New Grower Dr. Frog's Think Different LED organic grow journal

Hey man im growing TD as well going to sub up for this. Hope you dont mind. take a look at my sig if you want help LSting. I did it too late with most of firls i have but one Think Different really shined through have a look.
 
Hey dude, love your grow, im running 900w versions of your lights and love them. I think 50cm hanging height is about the sweet spot for footprint and intensity. I've had my plants grow up to 35cm from the light and had no ill effects. I'm pretty sure you can get em pretty close and they'll still soak up the light and love it. I've sort of tried to LST my Think Differents as well...Scrog is not an option for me because i need some mobility for house inspection time... I just tied string to branches and bent stems down... Think Differents are so damn bushy i dunno how much good LSTing really does for them...like the spacing between the nodes is next to nothing... Well compared to a more leggy plant anyway.
 
Hey dude, love your grow, im running 900w versions of your lights and love them. I think 50cm hanging height is about the sweet spot for footprint and intensity. I've had my plants grow up to 35cm from the light and had no ill effects. I'm pretty sure you can get em pretty close and they'll still soak up the light and love it. I've sort of tried to LST my Think Differents as well...Scrog is not an option for me because i need some mobility for house inspection time... I just tied string to branches and bent stems down... Think Differents are so damn bushy i dunno how much good LSTing really does for them...like the spacing between the nodes is next to nothing... Well compared to a more leggy plant anyway.

We will see how well Lst works out in about two weeks when i have harvested mine. Bet ya it work out better than leaving her grow normally.
 
Hey dude, love your grow, im running 900w versions of your lights and love them. I think 50cm hanging height is about the sweet spot for footprint and intensity. I've had my plants grow up to 35cm from the light and had no ill effects. I'm pretty sure you can get em pretty close and they'll still soak up the light and love it.

Gloomshade! This is what I needed to hear. Just yesterday I lowered my light quite a bit. I think I may have been running my tent a little too cool and damp. ~75F ~55%

I have read some sources and watched a video about growing with LED and they all state the ambient atmosphere needs to be a bit warmer and dryer to aid in transpiration. They say it's because LED doesn't throw off the same radiant heat HID lighting does. Apparently, HID setups aim for cooler ambient air (~75F) and more humidity (50-70% ish?), because the heat from the light brings up the temp at the canopy level, which I now read should be about 85F.

Our Mars II lights are pretty intense and include IR, which is something I think helps makes up for less radiant heat being directed at the leaves. So I've moved my light closer, and now my temps are usually around 83F in the shade of the top canopy.

I hope this helps my plant drink up a little more water, grow, etc.

Also, YES Think Different is super bushy! It's been confusing watching how people LST and scrog because their plants have plenty of node length to work with. I've been anxious about my choice because I feel like just letting it go natural would be just fine too. It's stacking up with nodes, but no real height to train with. I tied my main cola down in the beginning until a few other branches started to take off. Then I let it go, hoping it would reach the scrog net quicker. Now I'm here and just gonna continue with the planned scrog. Unless I get convincing advice not to! :P

Anyway, hope to get some more advice or thoughts regarding LED temperatures and training seriously dense plants like TD.
 
Day 43

Getting some really nice flowers! I know it's an auto, but it's surprising to see such dense flowers forming already. They smell great already, kind of like Skittles.

I decided to do away with the scrog net as she is already super bushy and squat. I've let the main cola go free as well. All the other branches are being LST'd to the sides with rubber bands til they have room to grow up. I feel like ive already interfered enough, so I'll let her get on with her normal shape soon.

Those flowers though!

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Only a phone camera shot, but there's a ton of frost going on already. :)
 
Day 61

I think I must have a very short-lived pheno of TD. She has completely stopped stretching for the past week and a half, and her flowers have been swelling and finishing nicely. A lot of the older leaves are starting to yellow and some have fallen off, which signals to me that her life is almost done.

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The flowers are superb in my opinion. They are very dense and covered in fat trichomes. I bought a pocket microscope (60-100x) and check the crystals every once in a while. As of now, they appear 90% cloudy. I can only rarely find clear ones. Amber trichomes are even rarer, as I've only found a few. The buds are super sticky and my scope smells like wax concentrate. It's almost overpowering. :)

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I know TD is known for going sometimes around 100 days, but this particular plant seems more like a ~70 day variety. I plan to harvest in a week or so. I'm looking forward to a very uplifting high, so I'm trying to avoid too many amber glands.
 
As far as yield goes, I know this run won't produce much. I think my soil was too hot for the way I was feeding. The buds are gonna be top quality though, I can tell. They smell ridiculously good. I keep thinking Skittles and candy.


I got a soil test kit and decided to test some fresh soil from the bag to get an idea of what I had been working with all along. I've been using Fox Farms Coco Loco. I couldn't find any reviews or anything when I bought it because it was so new. Reviews are still rare as far as I can tell.

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So assuming this test is reliable, fresh Coco Loco tested very high in both N and P, literally off the scales provided. The K is high, but still on the chart provided by the kit. PH was between 6.5 and 6. So it seems to be a pretty "hot" soil and I was treating it like some sort of lightly ammended coco coir. I think that is why my plant became stunted. Too many unfiltered teas!

The soil isn't at all like a mostly-coir mix. It's very rich. It's got a nice spongy texture that holds a ton of water... like a sponge haha. I love it for my house plants as it keeps moist for a long time, and I can be forgetful about watering. But for growing medicine, I'd much prefer something that drained and dried much quicker.


I still like the soil, and I plan to use it on my next run. I just have to remember that it contains a truckload of nutrients already. I've mixed up enough soil for the next run in 2 #3 smart pots using ~65% perlite to Coco Loco. I flushed the pots twice with plenty of distilled water to hopefully remove some of the excess nutes. I then topdressed with some EWC and watered in some compost tea to get the microbes going. I'm hoping with so much perlite, I'll get a lot shorter wet/dry cycle times while still retaining some of Coco Loco's forgiving water retention.

If anybody has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
 
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