is barely getting to its second set of real leaves lol. i'm moving in july and could maybe set up a 250 hps in my tent but i think it will probably be too hot for summer. anyways am i looking at like a gram