120W LED + Rainforest 66 + Papaya

s.mills said:

Hey brew she's looking real nice. Keep up the good work. Do you think flowering with LED's will change the flowering time at all? ya know longer or shorter?

keep up the good work

Click to expand...

Thanks bro. I don't have any experience with HPS/MH growing and have only harvested outdoors so its hard for me to say RE: different flowering time. It would not surprise me if the flowering schedule is accelerated slightly, based solely on my plant's development compared to several 250-400w+hydro plants at the same stage I've seen in other journals. Again this is more of a feeling than anything though. I do know that LEDs promote more vigorous root growth according to the NASA studies and tests on other plants. I also know that the bigger the root mass before flowering the bigger and better the bud...just sayin.

Today I shut down the clone machine and transplanted the 3 papaya clones to soil. They will be under a 55w tri-band (the one I used to have in the tent) during the veg phase. The plan is to select the best clone as my new mother, then take new clones from that mother by the time I finish this harvest. I'm guesstimating I have 6 weeks of flowering left and that I can veg the new mom in 4-5 weeks and root the clones in 1-2 weeks...so it should work out.

and any comments or questions are always welcome.

does your cloner have misters could you show a pic of that unit ...i use to have units with neoprene collars and just airstone bars in water and they worked for a while ...

OK.. you know how many days that papaya is in flowering?

Great work, man. I'm inspired.

doktorgreenthumb420 said:

does your cloner have misters could you show a pic of that unit ...i use to have units with neoprene collars and just airstone bars in water and they worked for a while ...

Click to expand...

I'll try to get a pic up later, but yeah it has 13 misters and is just like the botanicare one. Try putting a few drops of superthrive in the water it did the trick for me.

ElephantRider said:

OK.. you know how many days that papaya is in flowering?

Click to expand...

Today is day 18 of 12/12, I made the switch on 4/20 so it would be easy to remember. The only thing I did unconventional with the lights was go directly from 24/0 to 12/12 with no training period or extended dark period beforehand.

Day 18 flowering pics. The first from last pic shows "popcorn" buds that are on the bottom 1/3rd of plant and the last pic shows the inside of my aerocloner for doktor420.

damn. 18 days and theyre showing nice growth. and that strain looks like it really sativa? which takes even longer. actually looks alot like the kalimist pics ive been seeing. long branches with little leaves and very slim leaves. prob going to be a nice buzz. ive never grown a sativa befor but the leaves look amazing. its well on its way. cant wait for 2 more weeks. once you see the developement rate for a couple more weeks you can estimate the yield if youve grown before. but my guess now is 71 dry grams. lol. make sure you post the results. its always been good luck for me to guess so dont worry.

1982grower said:

damn. 18 days and theyre showing nice growth. and that strain looks like it really sativa? which takes even longer. actually looks alot like the kalimist pics ive been seeing. long branches with little leaves and very slim leaves. prob going to be a nice buzz. ive never grown a sativa befor but the leaves look amazing. its well on its way. cant wait for 2 more weeks. once you see the developement rate for a couple more weeks you can estimate the yield if youve grown before. but my guess now is 71 dry grams. lol. make sure you post the results. its always been good luck for me to guess so dont worry.

Click to expand...

Nah man papaya is a pure indica strain. I do know what you're saying about the recent pics looking like a sativa though, but that is a trait I only notice around new growth areas. Eventually the leaves fill out to be very bushy and indica looking like the old pics show. I may have hit the phenotype jackpot with this plant overall though.

71 grams sounds pretty good! My dream is to pull 120g dry for a 1g:1w ratio. So far I'm impressed with the results, but at the same time I have played it incredibly safe with the nutes. 900ppm is the highest the plant has seen, so when I clean out the res in a couple days I'm going to bump the new solution to 1200ppm. Its time I stop babying this girl and put her to work and see what she can really do.

Oh and here is a pic of the g13 haze I mentioned a few pages back. This was some seriously powerful smoke so I'm really looking forward to seeing how it grows.

first time i seen this thread 206 and im bout to get tha same set up with out da hydro dont know what medium ill be using thuogh

brick20 said:

first time i seen this thread 206 and im bout to get tha same set up with out da hydro dont know what medium ill be using thuogh

Click to expand...

That sounds cool man! This week I started growing some future mothers in soil using 70/30 ocean forest to perlite under a 55w tri-band. Let me know what you decide on for a medium and how it ends up working out for you.

Here is random day 19 flower pic before I go to sleep.

suscribed will be instresting to see the results

i see what you mean by indica now. the older leaves are def more what im used to. i notice now what you mean about the new growth. maybe if your height stays within reason ill try them. mine are finished and i need to start the next. and want 2 strains. its a good idea for mothers to be in soil. keeps them smaller. i assume most dont need 50 clones a month. lol. i did mine in hydro and had to cut them every week. didnt matter but they grew way too fast for the clones i needed

Added day 20 flowering pics.

Today I drained and replaced the nutrient solution. I think there was too much nitrogen in the res which was causing some upper leaves to claw, so I added micro sparingly and went heavy on bloom and big bud this time. I rotated the plant 180 degrees and wow...its really weird to see it from this side now.

Today I got bored (and blazed) and decided to mount the 18w blue and 55w tri-band together in an array. It just didn't make sense to let the 18w go to waste during times that I'm not cloning, so I added it to the mix over my future mother plants. I wired each light to remote control outlets for easy operation and mounted them to the baseboard with heavy duty velcro. There is enough velco so that I don't have to worry about the panels detaching, but not so much that it could become a struggle to pull the lights off the board.

If you go back 5-6 pages you can see where I had the 18w over some damaged plants and they completely rejuvinated and grew rapidly before I had to use the light for cloning.

Pic 1: Finished array
Pic 2: Close-up of panels
Pic 3: 18w turned on
Pic 4: Both units turned on
Pic 5: Shining against the outside of my tent
Pic 6: Mounted over the "mother box". This is where I'm growing a few clones & seeds in soil and selecting the best as new mother plants.

Day 21 flowering pics.

hey man, you need to try an experiment.

I had the 18 watt. I out it right over the plants. Like an inch. I put a cfl a half foot away. The plant bent over sideways to get to the cfl. Those are half watt leds. I was pissed.

I just bought the triband UFO. I love it. I am no bashing leds. But if you are gettting good results I got to find my 18 watt again lol. I was a crappy grower then.

Cool grow.

dirt clean said:

hey man, you need to try an experiment.

I had the 18 watt. I out it right over the plants. Like an inch. I put a cfl a half foot away. The plant bent over sideways to get to the cfl. Those are half watt leds. I was pissed.

I just bought the triband UFO. I love it. I am no bashing leds. But if you are gettting good results I got to find my 18 watt again lol. I was a crappy grower then.

Cool grow.

Click to expand...

Thanks man.

What was the wattage on that CFL? That is an important factor because I actually have experimented with both already, you can see it around page 6 or 7 of this journal. I had 4x26w 6500K CFL's in an array over two plants in a small dwc system. The plants were already a few weeks old and were previously under the 120w LED in the rainforest. They showed no growth during 1 week of veg under CFLs, however exploded in one week after switching to 18w LED. The 18w also produced explosive root growth in all of my clones, which were taken after 2 weeks of 12/12 and are now vegging in soil no problem. Just giving my honest assessment of this panel so far, but I hope to know more after this current experiment.

Distance might have also been an issue for you. When I started with my LEDs I thought 1-2" away was optimal, but after a lot of experimenting I now prefer 12-18".

Best of luck with your UFO! You should consider starting a journal.

You got plants touching the top! Have you considered super-cropping? Since you have so much time left, it's not a bad option..

Alright dude.

I have been catching up on your grow here and I must say NICE F*KING WORK. I get the feeling that people are angry about L.E.D's for some reason. Maybe they are angry that they are wasteing 90% of the energy burned in HID lighting systems. Keep up the great work and prove the haters wrong, you know how people react to changes. This journal has inspired me to not even buy any HID lighting systems like i had origionaly planned. If i do get any HID lighting system i may try a 250W and overlap it with a L.E.D I bet that would be BOMB, but only if necessary.

I have a few questions about your setup. Please dont feel I am trying to steal your setup, I just want to replicate your results. Can you tell me where you got your grow tent , from the sock port it looks like a 4hydroponics darkroom. What are you useing to circulate air, if anything so the plant gets fresh air? Do you have any type of carbon filter for smell?

I honestly cannot wait to see your plants when they are fully budded and ready for harvest. I am VERY excited about useing an L.E.D grow system. Just the savings in energy is enough to get me hooked. Great grow dude, keep up the good work.

ElephantRider said:

You got plants touching the top! Have you considered super-cropping? Since you have so much time left, it's not a bad option..

Click to expand...

Haha, yeah it is getting very very close to the top. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do, but super cropping is in the cards if I don't buy a taller tent.

Ap0c0leS said:

Alright dude.

I have been catching up on your grow here and I must say NICE F*KING WORK. I get the feeling that people are angry about L.E.D's for some reason. Maybe they are angry that they are wasteing 90% of the energy burned in HID lighting systems. Keep up the great work and prove the haters wrong, you know how people react to changes. This journal has inspired me to not even buy any HID lighting systems like i had origionaly planned. If i do get any HID lighting system i may try a 250W and overlap it with a L.E.D I bet that would be BOMB, but only if necessary.

I have a few questions about your setup. Please dont feel I am trying to steal your setup, I just want to replicate your results. Can you tell me where you got your grow tent , from the sock port it looks like a 4hydroponics darkroom. What are you useing to circulate air, if anything so the plant gets fresh air? Do you have any type of carbon filter for smell?

I honestly cannot wait to see your plants when they are fully budded and ready for harvest. I am VERY excited about useing an L.E.D grow system. Just the savings in energy is enough to get me hooked. Great grow dude, keep up the good work.

Click to expand...

Thanks bro! Feel free to copy 1% or 100% of my setup, but don't feel like you're stealing.

Tent: I have a secret jardin DR80 and yes I think 4hydro has it. If I could do it over I would have bought a DR100 for the additional height and space, just FYI.

Ventilation: I haven't talked about this yet, because I don't want to get flamed, but I'm not venting the tent in any way other than opening the roll-up windows during lights on. This is a terrible practice according to 99.9% of things I've read, but it couldn't be working out better for me. If the plant had a transpiration problem I would have seen it by now IMO.

Regarding MH/HPS + Rainforest: Take a look at this guy's journal from last year: https://www.rollitup.org/427662-post22.html

This is the closest setup I can find to my own with the obvious exception of lights. He had three plants in there compared to my one, but during veg they all bushed together and looked similar to my papaya. Our veg times were also almost identical with mine vegging 1-2 extra days. He was using a 400w MH + 600w HPS and running almost double the ppm I am, and I still feel like I'm neck and neck with his grow @ 23 days flowering. I'm not trying to start another LED vs. HPS argument mind you, just comparing two similar setups with the biggest difference being lighting.

Carbon filter: I don't have one yet because papaya just doesn't smell, its weird. One of the big reasons I went with this strain: https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/14097-smell-end.html

and pic updates soon.

Dude. Smart choice on the smell! I hear that original G13 doesn't smell, either. I'm huge into taste and smell, but that might make growing easier. Hmmm. Anyways, I'm psyched about your G13 Haze, as I've been thinking about trying that one in the PC case. I hear it's a VERY small sativa, compared to most.

Awesome work, man. I'm so excited to see yield, but more so, just to see final pics. I still need to find an array that would fit in the case. Either that or wait until legalization happens, so I can just get a "normal" grow up and still run LED.