2 x 357's LED 1st Grow Journal - NL, AK48

Well I have the set up done. This will be my first grow journal. Here are the specs:

5 Northern Lights, 5 AK48, and 5 Ice fem seeds. All 15 germinated and put them in soil last night.

They are currently potted in 25% Fox Farm Light Warrior and 75% Fox Farm Ocean Forrest. My set up is in a Jardin 4x4 grow tent.

2 357 Mag Led lamps set at 18/6 for veg.

I used only water for the first watering. I will be using Botanicare nutes. In a week or two I will start with Liquid Karma and a small dose of CalMag.

Nice setup! How big is the grow tent?

Grow Tent is 4ftx4ftx7ft. Im hoping the 2 LEDS will be sufficient. We will see.....updates to follow

Day 3.

all but 3 have sprouted. So far so good. I am impressed thus far with the LED's.

Pictures may be hard to see.

Day 7

The seeds have been in the soil for exactly 7 days this afternoon. All look very healthy. So far, I am impressed with the LED's. I will give these ladies another week in he cups and then get them into their new homes for the next 3 months.

Just water right now. No nutes have been used.

Week 3 complete

So I just finished up with week 3 of this grow. I am very pleased with the power of the 357 LED's. I started CalMag and grow nutes this week for the first time at 50% suggested use.

I repotted last week with no issues.

I plan to swith to flower this Sunday. I will post back after week 1 of flowering.

Damn, those are some pots! What are they?

Red, Those are 3.5 gal air pruning pots. Cant beat them.

Day 10 of flower. Plants have doubled in size in 10 days. I am starting to see some flowering but its minor still. I am using botanicare nutes as follows.

Cal Mag - 5mils per gal
Pure Blend Pro - 15mils per gal
Liquid Karma - 5mils per gal

Right now I am watering on every 3rd day.

These 357's are awesome. They easily replaced the 600w HPS and more. I have no heat to speak of. The lights are inside of 8" from the canopy.

Very happy so far.

very curious, i have (2) 360w leds that i used, then retire, and am now using again. Have you grown with these leds before? Have you grown with HPS before to compare the difference?
-i noticed half the stretch with leds than HPS in flower.
-more density in colas with leds

looking good....keep it up

george, Im not experienced enough to break down the differences in detail. I only have a few grows under my belt. Here's what I can tell you. I did 2 grows with HPS bulbs. I did have way more stretch. I dealt with heat issues from day one and had to "manage" the grow more. This is my first grow with the LED's and it has been easier. I have less heat. The lights are way closer to plants and in my opinion the plants are alot more healthier. Its been more dummy proof with the LED's. I dont have to manage all this heat and exhaust. The plants are more robust and respond better to the LED's.....again this is my enexperienced opinion. Obviousy yield will play a big part with the final product. I will kep you posted as we move on.

well, from my experience, you need to be careful with coverage and penetration. The light is strongest right underneath it. Spread out and down and you get a lot of popcorn. Also, keep it 12" above the canopy. When i dropped it too close to the plants, i got some bleached buds.

Day 20 Flower. The Ice plants are flowering quite a bit. They are showing buds over most of the plant. The AK48 and NL are starting to form buds on the cannopy. I was anticipating budding a little faster but not sweating it. The plants are all very healthy and showing nice growth.

In one of the pictures you can make out the 3 different strains. The Ice plants are tall and skinny. The NL's are in the back with the wider, fuller leaves and the AK48's are up front with the longer skinnier leaves.

I upped the nutes this week and immediately saw a change. The plants purked up right away. Nutes are as follows:

Botanicare:
CalMag - 5mls/gal
Pure Blend Pro - 20mls/gal
Liquid Karma - 10mls/gal

Right now I am still watering every 3 days and I am alternating watering with nutes every other water.

Looks good to me. What do you all think?

I'm subb'd. How tall where the plants when you induced 12/12?

Omdogg,

I vegged for just shy of 4 weeks. The plants were about 8". I started 12/12 earlier than I would like to of but right now I do not think it mattered. The strain of Ice that I have is very heavy sativa. I vegged for 6 weeks onmy last grow and my plant was 6' plus by the time I harvested. It was too tall to manage. So I started flowering a little earlier this time around. I think that is why the budding is taking slightly longer.....Ill tell you this, the 357's are awesome. I love the ease of them!

Day 33 of flower. Still staying with the same Nutes and dosages as above. I am still watering every 3 days and alternating watering from Nutes. At this point all plants have flowered. Some are progressing faster than others. The Ice and AK48 are moving faster then the Northern Lights. I would like to see the NL moving better but they are healthy and growing so I will just sit back and wait.

What do you guys think? Healthy? Any suggestions?

Oh yeah looking healthy and nice. Its too bad not enough people appreciate LEDs.

Day 51 of Flower.

So, here is where I am at. First, I started with 15 plants. I pulled 5 to go to 10. There were several that were just not keeping up with the others and I thought I would maximize my light with the ones that were coming through. It seemed the NL were lagging behind the Ice and AK48.

I have had enough time to evaluate the LED's. I started with 15 plants in a 4ftx4ft grow area and I think that is too much, especially with a 30 day or more veg cycle. The growth was too thick and the lights were not penetrating. I think for my next grow I may consider 10 plants and experiment with defferent methods of maximizing growth. 2 357's in a 4x4 area with 8 to 12 plants would work much better.

As expected, the AK48 plants are quite a bit further along than the NL and Ice. I think I will be harvesting the AK in about another week to 10 days. The Ice and NL have at least aother 2 to 3 weeks.

You can see a big difference in the appearance when comparing the Ice to the NL and AK. You can see clearly where they get their name from. Nutes are still every other water cycle and I have not changed the dosage. Some of the plants are stronger and "fuller" than the others. I guess this is to be expected with the genes ect. I would like to see all the plants progressing together but I guess that is unrealistic.

Take a look at the plants and let me know what you all think.

I looked at the Trichomes today on the plants and they all are about 25% amber......going to take a little longer than my last forecast. Everything seems to be going well. All plants are filling out very nicely. Same watering schedule and same nute schedule. I would like to think that I have about another week to 10 days......I said that 10 days ago though.

Any thoughts out there on the pics????