New Grower 2budz “In over my head” grow

[2budz]

3 over and 2 down? That's about the same size I had at 20 days when I recently up potted a double grape.

I just realized you had the plant right lol. Sorry for explaining it backwards.

 

[Delps8]

Little update. They’re all doing well. I have 100% decided I won’t be doing this many plants at a time again. I’m going to probably do 4 plants max in here in 3 or 5 gallon bags.

Lemme toss this in the ring…

I'd argue for 2 plants in that tent. You've got 7 sq ft of tent space (my tent's a 2' x 4' so I'm tuned into small tents). If you Google sites for "How many cannabis plants can you grow per square meter?" you'll find a lot of info including a handy dandy calculator on one site. Take that for what it's worth since is just another of the billions of pages on the interne but, if you read a few sites, you'll get a consensus. The bigger issue, as I see it, is based on this PPFD map.

You've got a significant drop in PPFD between center mass and the edges. Take the 18" data, for example - you're losing (roughly) ⅔ of you light levels between center and the left/right side of the tent and a good ⅓ when you move from center mass to the back or front of the tent. With that many plants in the tent, the plants in the corners are getting only a tiny fraction of the photons that the other plants are receiving.

Let me propose an alternative scenario. With two plants under that light, you're still looking at the same PPDF map but with two plants, some parts of the plant will get lots of photons, some parts will get very few but the plant will tend to grow bigger because the PPFD level for the entire plant is sufficient. That allows the plant to photosynthesize at a pretty high level and make up for the leaves at the periphery who are getting very few photons.

PPFD is, essentially, the number of photons hitting the canopy at a given time. That's important to know but another piece of the equation is "DLI" or "daily light integral". That tells you how much light your plant is getting over the course of the day. One of the neat things about autos is that they don't have to stick with 12/12 in flower - we can "leave the light on" for much longer than the 12/12 light cycle for autos in flower. This is a handy chart for working with DLI. From the chart, at 350 you're only going to get a DLI of about 30 if you leave the light on 24/0 but 24/0, from what I've read, has some drawbacks. If you drop to 20/4, your DLI will only be 25 which is good for the seedling stage but very low for veg or flower.

Even at four plants, you're divvying up a limited number of photons but it's clear that four plants will tent to fare much better. The light puts out 1647 µmols - divide that by 4 and you're at 410 µmols so even at 20/4, those plants are averaging a DLI of < 30 which is very low. If you drop to two plants, you're up to 800 µmols and that gives you much more flexibility in your lighting schedule, as well as a more even yield from each plant. (this site has test results of a few popular lights.)

I am a big follower of Dr. Bruce Bugbee (check him out on You Tube). Two ideas from Bugbee - light is food to plants and, second, he has found, repeatedly, that growers, in his case commercial growers, "leave money on the table" by not using enough light. I suspect that you're in that boat - the you're not getting the full yield because of your lighting. It's not that you don't have enough moles of light rather that you're spreading them too thin. Cut it down to 2 plants and, dollars to doughnuts, your overall yield will increase.

 

[2budz]

Lemme toss this in the ring…

I'd argue for 2 plants in that tent. You've got 7 sq ft of tent space (my tent's a 2' x 4' so I'm tuned into small tents). If you Google sites for "How many cannabis plants can you grow per square meter?" you'll find a lot of info including a handy dandy calculator on one site. Take that for what it's worth since is just another of the billions of pages on the interne but, if you read a few sites, you'll get a consensus. The bigger issue, as I see it, is based on this PPFD map.

You've got a significant drop in PPFD between center mass and the edges. Take the 18" data, for example - you're losing (roughly) ⅔ of you light levels between center and the left/right side of the tent and a good ⅓ when you move from center mass to the back or front of the tent. With that many plants in the tent, the plants in the corners are getting only a tiny fraction of the photons that the other plants are receiving.

Let me propose an alternative scenario. With two plants under that light, you're still looking at the same PPDF map but with two plants, some parts of the plant will get lots of photons, some parts will get very few but the plant will tend to grow bigger because the PPFD level for the entire plant is sufficient. That allows the plant to photosynthesize at a pretty high level and make up for the leaves at the periphery who are getting very few photons.

PPFD is, essentially, the number of photons hitting the canopy at a given time. That's important to know but another piece of the equation is "DLI" or "daily light integral". That tells you how much light your plant is getting over the course of the day. One of the neat things about autos is that they don't have to stick with 12/12 in flower - we can "leave the light on" for much longer than the 12/12 light cycle for autos in flower. This is a handy chart for working with DLI. From the chart, at 350 you're only going to get a DLI of about 30 if you leave the light on 24/0 but 24/0, from what I've read, has some drawbacks. If you drop to 20/4, your DLI will only be 25 which is good for the seedling stage but very low for veg or flower.

Even at four plants, you're divvying up a limited number of photons but it's clear that four plants will tent to fare much better. The light puts out 1647 µmols - divide that by 4 and you're at 410 µmols so even at 20/4, those plants are averaging a DLI of < 30 which is very low. If you drop to two plants, you're up to 800 µmols and that gives you much more flexibility in your lighting schedule, as well as a more even yield from each plant. (this site has test results of a few popular lights.)

I am a big follower of Dr. Bruce Bugbee (check him out on You Tube). Two ideas from Bugbee - light is food to plants and, second, he has found, repeatedly, that growers, in his case commercial growers, "leave money on the table" by not using enough light. I suspect that you're in that boat - the you're not getting the full yield because of your lighting. It's not that you don't have enough moles of light rather that you're spreading them too thin. Cut it down to 2 plants and, dollars to doughnuts, your overall yield will increase.

That is the plan moving forward. I’m already tired of having 19 plants going at once. All in different stages. I will probably get rid of my 2 smaller tents and just use this one. 1-2 going at a time tops. 7 gallon bags. And I will probably upgrade the light at some point as well. Although I don’t know if there is a better light out there for this space.

 

[Delps8]

Good to hear. Fewer plants is better for me.

I bought a ViparSpectra 1500 to light one mature auto and was very impressed. The bigger brother looks to be as good a product. That light has a lot of blue but very little in the red spectrum. That's surprising. I have the bigger brother to this light. I bought it based on the spectrum and the features and, having used it for a grow, am impressed with the quality of the product, as well.

There's a ton of other lights out there, no doubt and the devil is in the details. The great thing is that there are so many excellent products out there. Good luck with that!

 

[2budz]

Good to hear. Fewer plants is better for me.

I bought a ViparSpectra 1500 to light one mature auto and was very impressed. The bigger brother looks to be as good a product. That light has a lot of blue but very little in the red spectrum. That's surprising. I have the bigger brother to this light. I bought it based on the spectrum and the features and, having used it for a grow, am impressed with the quality of the product, as well.

There's a ton of other lights out there, no doubt and the devil is in the details. The great thing is that there are so many excellent products out there. Good luck with that!

I actually just put the Viparspectra 1500 in one of my 2x2 tents. It’s nearly identical to the ts1000 I have in my other 2x2. I’ve actually thought about just adding another sf2000 in this tent but I can’t stomach the retail price. I paid $100 for this one I have right now.

 

[Delps8]

I actually just put the Viparspectra 1500 in one of my 2x2 tents. It’s nearly identical to the ts1000 I have in my other 2x2. I’ve actually thought about just adding another sf2000 in this tent but I can’t stomach the retail price. I paid $100 for this one I have right now.

Oh good, that's a great little light. One caveat is that the XS line has a lot of blue in its spectrum. That keeps plants compact but they're shy in the red spectrum which tends to drive flowering and vertical growth. I don't know the market that well anymore.

Yeh, I hear you about $$. I paid $110 for my 1500 a few months ago. Scary shit. Destruction of anything takes less time than it does to repair it. An economy is subject to that rule. We went down this road in the late 1970's and it took years to unwind.

And, heh, just another reason to grow your own, right?

 

[2budz]

Very fast growth in this tent. Tips of the leaves are slightly turned down. Anyone know what they’re telling me?

 

[Suki]

Very fast growth in this tent. Tips of the leaves are slightly turned down. Anyone know what they’re telling me?

View attachment 1417320

Ime... water, temps, nitrogen, wind, or just sleepy.

 

[Suki]

You're in soil right? With regular plastic pots they might not be drying out enough between waterings?

 

[Rasterman]

I was wondering if you were keeping them a little wet.