Spectra is here!

DoctorCanna said:

on top of the canopy, you will undoubtadly see burning of the leaves and possible bleaching of the top most calyxes, but this is no big deal and should be ignored in light of the benefit of much bigger denser buds, this i can assure you. Second cut off all fan leaves, that is the large single leaf below each branch, and any spindly large fan leaves on very developed branches. Doing this will allow for much better penetration of light to bud sites therefore increasing yields. Finally my last advice is once your finished with this grow sell those lights and invest in better ones, if you want my personal opinion on best lights for price/quality/specialized for flowering cannabis just pm me. Again i know this was criicall but these are facts and good advice, i leave it up to you as to weather or not you wish to follow it. awesome plant, get those cycles right and be kind t her, she doesnt like to be stressed. Happy growing. Peace. P.S. sorry about the countless spelling snd gramaticall errors, typing on a tablet is tough, lol

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Horrible advice. There are to many on the forum that spew terrible advice. Im not going to point out every single area of advice thats wrong. But alot of what you say is absolutely false.

It's not all terrible advice. getting your leds as close to the canopy without losing more footprint than you find desirable is the best way to get more intense light to your buds. However, destroying the rest of your plant in the process should be avoided. I would start with my panel high, work down until signs of bleaching start and there is your limit. An 1/8 inch of bleached tips will be worth the added density. Cutting fan leaves is a common practice and many growers swear by a good trimming around the third or fourth weeks. I personally trim little, but there are people who achieve excellent results with heavy pruning. Just be careful not to stunt them.

DoctorCanna said:

okay im going to give you some pointers and im going to be pretty criticsl, plesse dont take it the wrong way. The light you bought from mike is pos when compared to other led lights on the market right now, dont buy into the whole more spectrums is better crap, they arent. The only spectrums you want are primarily blue and red (630-660nm, more 660 than 630), one or two uv bulbs can be beneficial as well as 3 or 4 green, but you really dont need anything other than red and blue for flowerin medicinal marijuana in varying wavelenghs peaking in the PAR wavelengths known to be best for cannabis. If you payed more than $1 per watt for that light you got ripped. Dont get me wrong, it will produce buds, but buds far inferior to those that would have been produced by a diff light. My advice or instruction rather is to get that light closer and closer to the top of your plant until your about 1 inch away, obviously you will lose coverage but what good is coverage if those buds only produce airy nothingness. By getting the light as close as possible you will maximize enetration and develope as much bud through the body of the plant as the light will allow. Treat your spectra and blackstar the same and attempt to lower each every day until they are right

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I should of quoted his first post, but he said to have them 1 inch away from your plant. I only quoted the second half.
Yes that is ideal to start high and end as low as your plants can take. But, for someone not familiar with led growing, might take what he said as gospel, which its not.

thank goodness I am fairly empirical when it comes to how I take advice from online sources. Its pretty easy to tell if someone is just verbal vomiting (see DoctorCanna posts). My panels are now about 10" from the canopy plus 2x55w cfls a little closer at about 4". I am getting some other problems which I will post pics of soon. I think its nute burn so I have begun flushing as of today. And I think I am finished with nutes as I expect maturity in the next 10 days to 2 weeks. Hairs are beginning to brown up. I am pretty sure I am going to end up in the popcorn dept. The high end of it but, that is because I started flowering waaay too early, plus all the other stresses from her life. I think adding the LEDs have really helped, it wasnt until I did that that I started to get a trich explosion. Maybe it was just a timing coincidence I dont know... but I am really excited to do a full LED grow for my next. I will journal it properly. I am thinking WW fem scrog in the same tent 2x2x5.

DoctorCanna said:

okay im going to give you some pointers and im going to be pretty criticsl, plesse dont take it the wrong way. The light you bought from mike is pos when compared to other led lights on the market right now, dont buy into the whole more spectrums is better crap, they arent. The only spectrums you want are primarily blue and red (630-660nm, more 660 than 630), one or two uv bulbs can be beneficial as well as 3 or 4 green, but you really dont need anything other than red and blue for flowerin medicinal marijuana in varying wavelenghs peaking in the PAR wavelengths known to be best for cannabis. If you payed more than $1 per watt for that light you got ripped. Dont get me wrong, it will produce buds, but buds far inferior to those that would have been produced by a diff light. My advice or instruction rather is to get that light closer and closer to the top of your plant until your about 1 inch away, obviously you will lose coverage but what good is coverage if those buds only produce airy nothingness. By getting the light as close as possible you will maximize enetration and develope as much bud through the body of the plant as the light will allow. Treat your spectra and blackstar the same and attempt to lower each every day until they are right

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DoctorCanna said:

on top of the canopy, you will undoubtadly see burning of the leaves and possible bleaching of the top most calyxes, but this is no big deal and should be ignored in light of the benefit of much bigger denser buds, this i can assure you. Second cut off all fan leaves, that is the large single leaf below each branch, and any spindly large fan leaves on very developed branches. Doing this will allow for much better penetration of light to bud sites therefore increasing yields. Finally my last advice is once your finished with this grow sell those lights and invest in better ones, if you want my personal opinion on best lights for price/quality/specialized for flowering cannabis just pm me. Again i know this was criicall but these are facts and good advice, i leave it up to you as to weather or not you wish to follow it. awesome plant, get those cycles right and be kind t her, she doesnt like to be stressed. Happy growing. Peace. P.S. sorry about the countless spelling snd gramaticall errors, typing on a tablet is tough, lol

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Disregard everything this person just told you. Although I will agree with some of it, he's telling you to do exactly the opposite of what these Spectras require. These spectras are not like all other LEDs. Although hes right about the theories of optimal wavelength absorption, he contradicts himself by suggesting green light is beneficial to the plant. I'm not saying for a moment that its not, but if I've learned anything from these Spectras its that nailing wavelengths at an intense level is not working. My Spectras are incredibly intense at 660 nm precisely, to the point where closer does far more damage than it does benefit. When it comes to plant lighting a wider spectrum is not always better, true, however when it comes to these lights a wider spectrum IS better because of the efficiency of the lights and their ability to pinpoint wavelengths with incredible precision. Giving up a few reds for a cpl oranges and a some yellow widens the red side of the spectrum to reduce intensity, at least in theory. The spectras I have are exponentially more efficient at the peak wavelengths compared to HPS and we all know HPS produces superior fruits. If it was all about these so called precise wavelengths, this would not be the case. These lights have a major learning curve, make changes with careful consideration and hesitation.

puffenuff said:

It's not all terrible advice. getting your leds as close to the canopy without losing more footprint than you find desirable is the best way to get more intense light to your buds. However, destroying the rest of your plant in the process should be avoided. I would start with my panel high, work down until signs of bleaching start and there is your limit. An 1/8 inch of bleached tips will be worth the added density. Cutting fan leaves is a common practice and many growers swear by a good trimming around the third or fourth weeks. I personally trim little, but there are people who achieve excellent results with heavy pruning. Just be careful not to stunt them.

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Good advice Puff..... Just be careful not to drop the lights too fast. I agree start high and bring it down but I do not recommend pushing these lights too tightly or too rapidly. The problem I ran into was that it can take days for a plant to really show signs of sickness from the light being too intense. Dropping 1" every other day is even too fast IMO, before you know it the plants are sick and you have to move up a foot. If you're going to try this wait until the 3rd - 4th week of flower and wait a week between light adjustments. I have found with my V1's that 22-24" seems to work the best for overall plant health and production, I can't say for newer models b/c nobody truly knows what significant changes, if any have been made to the lights.

Quitekeen said:

thank goodness I am fairly empirical when it comes to how I take advice from online sources. Its pretty easy to tell if someone is just verbal vomiting (see DoctorCanna posts). My panels are now about 10" from the canopy plus 2x55w cfls a little closer at about 4". I am getting some other problems which I will post pics of soon. I think its nute burn so I have begun flushing as of today. And I think I am finished with nutes as I expect maturity in the next 10 days to 2 weeks. Hairs are beginning to brown up. I am pretty sure I am going to end up in the popcorn dept. The high end of it but, that is because I started flowering waaay too early, plus all the other stresses from her life. I think adding the LEDs have really helped, it wasnt until I did that that I started to get a trich explosion. Maybe it was just a timing coincidence I dont know... but I am really excited to do a full LED grow for my next. I will journal it properly. I am thinking WW fem scrog in the same tent 2x2x5.

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I recently harvested a WW scrog that turned out to be nearly a complete failure under the Spectras. I pushed the lights too much, too fast and fried her out. Her health never recovered and she produced very few quality buds, but as you stated she was covered with resin. It stunk as bad as any plant I've grown under any lighting but the result was nothing close to my expectations. Think twice about putting all of your eggs in one basket with these lights, you could end up being very disappointed. I find that flowering a greater number of less mature plants helps me ensure a quality harvest is coming from the LED tent. After several months and 2 failed scrogs I have a healthy perpetual tent, so it seems right now anyways.

My advice. Manage your canopy to keep it wide and even. Keep the spectra 24" away. Feed with cal mag and micronutrient additives whenever possible. If/when you choose to drop it do it over several weeks and document the process for your next grow to learn how the light effects the plant. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, just trying to share my experience with you so you may have better early success than I've had. Bleaching and burning means you're killing your plant and should be avoided at all costs. I made many mistakes with these lights, most notably buying them LOL. But pertaining to using them I played way too much with adjusting their height too rapidly. In hindsight I now realize I should have just set it and forget it which is where I'm finally having some success.

Awesome thank you! Like I said to DrCanna, I like criticism, especially when I am so new to growing bud. So I guess what you are saying, is I am going to do best with LEDs if I keep a mother or two and just SOG right? Less invested into one plant that can go wrong and the light penetrates better from further away thus not burning the plants while still growing dense(ish) nugs? You gotcha!

Quitekeen said:

Awesome thank you! Like I said to DrCanna, I like criticism, especially when I am so new to growing bud. So I guess what you are saying, is I am going to do best with LEDs if I keep a mother or two and just SOG right? Less invested into one plant that can go wrong and the light penetrates better from further away thus not burning the plants while still growing dense(ish) nugs? You gotcha!

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Or somewhere thereabouts. Mainly just suggesting you might reconsider one beast of a plant at least until you've dialed these lights in. I too simply wanted a beast of a scrog and failed 2 x with spectras. Pure Power Plant (torched, RIP, threw it in the trash early) and a WW which I did finish against my own better judgement. It would be fine for lots of people to smoke but not for me. Many weeks later and no harvest. Now that I've switched to a shorter veg I've had better success. I have 5 plants in a 4 x 4 with some space between them. One other suggestion I might make is that faster finishing strains might be best for these lights. Less time for them to get sick if they finish faster LOL.

any suggestions on fast finishers, that would also respond well to training... I am not interested in autoflowers just now as I am only just getting into this whole thing.

Quitekeen said:

any suggestions on fast finishers, that would also respond well to training... I am not interested in autoflowers just now as I am only just getting into this whole thing.

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I've got a Top 44 in there now, its at 46 days and its nearly finished. They seem to finish a bit ahead of schedule under the LEDs. Its proven to be a tasty strain and a nice producer under my HPS. Yields are lower in the LED though. These pics are at about 38 days. No donkey dick colas on her but all of the popcorn is fairly dense.

Shwagbag said:

donkey dick colas

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hahahaha! I just found my new phrase for fat colas

I got my medical authorization yesterday!

711grower said:

fan leaves are where the majic happens friend. i used to trim fan leaves and now i treasure them. i use less nutes now and yield a third more then i did when i trimmed fan leaves for better penetration. if your having a penetration problem then your cramming to much into your grow. i can yield more off 2 plants that have space to grow then 4 plants that are squashed together regardless if it is a hps or led.... just my 2 cents

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Please understand that I don't mean to go in there with a machete and tear through every last leaf, I am only talking about the single, generally very large and most developed FAN leaf that grows right beneath each branch, whether or not this advice applies to you is going to depend on the size or age of the plant you are flowering, as this affects whether or not you have these fan leaves to begin with. If your plant is about 2 feet tall then you undoubtedly have large fan leaves blocking precious light that would otherwise be penetrating deeper into the plant thus developing more flower sites. I also didn't mention when to do this, this is only to be done at about 4 weeks into flowering or 28 days. The total number of fan leaves you will be cutting off again depends on the size and number of fan leaves you have and that you believe, if gotten rid of, will further develop your specific plant. In total you will probably cut off between 6 and 10 fan leaves at this 4 week mark. I can absolutely guarantee you this will aid in the development of more bud. Also please also understand that this advice is tailored specifically to Quitekeen, and although this advice could most definitely be applied to someone else grow op, its going to depend on various factors, #1 the type, quality, penetrative powers, and dialed in spectrum of the light. In Keen's case we are talking about a 100 watt V2 UFO Spectra and 240 watt blackstar, which need all the help we can give them to use them to there full potential. And please dont mistake any of this as applying to HID's, thats a totally different ball game.

Quitekeen said:

ya me either, cut off fan leaves, I dunno, I thinned them out a week ago but certainly didnt remove any substantial amount about 5% of them mostly from the under canopy. Jorge told me not to cut any lol so I was worried with just the thinning. If Doctor's advice is to throw away my LEDs and replace them with HID then I must, as I seem to do often, remind him that this is an LED forum and I dont need to hear the benefits of HIDvsLED lol not again, and again, and again

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I certainly am not telling you to throw away your LED's, they are the future for sure!

Quitekeen said:

urmmm Dr Canna I think you might not know what you are talking about...

Not to mention, my blackstar is all red and blue so the spectra is just supplemental...

anyway, no need to worry about me taking criticism, its a first grow. its one plant that I flowered way early. and no I am not about to spend like 2k for 800w LED panels when there is ample evidence to support lower cost brands such as blackstar (spectra is hardly a low end LED make) growing decent nugs. I am not a commercial grower, I am not trying to maximize yields or make the dankest buds ever grown, I am trying to have some fun, keep it simple and hopefully get to smoke at the end, and slowly learn my own way through this fun adventure. I can go to my local dispensary and get delish bud 7 days a week so I can afford the time to tinker.

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Oh my Quitekeen, please dont take my posts the wrong way. Its partially my fault for not being clearer.

#1 I would never ever, ever, ever suggest you purchase really any LED light on the market right now, hence me saying PM me if you want my advice on what to buy, that advice wouldn't have been geared so much towards instructing what brand or company light to buy in specific, rather how much one should look to spend and what quality's you should look for in a led grow light, for instance $1.25-$1.50 per true watt used is a good price range.

#2 Also don't sell yourself short, I understand your no commercial grower, but your here and you have this journal because you care. You desire to grow the best plants you can with the equipment you have, which is why you broadcast your grow and look for advice from others, or at least that's the way I understand having a grow journal. If you like smoking or you simply enjoy growing a plant for the fun and joy it offers then you of all people understand this desire to get the most out of your plants, and what goes along with it (maximizing yield, having great, delicious, dank, dope, superb, stupendous mean green Mary Jane around (that's the goal at least)). Its what we all strive for and one of the beauty's of the theory behind LED technology=maximizing output through practice of extreme efficiency and even synthetically altering or pushing the limits of what a cannabis plant is capable of, with NanoMeter experimentation.

#3 multiple 160 or 180 true draw led grow lights spread out would be more efficient than a single large wattage panel, however again here things like types of diodes (spectrum), placement, degree of lenses, penetrative power... these things have an effect on best placement.

I dont appreciate the way in which Swifttowl11, Shwagbag, and you Quitekeen say my advice is useless or horrible, it certainly is not, nor is it directed towards users who are using anything other than the 100 watt spectra and blackstar 240. I have a multitude of experience with these lights and it is absolutely true that getting them as close as possible to the top of the canopy is going to be exponentially beneficial at blowing up those buds at the top and all the way through the plant to its base. This advice is not directed toward lights of higher wattage or different wavelength ratios, pretty much that means this advice isn't for any other brand LED light. If you have a very nice new light with correct spectrol output with lots of intensity/penetration then you may very well have sweet spot that's 8 inches, 10 inches, 16 inches and what have you above the canopy. However my advice can be applied to any LED light in lowering the light little by little until you are able to find the sweet spot for that specif model. However if you own a LED light that doesn't develop fat "donkey dick" colas consistently or burns the hell out of your plant with little to no benefits then its a bad light, and I would consider selling it and moving on to a better light. If you want specific advice as to what kind of light is going to benefit you most according to your specific setup feel free to pm me. Their are lights that work great, and their are lights that work but work poorly, which would you rather have?

But to those members who i pointed out, you should think twice before bashing someones advice no matter how much you may disagree with it, or at least the method you choose to state your disagreement, saying "spew terrible advice," that my words are "verbal vomit," and "disregard everything this person just told you" are not very nice.

Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure, they are below 3 custom blackstar 240's and 180 Extreme Flower by Advanced led lights. taken 2 days ago, one plant was harvested 5 days ago and half of another as they seemed finished.



And here is a pic of how close my blackstar 240's and A.L.L. are to the top of the canopy, about 1 inch!

DoctorCanna said:

okay im going to give you some pointers and im going to be pretty criticsl, plesse dont take it the wrong way. The light you bought from mike is pos when compared to other led lights on the market right now, dont buy into the whole more spectrums is better crap, they arent. The only spectrums you want are primarily blue and red (630-660nm, more 660 than 630), one or two uv bulbs can be beneficial as well as 3 or 4 green, but you really dont need anything other than red and blue for flowerin medicinal marijuana in varying wavelenghs peaking in the PAR wavelengths known to be best for cannabis. If you payed more than $1 per watt for that light you got ripped. Dont get me wrong, it will produce buds, but buds far inferior to those that would have been produced by a diff light. My advice or instruction rather is to get that light closer and closer to the top of your plant until your about 1 inch away, obviously you will lose coverage but what good is coverage if those buds only produce airy nothingness. By getting the light as close as possible you will maximize enetration and develope as much bud through the body of the plant as the light will allow. Treat your spectra and blackstar the same and attempt to lower each every day until they are right

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Its true, closer is always better because the inverse square law applies to all artificial lighting. But caution must be taken with the Spectras because they are powerful and they are dialed into the right wavelengths. If you push these Spectras to 1" away during flower you're probably going to fry it all to hell. Bleached tops and leaves mean you're killing your plant, hindering its ability to process light and metabolize nutrients, not to mention tainting the best fruits on the plant. It should be avoided as much as possible in my opinion.

DoctorCanna said:

I dont appreciate the way in which Swifttowl11, Shwagbag, and you Quitekeen say my advice is useless or horrible, it certainly is not, nor is it directed towards users who are using anything other than the 100 watt spectra and blackstar 240. I have a multitude of experience with these lights and it is absolutely true that getting them as close as possible to the top of the canopy is going to be exponentially beneficial at blowing up those buds at the top and all the way through the plant to its base. This advice is not directed toward lights of higher wattage or different wavelength ratios, pretty much that means this advice isn't for any other brand LED light. If you have a very nice new light with correct spectrol output with lots of intensity/penetration then you may very well have sweet spot that's 8 inches, 10 inches, 16 inches and what have you above the canopy. However my advice can be applied to any LED light in lowering the light little by little until you are able to find the sweet spot for that specif model. However if you own a LED light that doesn't develop fat "donkey dick" colas consistently or burns the hell out of your plant with little to no benefits then its a bad light, and I would consider selling it and moving on to a better light. If you want specific advice as to what kind of light is going to benefit you most according to your specific setup feel free to pm me. Their are lights that work great, and their are lights that work but work poorly, which would you rather have?

But to those members who i pointed out, you should think twice before bashing someones advice no matter how much you may disagree with it, or at least the method you choose to state your disagreement, saying "spew terrible advice," that my words are "verbal vomit," and "disregard everything this person just told you" are not very nice.

Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure, they are below 3 custom blackstar 240's and 180 Extreme Flower by Advanced led lights. taken 2 days ago, one plant was harvested 5 days ago and half of another as they seemed finished.

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I meant no disrespect. This forum is here for everyone to teach, learn and help one another. I didn't choose to chime in to be rude, just to state that my experience with these lights was exactly the opposite of your recommendation.

I'm only speaking from my personal experience with Spectra LED's, I've never used any other kind of LED. I've used them for about 4 months and I've tried to push them to the max. I've never been closer than 12" from canopy level and I've fried the piss out of my plants more than once trying to push them. That's great that you are running those lights that close, you know for a fact you can run them there, but where is the Spectra? Show me the Spectra running that close after the 4th or 5th week of flower and then your comments will have merit. You will have my apologies and many thanks for showing me that the lights are not he problem, but rather my growing techniques. Trust me I would love to see that, and I'm not saying you can't do it with the new ones, I just haven't yet and I'm not going to suggest someone kill their entire crop trying to push the lights too hard. Start high and come down, take your time between adjustments. I run mine at 24" right now, if they make it through week 4 without issues I will drop them a bit and go from there.

do a grow leaving large fan leaves next to a plant that you trimmed up. if the large fan leaf plant receives ample exposure to light it will blow away the plant that has been trimmed.i have done this to many times to count. i will trim some underbrush and side shooters that arent going to amount to anything but i leave the fan leaves alone. large fan leaves are were the plant produces its foods and sugars along with a host of other functions. again people try to cram to much into to tight a space.

DoctorCanna said:

I dont appreciate the way in which Swifttowl11, Shwagbag, and you Quitekeen say my advice is useless or horrible, it certainly is not, nor is it directed towards users who are using anything other than the 100 watt spectra and blackstar 240. I have a multitude of experience with these lights and it is absolutely true that getting them as close as possible to the top of the canopy is going to be exponentially beneficial at blowing up those buds at the top and all the way through the plant to its base. This advice is not directed toward lights of higher wattage or different wavelength ratios, pretty much that means this advice isn't for any other brand LED light. If you have a very nice new light with correct spectrol output with lots of intensity/penetration then you may very well have sweet spot that's 8 inches, 10 inches, 16 inches and what have you above the canopy. However my advice can be applied to any LED light in lowering the light little by little until you are able to find the sweet spot for that specif model. However if you own a LED light that doesn't develop fat "donkey dick" colas consistently or burns the hell out of your plant with little to no benefits then its a bad light, and I would consider selling it and moving on to a better light. If you want specific advice as to what kind of light is going to benefit you most according to your specific setup feel free to pm me. Their are lights that work great, and their are lights that work but work poorly, which would you rather have?

But to those members who i pointed out, you should think twice before bashing someones advice no matter how much you may disagree with it, or at least the method you choose to state your disagreement, saying "spew terrible advice," that my words are "verbal vomit," and "disregard everything this person just told you" are not very nice.

Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure, they are below 3 custom blackstar 240's and 180 Extreme Flower by Advanced led lights. taken 2 days ago, one plant was harvested 5 days ago and half of another as they seemed finished.

View attachment 2020830View attachment 2020832View attachment 2020836View attachment 2020839View attachment 2020841View attachment 2020843View attachment 2020844

And here is a pic of how close my blackstar 240's and A.L.L. are to the top of the canopy, about 1 inch!
View attachment 2020861

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To be honest a lot of your leaves (the ones you have) look burnt/bleached/damaged. And no offense to your donkey dick colas, it seems like the bud to leaf ratio is really low...maybe your plants were spewing leaves instead of filling out with bud because you hacked em all off. I'm not trying to rag on you, I just think that your growing methods aren't logical. I've seen better bud (and healthier looking plants) from a blackstar 240 10" above the canopy with most of its leaves still intact.

Dr Canna,

Forgive me but I will be taking the advice of people on this forum who's grows I have read through, people who pose their thoughts in an intelligent and logical fashion and who have actually posted a journal, or have shown signs of active involvement generally in RIU. You only have a few posts yet you joined RIU months before me even. If you are such an expert, then why have you spent so much time as a memeber of this lovely community but you have only had something to say 21 times (many of them have been in this thread, reiterating the same points).

So while I appreciate your input, you dont need to argue on this thread to save face, I have read your opinion, and I am saying I will take the advice of the ppl here who have been giving me advice already, Karr, Swift, JamesBond, Psytranceorgy, Enduro0X etc.

I thank you

so anyway, on to more important matters...

plant I took down, issue with yellowing leaves persisted and I thought fuck it she has had a hard life and will just have to become hash... not a bad thing now that I can take a short boat ride and be in downtown Seattle with 30 or so dispensaries within 10 miles. I cant get over how surreal it is to pick up meds at an actual place and its not deviant or anything. It feels fragile, like its too good to be true.

i also have some seeds on the way, papaya, snow white and ice all feminized so good times are due... oh yea and I am getting married this summer so rock on!