Used it last night. 1 tbspn/lliter h2o and 1/4 tsp Dawn dish detergent.
Very well could be something unrelated, never had a battle with thrips either. Wet leaves during lights on usually ends up with some damage though, so I’m sure that didn’t help.
I apologize for pretty much dropping the ball on this grow. My schedule over the winter gets hectic. I barely have time to care for the girls, much less try and update things.
But I’ll finish up the grow journal.
This was the most problematic grow yet.
It was my first basement grow and winter temps here were a little harder to deal with than my upstairs grows. I ended up putting a space heater in the tent. My electric bill responded accordingly.
I developed a magnesium deficiency that I’m pretty sure was due to lockout from too much calcium. I’m no longer amending Ffof with lime and bone meal. Multiple flushes did not seem to improve much.
I found thrips, and when neem didn’t work I applied pyrethrin. It killed the thrips and nuked a lot of the plants. They never fully recovered from that. I used pyrethrin again on another plant, also nuked. So never again will I use that product. Apparently there’s a difference between naturally made pyrethrum and engineered pyrethrin. I’ll leave it at that.
I had the worst case of fungus gnats EVER! I just couldn’t get rid of them. I tried gnat nix, garden safe powder with bt (as recommended by the Rev), letting the plants go as long as possible between watering, sticky traps, and a whole lot of swearing. It wasn’t until someone here mentioned that bt has several variants and only BTi works on fungus gnats. I did some research and found that was a true fact. BTi ordered and applied with watering. It took well over a month during the last part of flowering, but eventually the gnats were gone.
During the last half of flower the pH kept rising on all the plants. I did multiple huge flushes, but I couldn’t get it below pH 7.1; mostly it hovered around pH 7.2-74. Probably also a result of my amended soil.
So many curve balls.
But despite them all I kept trying to nurse the girls through it.
Since my basement temps were really low, and this grow was a screwy anyway I decided to experiment with low temps before harvest. At 2-3 weeks before harvest I let nighttime temps dip, sometimes into the high 40’s. Humidity was kept @35%-45%. At 1 week before harvest I drilled the stalk and packed ice around the base/soil, and then again 2 days later.
The girls were turning beautiful fall colors
I’m really happy with the quality of this harvest. The quantity was a little low, a bit over a pound of great bud, a few oz of larfy, and plenty of trim.
These buds were nice and dense and super sticky. Lots of beautiful crystals and beautiful colors.
ILGM Banner #3
ILGM Black Widow
ILGM Grandaddy Purple
Thanks for watching, and your patience.
Next time I’ll try a little harder to keep on track.
DS
Awesome looking buds.

Nice Job!
They look hard as golf balls for sure! Get the rest of it on the next one homie.
Thank you.
I’m really happy with the lighting I’m using, (although I’m now planning a built grow room with fluence lighting and co2).
I’m also really happy with the earth juice nutes. The results since switching from fox farm are staggering. It’s a lot more work, but worth it in the quality of bud.
That was kind of where I was at. Enough so that I don’t know if I’ll buy again, but also have that feeling about fixing stuff that’s not broken.
I know you’re comfortable with DIY, if you like the idea of fluence just get on waitlist for plc photo boost strips. Running them at 1400ma is pretty much fluence like performance. Dropping to 700ma will put you ahead of any commercially available light in terms of efficacy. And its pretty much same light spectrum. He also does nice job of providing reference design materials.
This last harvest is as good, or better, than the best I could buy around here.
I’m at least 6 months from upgrading.
I’ll need to plan the entire room, save a little $$, and then build it out.
I’m thinking around 5’x 12’-14’. I did some measuring in the basement today.
@dbrn32 you will be the first person I contact when it comes to lighting. Thank you and thank you.
No problem. Likely to be an upgrade between now and then too. Samsung horticulture linear should be available anyways. 5x anything would work well. You can run two strips end to end to cover the span, then just add as many as needed to hit target intensity levels. Walk in the park with any of the 560mm or 1120mm linear options.
Damn, now you’ve got me thinking. @dbrn32
My flowering tent is currently a 4’x8’, no co2 yet.
I’m working a perpetual harvest. Harvesting 2 plants every 6-7 weeks.
Currently there are 2 hlg 288qb v2 in a 2’x4 area (plants first go into 12/12 here). After 5 weeks they go under the next lights.
The next lights are 4 bridgelux eb strips (1180mm) pulling 190w, surrounding 5 citi1212 cobs pulling 200w for a grand total of 390w in a 3’x4’ line.
So far the results have been really good; growing scrog style. But I’m now just topping/lst and letting them grow “relatively” flat.
I’m considering moving things around a bit to accommodate 6 plants.
More this pattern
All plants will start at the right, under the hlg 288s, and are rotated to the next light every 3-4weeks.
If I were to us the plc photo boost strips, @1400ma, how many would you recommend to fill that last 3’x4’ space? Would you recommend something else?
I’ll be building out a larger grow specific room eventually, adding co2, and perhaps carry some lights over into it. I’m a bit cramped for ceiling height @ about 78".
You know, I don’t really have any brand loyalty or feel like there will be a major difference in using any of the higher end components. I trust you’re seeing why I’m still a fan of the cobs, even giving up a little bit of efficacy. But when height is an issue using strips is benefit because you can spread them out and keep your light intensity a little for diffuse.
A 3x4 area you should be looking for about 400 watts for flowering. You can come in a little under with hlg-320 or go little over with two hlg-185’s. You decide on which way you’d like to go about it and I will run math for you.
Nice harvest! Sorry, just saw this. I like how you can see the different colors in the jars
You feel there’s no real spectrum/intensity differences between plc-bridgelux-Samsung-hlg qb’s, it all comes down to efficacy?
Why wouldn’t I just go with bridgelux strips then? They’re a lot cheaper than the plc stuff, and it would take quite a while for me to notice savings on my electric bill with just a 5%-7% reduction of power.
There’s not really any difference in spectrum among any that you listed outside of the plc strips that have added 660nm. On paper we are told this is better, and it should be. But it’s not like your harvest will double with them over the others.
The intensity will be different, as watt for watt that falls in line with efficacy. But you set currents where you want them and eat cost to do better. All I meant was going with standard currents cost balances out to an extent. It takes 14 eb gen2 to fill hlg-185 and run 2.5 umol/joule. I think with single row f-series that number is about 7-8 strips at 1050ma to get same 2.5 umol/joule at 1050ma. So even though cost higher you don’t have to buy near as many. So cost of building a 200 watt light that runs 2.5 umol/joule isn’t as big of difference as cost of strips appears.
You will maybe pay little more with plc strips, but that’s cost of getting into latest and greatest.
Thank you for clarifying that.
Assuming the plc strips become available in the next few weeks, how many would I need to order to fit my 3’x4’ space with the 2 hlg-185’s (I’d rather have more light than I need…in case I go bigger).
The cold pre harvest temps really brought out the colors. I tortured the poor girls, but they rewarded me with beautiful buds.
If you’re looking to run them at 1400ma, 5 photo boost strips per hlg-185h-c1400.
If it matters, 8 strips per hlg-320h-c1400.











