Side lights

Cob Led strip lights. Where it is dark and yellow/airy buds that popped up after pruning suckers end of strech. Dark areas shaded from buds, leaves and crammed space from scrogging/stacking and reaching the walls around corners. Late flower.

It is working, buds are turning green but I got 6000k instead of yellow light. How will this effect buds? Would you keep using them or do yellow light next time? Nice for low watt led and small space grows.

These are buds one wouldn’t care much for anyway but after trying it, wow it works. Worth the 30 watts. Keeps lower canopy similar temps as above. Looks like 1-2g nugs. Or would you prune again instead?

Don’t mind the leaves, it is late flower/ripe almost and it was dark and windy and cold down there. I notice more green tint and fattening like it found purpose again instead of being a sucker. I am loving this idea, I do not see many do this though I would only do it in crammed spaces of 2x2 or 2x4 etc.

resin shot

I use around 50W of side-lighting in my 4x4. It's worth it, turns fluffy larf into thumbnail sized buds. My side-lights lights are PC Red up top and 6500K below. It's not a bad idea to get a bit more blue light into the lower canopy as most of it is absorbed by the upper canopy which let's through far red and green light. 4000K is probably the best alround spectrum for lower canopy lighting if you have a predominantly red top-light.



Decent bud development all the way down the plant.

Prawn Connery said:

I use around 50W of side-lighting in my 4x4. It's worth it, turns fluffy larf into thumbnail sized buds. My side-lights lights are PC Red up top and 6500K below. It's not a bad idea to get a bit more blue light into the lower canopy as most of it is absorbed by the upper canopy which let's through far red and green light. 4000K is probably the best alround spectrum for lower canopy lighting if you have a predominantly red top-light.

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Decent bud development all the way down the plant.
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Nice! Yea I quickly figured this was worth it, for this 2x2, there is easily 7gs on each side of larf that deserved a nice tint and some light as that would be almost 1g per watt of this 30w strip light which would be dope. Hard to guess yield.

Personally I trim off all those little popcorn buds early in flowering. Not enough there and a PITA to trim up. Removing them early in the game allows the energy that would be wasted by the plant trying to grow them go to the top colas and you'll get a much better ROI from those.

I usually crop the tops first then lower the lights and let decent sized lower buds/colas ripen and fatten up for another 10 days or so before finishing off the plants.

OldMedUser said:

Removing them early in the game allows the energy that would be wasted by the plant trying to grow them go to the top colas and you'll get a much better ROI from those.

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Exactly what I was thinking. I have a question tho. Extra light means extra resources, so is it still beneficial?

OldMedUser said:

Personally I trim off all those little popcorn buds early in flowering. Not enough there and a PITA to trim up. Removing them early in the game allows the energy that would be wasted by the plant trying to grow them go to the top colas and you'll get a much better ROI from those.

I usually crop the tops first then lower the lights and let decent sized lower buds/colas ripen and fatten up for another 10 days or so before finishing off the plants.

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I get the science of pruning larf for upper buds which I did do, but with such a big 3gal coco pot being ran so well during veg/stretch (auto flower) that it just has a lot to spurt out.

I scrogged perfectly meaning the lights cannot raise any further and the tops are supper uniform, 50+ of them and prejected to only grow 2-4 inches into shortest distance allowed from light with 4 inches being around chop anyway, lights dimmed.

But I still have a good 3 inches of shaded buds/bottom rest of the main colas that still grow as if light was hitting it. This run really helped see that the happier the plant, the more it wants to give.

I am photo shy and like to limit posts of active grows, in short, there are way better sites to see than what I posted with size comparison, larf yea but with some love it has some impressive last minute shwank to give. edit: or shwag or shag idk lol bottom tier.

I read those are the buds you smoke while rest cures all the way. Next time I would opt for a wider canopy for better light penetration.

This grow taught me that hormones are just as responsible for fattening of buds, the biggest are on the weaker spots of light ppfd map. They follow a general flowering schedule and just gives you what it gives you genetically or ppfd used.

Cheap 800-1000 ppfd china aftermarket light, cannot immagine my buds under a 2200ppfd vpar. Have yet to learn fimming but really, I feel like it does it by itself, probably a photo period tactic for my next scrog if it is even needed.

I create colas at will, the nodes are destined to give you a cola. I posted a thread that time answered which is that you can only break the vertical dominance and make as many 2 size shape variang colas or perfect fimming for 4x the size.

To my knowledge that is only putting colas as close as possible which I can do naturally. Please school me where I am wrong, that is my current philosophy. Sorry for the book, just making sure I am getting things down.



That is what it looks like underneath. I probably would not have this if the canopy was allowed to open up .5 feet all around. Prune suckers at end of stretch and then again in late flower in the same area as shown in photo.

I agree simply because I prefer to have all my watts in the main light and it grows overall spontaneously, my real question on the mentioned thread was can the colas get smaller the more you make them, I concluded not if you are giving it energy overall to convert.

In short, if yall saw the whole grow from a distance, I could explain in one photo what I am really doing here, which is some what a side ways canopy, sometimes I need a minute to condense a book to two words.

spacebucket/2x2 hybrid grow lol.

drcannabis.io said:

Exactly what I was thinking. I have a question tho. Extra light means extra resources, so is it still beneficial?

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Not sure what you mean. Extra light cost me 30+¢/kwh here so don't want to waste it for a little more popcorn. I can't see 30W of any light making enough of a difference to popcorn yields to be worth the effort.

Buds don't even need direct light to grow in size but they will be lighter green and won't fully ripen until exposed to decent light. When I crop the tops and allow lower buds to ripen but want to have vegging plants in there I just switch the light back to 18/6 and that helps the buds ripen even faster. They'll be cropped long before they can try to go back to veg mode under the longer day.

Extra lighting on the tops would for sure do more for yields than on the sides. I add extra light during the stretch along with CO2, more nutes and higher temps to give them lots of everything during that 3 week growth spurt then tone things down to normal after the stretch.

medidedicated said:

I agree simply because I prefer to have all my watts in the main light and it grows overall spontaneously, my real question on the mentioned thread was can the colas get smaller the more you make them, I concluded not if you are giving it energy overall to convert.

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For sure the more colas you force the plant to make via topping and ScroGing the smaller they'll be but overall you get much bigger yields as you have a lot more colas. I did a few DWC ScroGs that gave twice as much as plants just FIMed a couple times and allowed to grow without ScroGing.

Longer veg time tho so it's 6 of one and a half dozen of the other kind of thing I think.

I use HID lights and have a light mover so can keep the light nice and close if I run out of head space without burning the plants. Saves a lot of expensive power too if I can keep a 600W going on the mover rather than switching to 1000W cover more area.

OldMedUser said:

For sure the more colas you force the plant to make via topping and ScroGing the smaller they'll be but overall you get much bigger yields as you have a lot more colas. I did a few DWC ScroGs that gave twice as much as plants just FIMed a couple times and allowed to grow without ScroGing.

Longer veg time tho so it's 6 of one and a half dozen of the other kind of thing I think.

I use HID lights and have a light mover so can keep the light nice and close if I run out of head space without burning the plants. Saves a lot of expensive power too if I can keep a 600W going on the mover rather than switching to 1000W cover more area.

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Forgot to acknowledge chopping in sections, I just do not know where I would hang to dry, I thought you use the same tent if thats the best you had, no where to hang with rh that might or sure will drop below 55rh. I want to rid of the grassy hey smell.

Like I said, this is already a mid teir light grow, I am sure they would love some exposure if I got a yield worth bragging about, but it is 250w and the ppfd below so I figured wasting a little watts is ok.



I feel like I am choosing a football team with nutes and lights lol Looks like I am going to be a vpar guy,where are my rivals? I am coming! lol

medidedicated said:

Forgot to acknowledge chopping in sections, I just do not know where I would hang to dry, I thought you use the same tent if thats the best you had, no where to hang with rh that might or sure will drop below 55rh. I want to rid of the grassy hey smell.

Like I said, this is already a mid teir light grow, I am sure they would love some exposure if I got a yield worth bragging about, but it is 250w and the ppfd below so I figured wasting a little watts is ok.

I feel like I am choosing a football team with nutes and lights lol Looks like I am going to be a vpar guy,where are my rivals? I am coming! lol

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for smoking buds I trim fresh off the plant then put about 100g of fresh bud in doubled up paper bags and slow dry them down in my chilly basement over a 3 - 5 week span. They are still moist enough when I jar them up for another month of burping until dry enough to smoke but so smooth and smell so good.

90% or so just gets frozen fresh to make into meds later and I'm way overstocked with that stuff so need to get that done real soon as I'm running out of oils.

OldMedUser said:

for smoking buds I trim fresh off the plant then put about 100g of fresh bud in doubled up paper bags and slow dry them down in my chilly basement over a 3 - 5 week span. They are still moist enough when I jar them up for another month of burping until dry enough to smoke but so smooth and smell so good.

90% or so just gets frozen fresh to make into meds later and I'm way overstocked with that stuff so need to get that done real soon as I'm running out of oils.

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I can be timid with problems I never had but I am timid with curing because one time I did it careless by probably letting it dry in minus 55rh and it gave me an ashma like attack which never happened before with other people’s weed. Still wondering wtf happened.

It grew under horrid conditions of a 90%rh green house and was basically one giant larf bush with only 3 hrs direct sunlight a day if lucky. Was not my grow so I barely did much or cared.

The underdeveloped larf bud is another possibility for sure.

I am choosing vpar because I cannot find anyother light that has 2200 ppfd across the map for smaller spaces like 2x4. Seems like they want to only supply 3x3 , 4x4 and 5x5 with the most ppfd todays market can offer.

It is about the ppfd right? if I wanted to yield two ibs in a 2x4? I say yes, I see people growing the same strain with each cola 2-3x the size of my main colas but they have less and under a 1500 ppfd light vpar, similar space. Yielded ten z’s a plant, not bad.

It is the best I seen anyone do with this strain because it is marketed to newbs who chop when the calendar says to. They also do something else horribly wrong.

Might stand out with this one due to that, it is way better than most journals posted, mine looks like the vendors lol Lo ryder derivative, I am geeked.

OldMedUser said:

Extra lighting on the tops would for sure do more for yields than on the sides.

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I would have to disagree. Light is light, and plants will always grow towards it, whether it is top or side-lighting. I grew with vertical HPS bulbs for many years and used to consistently pull 1.4gpw and almost 4lb from a 4x4. You can't pull those numbers from a 4x4 with top-lighting alone.

A lot of people treat their canopy as two-dimensional when in fact it is 3D. Plants in nature almost never get lit from directly overhead – go outside right now and have a look. The sun traces an arc across the horizon which means nearly all plants get lit from the top and sides at the same time. Side-lighting is the natural order of things, yet most indoor growers ignore it.

One watt of side-lighting has the same value as one watt of top-lighting when it comes to yield. Sometimes it has more, depending on how it penetrates the lower canopy.

When you reach the optimum amount of light in the top canopy – 800-1000PPFD or whatever your plants like – then the only way to improve yields (CO2 aside) is to add side-lighting. Adding more top lighting will simply burn your plants, but adding side-lighting increases your canopy coverage with a resulting increase in yield.

A properly side-lit plant grows buds from top to bottom. Here are some examples:

Prawn Connery said:

I would have to disagree. Light is light, and plants will always grow towards it, whether it is top or side-lighting. I grew with vertical HPS bulbs for many years and used to consistently pull 1.4gpw and almost 4lb from a 4x4. You can't pull those numbers from a 4x4 with top-lighting alone.

A lot of people treat their canopy as two-dimensional when in fact it is 3D. Plants in nature almost never get lit from directly overhead – go outside right now and have a look. The sun traces an arc across the horizon which means nearly all plants get lit from the top and sides at the same time. Side-lighting is the natural order of things, yet most indoor growers ignore it.

One watt of side-lighting has the same value as one watt of top-lighting when it comes to yield. Sometimes it has more, depending on how it penetrates the lower canopy.

When you reach the optimum amount of light in the top canopy – 800-1000PPFD or whatever your plants like – then the only way to improve yields (CO2 aside) is to add side-lighting. Adding more top lighting will simply burn your plants, but adding side-lighting increases your canopy coverage with a resulting increase in yield.

A properly side-lit plant grows buds from top to bottom. Here are some examples:

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I am waiting a few weeks to show another photo and possibly more, but they are indeed continuing to develop. They could be slouched over too to get more of the light if they did not meet the minimum mark of canopy.

Like I said, this run is pretty much a oversized spacebucket for first 3” canopy of 1-2g nuggets and then it helps light up the next 3” of dark area but full size buds and then boom, 10-12” spears in full light.

I read the sun is like 2500 ppfd, that would make sense why lights in the 2200 ppfd range grow so large. Like a sunny beautiful day that keeps repeating haha.

It can get to 2000+PPFD in the middle of the day in summer, but it doesn't maintain that level. Sunlight also has a lot of far red light to balance out the other spectra. Not all PPFD is created equally as blues and violets carry more energy than reds, so colour temperature (spectral spread) is also important. Plants can handle higher PPFD levels of red light compared to blue, for example.

I feel like there is a transision where plants respond to lights off and let off less moisture. Just a wild guess because why would it reach 37rh with cooler temps and lights off?

I feel like adding heat might make it worse since it will be a steeper temp drop.