First time growing and made the decision to cull 1 of the 5 Wedding Cake autos I currently having going in a 3.9 gal autopot system with air domes. 2x4 using a SF2000 currently averaging 525 PAR and 525ppm of Mega crop v2 at 6.35ph. I made the choice to utilize the best PAR across the board IMO for the 4 showing the most shareable pheno traits. I thought I would take the opportunity since I wasn’t planning on ever seeing the roots of the plants till harvest so I ask what are the roots and or leafs telling you if anything that I could take from moving forward into this run.
DAY 38 ROOT HEALTH
- Thread starter Cadguy2022
- Start date
Plants look good and I don't see any issues with the roots but I'm an RDWC grower and "bad roots" in hydro are really easy to spot - they're brown and slimy.
Re. 4 plants in a 2' x 4' - After three grows, I've learned my lesson. My grows have been a 2' x 4', as well and, to my way of growing, 4 plants is 2 plants too many. The key is how you're going to train your plants. If you're going for SOG, you can do 4 plants in a 2' x 4' but if you're doing SCROG, topping, or LST, you may well run out of tent.
I just harvested the plants in picture I've attached. There were 4 plants in the tent, all Gelato autos, topped, and LST'd and they were pretty much the same size for most of the grow. I switch lights (I replaced the Mars SP 3000 with a Growcraft X3) and Jeff took off. I culled two of the other small, bushy plants thinking that Jeff would be a super producer. That was the wrong approach.
It was truly a PITA to work in a tent that full. Jeff yielded a lot, weight wise, but it was not the quality that I got from Mary. I would much rather have had two plants the size of Mary instead of dealing with a beast like Jeff ("When you wrestle with a pig, the pig loves it but you just get dirty."). Mary was light starved for a couple of weeks because I had to tilt the light to a crazy angle and took me that long to get my head out of my ass and buy her a "fill" light but she yielded 221 grams with 181 of that being very nice nugs and it took only 30± minutes to harvest. That's a lot of weed for not very much work.
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Check out info on the inter webs for "how many plants can I grow per square metre" and you'll find some very helpful info.
Re. 525 µmols - what's your lighting schedule? PPFD is one measure of light but it's like saying how heavy it's raining. A more important number, aguably, is "DLI" or daily light integral which tells you how much light your plants are getting in a 24 hour period. At 525 PPFD and 18/6, your DLI is 32'ish. With the exception of a two week period, Mary was getting a DLI of > 50 mols.
Quick question - how are you measuring PPFD?
DLI Chart
Research from "Chandra" at U Miss. Google "Chandra" to get read the full research paper. The graphic below shows yield from a CO2 enriched environment at various light levels and leaf surface temps. For me (no extra CO2), I try to keep the temp at 25° (77°F) or higher and use a DLI of 50+ mols, adjusting based on how the plants react.
This graphic is "everywhere", including the website for Photone, the smart phone app that is used to measure PPFD. Note that it's for photos. Cannabis will grow at those light levels but, per Bugbee (check him out on YouTube), many of the commercial growers who call him in for consultations are "leaving money on the table" by not using enough light.
Re. 4 plants in a 2' x 4' - After three grows, I've learned my lesson. My grows have been a 2' x 4', as well and, to my way of growing, 4 plants is 2 plants too many. The key is how you're going to train your plants. If you're going for SOG, you can do 4 plants in a 2' x 4' but if you're doing SCROG, topping, or LST, you may well run out of tent.
I just harvested the plants in picture I've attached. There were 4 plants in the tent, all Gelato autos, topped, and LST'd and they were pretty much the same size for most of the grow. I switch lights (I replaced the Mars SP 3000 with a Growcraft X3) and Jeff took off. I culled two of the other small, bushy plants thinking that Jeff would be a super producer. That was the wrong approach.
It was truly a PITA to work in a tent that full. Jeff yielded a lot, weight wise, but it was not the quality that I got from Mary. I would much rather have had two plants the size of Mary instead of dealing with a beast like Jeff ("When you wrestle with a pig, the pig loves it but you just get dirty."). Mary was light starved for a couple of weeks because I had to tilt the light to a crazy angle and took me that long to get my head out of my ass and buy her a "fill" light but she yielded 221 grams with 181 of that being very nice nugs and it took only 30± minutes to harvest. That's a lot of weed for not very much work.
.
Check out info on the inter webs for "how many plants can I grow per square metre" and you'll find some very helpful info.
Re. 525 µmols - what's your lighting schedule? PPFD is one measure of light but it's like saying how heavy it's raining. A more important number, aguably, is "DLI" or daily light integral which tells you how much light your plants are getting in a 24 hour period. At 525 PPFD and 18/6, your DLI is 32'ish. With the exception of a two week period, Mary was getting a DLI of > 50 mols.
Quick question - how are you measuring PPFD?
DLI Chart
Research from "Chandra" at U Miss. Google "Chandra" to get read the full research paper. The graphic below shows yield from a CO2 enriched environment at various light levels and leaf surface temps. For me (no extra CO2), I try to keep the temp at 25° (77°F) or higher and use a DLI of 50+ mols, adjusting based on how the plants react.
This graphic is "everywhere", including the website for Photone, the smart phone app that is used to measure PPFD. Note that it's for photos. Cannabis will grow at those light levels but, per Bugbee (check him out on YouTube), many of the commercial growers who call him in for consultations are "leaving money on the table" by not using enough light.
I’ve been using and relying on my Hydrofarm quantum PAR meter. I’m hoping it’s been keeping me at least close enough to learn from.My current light schedule is 20-4.
Good to hear that you spent the $$ on a PAR meter. I've done two grows with the MQ-500 and it was very helpful, especially trying to figure out how to light the tent with meek, miniature Mary on one side of the tent and Jeffzilla on the other side.
Based on what I'm seeing here, it looks like the HydroFarm reads about 10% - 15% low vs the Apogee. "close enough" — no question about that. You might want to back off if you get a reading in the 900 range since that could be 1000 µmols but that's at the edge of the envelope.
At the end of this last grow, I used 20/4 a lot. If you're reading 550 µmols, you're right at 40 DLI (no coincidence, I assume!) but if the HF meter is reading low, you could be in the low to mid-40's. I'm a "If it's too loud, you're too old" persuasion for DLI! Even here in SoCal, which has some of the highest energy costs in the US, the difference in cost to run a grow at 40 DLI vs 45 is not going to be huge but the increase in yield, at the low PPFD levels that we're talking about, will be close to linear. Money well spent, as I see it.
One issue re. light output and number of plants - if you've got a light that is not very uniform (check out ppfdcharts.com for that sort of info) and have a lot of plants in the grow area, such as a SOG, the plants on the edges of the grow area are going to get significantly less light than plants in the center. Growers can shuffle the plants around or just accept that the plants on the periphery aren't going to get as much light. On the other hand, if you're growing, say, two plants in a 2' x 4', you're still dealing with the light falloff on the edges but, since some parts of the plant are getting a higher PPFD, the average PPDF for each plant, as a whole, will be higher than if you're growing SOG.
One thing that Bugbee stresses is that elevated DLI has to work in concert with good or optimal values in the other parts of the growing environment. Great lights don't matter if VPD is whacky or nute levels are way off. The "Parameters of Growth" pix is a screenshot from one of Bugbee's videos. It helps me understand just how many things we're dealing with.
That's my tuppence. Sorry for talking your ear off. I find this a really interesting hobby s0 I get pretty psyched about it. Off to do some Amazon returns and then get my head into starting my Gorilla Glue grow. Of course, that will be done while sampling parts of my last grow.
All the insight is great appreciated. Been trying my damnedest not to make all the typical first time growers mistakes. Keeping a detailed journal along the way. I feel like I’ve been limping along but leaning the strain as I go. Best of luck with your grows I almost popped some GG4 autos for my first attempt. Maybe it will be my next.Good to hear that you spent the $$ on a PAR meter. I've done two grows with the MQ-500 and it was very helpful, especially trying to figure out how to light the tent with meek, miniature Mary on one side of the tent and Jeffzilla on the other side.
Based on what I'm seeing here, it looks like the HydroFarm reads about 10% - 15% low vs the Apogee. "close enough" — no question about that. You might want to back off if you get a reading in the 900 range since that could be 1000 µmols but that's at the edge of the envelope.
At the end of this last grow, I used 20/4 a lot. If you're reading 550 µmols, you're right at 40 DLI (no coincidence, I assume!) but if the HF meter is reading low, you could be in the low to mid-40's. I'm a "If it's too loud, you're too old" persuasion for DLI! Even here in SoCal, which has some of the highest energy costs in the US, the difference in cost to run a grow at 40 DLI vs 45 is not going to be huge but the increase in yield, at the low PPFD levels that we're talking about, will be close to linear. Money well spent, as I see it.
One issue re. light output and number of plants - if you've got a light that is not very uniform (check out ppfdcharts.com for that sort of info) and have a lot of plants in the grow area, such as a SOG, the plants on the edges of the grow area are going to get significantly less light than plants in the center. Growers can shuffle the plants around or just accept that the plants on the periphery aren't going to get as much light. On the other hand, if you're growing, say, two plants in a 2' x 4', you're still dealing with the light falloff on the edges but, since some parts of the plant are getting a higher PPFD, the average PPDF for each plant, as a whole, will be higher than if you're growing SOG.
One thing that Bugbee stresses is that elevated DLI has to work in concert with good or optimal values in the other parts of the growing environment. Great lights don't matter if VPD is whacky or nute levels are way off. The "Parameters of Growth" pix is a screenshot from one of Bugbee's videos. It helps me understand just how many things we're dealing with.
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That's my tuppence. Sorry for talking your ear off. I find this a really interesting hobby s0 I get pretty psyched about it. Off to do some Amazon returns and then get my head into starting my Gorilla Glue grow. Of course, that will be done while sampling parts of my last grow.
You're doing all the right things.
"limping" - yeh, I know the feeling but that'll soon change. There's lot of excellent help and resources here.
