Red Dragon & Magic Bud - First CFL grow using "Buds for Less" light set-up

all the best gram/watt led grows i have seen have been done with scrog method ,if screen is low enough and not too big it shouldnt be a problem, the hormones redistribute and promote the lower branches to grow

i hear you on the patience thing and would off done the same myself

G.O.D,
Looking good man. I personally love the science experiment mentality. It's nice to have folks out there like you to document your results. Since I am only a little over half way through my first grow I enjoy seeing different techniques as I have yet to decide on what works best for me.

I started under my CFL's and that was a learning experience that I plan to continue for all of my vegging. Once I realized I didn't have the patience for flowering under the CFL's I got my HPS and it too is a learning experience. Because of your thread I get to have an idea of what it's like to use other techniques like a SCROG or different lighting like your Kessil without having to spend the large amount of money for the LED or the 3-4 months of my life to see if I like it.

Anyway man, keep it up.

Grumpy Old Dreamer said:

I have a feeling that it would eventually get there but I would be faced with 100+ colas to deal with, now I don't want that to happen do I.

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i dont know what i would do with 100+ Colas either what a terrible problem too many colas lol

22nd October 2010 (Day 44 from seed packet)

Just a quick update photo, together with the one from 2 days ago for comparison.



Removing the LED seems to be working as the plant seems to be starting to "reach" for the light ... I plant to switch to 12/12 under just the LED in 5 days time.

Watch this space.

Is the point for the plant to stay under the screen, or to come up through the holes so you have an easy means of separating the branches and spreading out the canopy?

Also sub'd, that LED is SWEET. I forgot to sub before and had a bit of a hard time finding this thread again, searching for LED, red dragon, or purple led. Finally found it by searching "purple energy beam"

karri0n said:

Is the point for the plant to stay under the screen, or to come up through the holes so you have an easy means of separating the branches and spreading out the canopy?

Also sub'd, that LED is SWEET. I forgot to sub before and had a bit of a hard time finding this thread again, searching for LED, red dragon, or purple led. Finally found it by searching "purple energy beam"

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The plant needs to stay under the screen until the screen is filled, then all the many branches can come through the screen at the same time and hopefully grow as a large mass of similar sized, evenly spaced colas. Growing like this allows all the colas to be the same distance from the light and hopefully I will get a 2 foot circle of cloas all from 36W of power being used ... well, that's the plan
At the monent that plant easily has 35 to 40 small branches - if only half found room to fully develop I would get 20 colas, and the screen is nowhere near filled yet.

Grumpy Old Dreamer said:

The plant needs to stay under the screen until the screen is filled, then all the many branches can come through the screen at the same time and hopefully grow as a large mass of similar sized, evenly spaced colas. Growing like this allows all the colas to be the same distance from the light and hopefully I will get a 2 foot circle of cloas all from 36W of power being used ... well, that's the plan
At the monent that plant easily has 35 to 40 small branches - if only half found room to fully develop I would get 20 colas, and the screen is nowhere near filled yet.

Click to expand...

Keep weaving. This is going to be an awesome test of LED flower power.

I've been doing the numbers and planning my next grow as my next Kessil H150 will arrive shortly.

My next grow will be 4 clones growing in the one large pot fitted under the same sized screen ... when I have a large stock of fem seeds I will use seedlings instead of plants, that will considerably reduce the time in vegging (and cloning).

There are a couple of reasons for multiple clones in one pot - one large pot is structurally stable with my screen system and 4 clones will veg to fill the screen a lot quicker than one plant would.
As the canopy would be the same whether I use one plant or 4 smaller plants, the soil/water/nutrient requirements should be the same ... forget the BS about roots strangling each other (cannabis has fibrous roots), they share a common pot which is plenty big enough for 4 small plants.

I have a couple of Magic Bud seeds that have sprouted in the last day or two and their timeline would be:
4 to 5 weeks until large enough to remove reasonable clones (need 4 clones)
2 weeks for the clones to establish roots, and
2 to 3 weeks of vegging and LSTing before going under the screen and being switched to 12/12.

The total expected time until the Magic Bud Scrog is ready for flowering is about 8 to 10 weeks, which I cannot reduce but can extend if needed.

As well as the Magic Bud seedlings I have clones of Red Dragon which are rooted already, their timeline would be just ...
2 to 3 weeks of vegging and LSTing before going under the screen and being switched to 12/12.
When the Red Dragon's are ready for flowering the Magic Bud will still be 6 to 7 weeks away from being ready to switch.

My current grow is 4 days away from switching to 12/12 - add to that around 10 weeks (give or take) for budding and the screen will be available about the same time that the Magic Buds are ready for it, as I said, I can always extend the vegging of the Magic Bud until the screen is ready.

So, it looks like I will be doing a double grow of Red Dragon which will be 3 to 4 weeks apart ... and I will be able to directly compare a single plant vs. 4 clones being scrogged under the same size screen in the same pot under the same light set up.

This is where it starts to get interesting, working out when to sow seeds so that they will be grown, cloned, vegged, LSTd and ready for when a screen comes available - my next seed sowing will probably be in 4 to 5 weeks time (4/5 weeks plus 8/10 weeks = about 13/15 weeks which is when I expect my second screen to be ready again.

I'm not as experienced as you, but are you certain that using the LED also during veg is detrimental? I would think with a scrog setup like this, the less stretching, the better, no?

karri0n said:

I'm not as experienced as you, but are you certain that using the LED also during veg is detrimental? I would think with a scrog setup like this, the less stretching, the better, no?

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You may think that less stretching is better, but the LED was causing extremely short internodes ... I'm talking 8 branches in 2 inches, with that sort of density of colas there would be severe overcrowding which would mean the colas would be a lot smaller than I want them to be.
This LED is specifically designed for flowering and is not meant for vegging, Kessil produce a Purple H150 light that is good for vegging and flowering, but I want the short dense growth that should happen during flowering.
As well as the overcrowding aspect, there is the time it is taking to fill the screen to be considered - producing very short internodes takes a bit longer than forever to fill the screen to the 12/12 switching point ... my impatience is a driving force behind this grow.
Only 4 days to go till I switch to 12/12 (no matter how full the screen is) then the real stretch should begin and I can start seeing how many colas I can expect - I doubt that I will have less than 40 or 50 colas.
The screen is about 315 square inches in area, 40 colas would each have about 8 square inches each or 50 colas would have about 6 square inches each. Any more than 50 colas would (I think) be too many, so while less stretching may seem better - I have to try to grow the optimum number in order to maximise the yield.
If I get 40 healthy colas that each produce only a single gram of dried bud, my yield will certainly exceed the holy grail of a gram per watt.
40 colas is definitely achievable as it is only 10 colas on each of the 4 main branches.

What's up G.O.D, your scrog is coming along great man
things should get interesting now once you switch to 12/12 your screen should fill out pretty nice

Four days to go till 12/12

Things are getting to a good stage, I now have seedlings, clones and a scrog grow to play with.
When you first start growing there is nothing much to do except wait and cause damage due to being impatient.
Now I have several things to occupy me when I visit my babies and I am not forever waiting for stuff to happen.

I am seriously pissed off with the poor quality of the Magic Bud seeds (Breeder: Paradise Seeds, Vendor: PlanetSkunk).

So far I have germinated 3 seeds, the fate of the first one was mentioned on page 1 or 2 of this thread ... short story, it was born deformed and quickly died.
Of the next 2 seeds one is a healthy seedling but the other is actually worse than the first one at the same age.
This retarded seed struggled to break the surface and when it did the ends of the cotyledons were pitted and yellowing ... a great start.
The first leaves never developed and quickly turned yellow and died & shrivelled.
On a possibly good note (bearing in mind my first Magic Bud seedling pretended to look healthy for a while) there is still a healthy bud developing between the dead first leaves, so the "first leaves" are what would normally be the first divided leaves.
I am certainly not going to use this retarded mutant runt for seed production, I am actually thinking that this particular Magic Bud genetic line will not be kept as it is looking like it is flawed ... or maybe just the seeds were diseased.

On a happier note, all 8 clones are showing active growth, all are potted up and the humidity dome has been removed. Now is is a race to see which 4 grow the fastest and earn a place under the next screen.

Grumpy Old Dreamer said:

On a happier note, all 8 clones are showing active growth, all are potted up and the humidity dome has been removed. Now is is a race to see which 4 grow the fastest and earn a place under the next screen.

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Clones of the Magic bud, or of the red dragon?

also,

POST SOME NEW PICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clones of the Red Dragon, took 8 lower "branches" off the plant and all 8 rooted in 8 days ... eight must be my lucky number.

4 will be LST'd (in one direction only) and planted in the one large pot for my next scrog grow.
2 will get to grow male flowers
2 will receive the pollen and grow feminised seeds for me

Couple of days till I switch to 12/12 and will take new pikkies then.

Good grow so far! I'm excited it see your growth in the next few weeks. Your LED is ultra ultra!

G.O.D., I wonder if you'd be willing to do a side by side flowering 2 clones, one under , say, a 200w HPS, and one under the 36W Kessil? I'm trying to find some info on the actual value of the lumens put out by the kessil light, but even that isn't that reliable when you factor in that lights other than the kessils are putting out a whole lot of lumens that aren't usable by the plant.

I found an interesting discussion regarding these lights between what appears to be either an R & D or a Marketing person from Kessil, and one of their competitors:

http://www.greenpinelane.com/yaf/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3750

karri0n said:

G.O.D., I wonder if you'd be willing to do a side by side flowering 2 clones, one under , say, a 200w HPS, and one under the 36W Kessil? I'm trying to find some info on the actual value of the lumens put out by the kessil light, but even that isn't that reliable when you factor in that lights other than the kessils are putting out a whole lot of lumens that aren't usable by the plant.

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No can do - I don't have any HPS lights and won't ever get any, my grow is very stealth and I need minimal heat and noise. CFLs and LEDs are all that I will use.

One day till I switch to 12/12 ... ready or not.

Grumpy Old Dreamer said:

No can do - I don't have any HPS lights and won't ever get any, my grow is very stealth and I need minimal heat and noise. CFLs and LEDs are all that I will use.

One day till I switch to 12/12 ... ready or not.

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You are going to be busy for a few days after going into 12/12. Should have no problem filling the screen.

you keeping the CFL's going once you switch or going with just the kessil?