Durban Experiment, 24/7 + Extra Blue Spectrum

[FrikkinFrank]

Several months back I was putting together my first ever full grow (indoors), and this year it being the start of april I think I want to see if an outdoor scheme works out. It will be based on “super cropping” in that I will keep the plants trained to grow horizontally. THIS is the overall long view.

But now I am not sending for lights and things I should have had to begin with, no watching days go by without good enough light, all of that… This is grow #2, with some ideas and equipment in place.

It is Durban Poison that I got around six months ago, I sexed the seeds myself and we will see how good a job i did. One is intended to be male, the others girls so I can get a few seeds to continue with. But the big deal about this time around is that I want to explore pouring on extra blue light in the vegetative phase just to see if it has any effect at all.

This is not just some dumb party bulb with blue dye on it, it’s a 425 to 460 something (essentially 450 nm) ranged spectrum it produces, so it is more efficient.

The theory is the blue spectrum does SOMETHING, and most lights don’t have it. But many leave out things because they are cheap or poor designs.

The MAIN rack you see here is a DIMGOGO 1500W unit, and it may seem like a hokey name, but it is absolutely the BEST LED array I’ve tried so far bar none…

It gave me a hell of a lot of bang for the buck, I swear by that! If you are looking for a first one you can do a lot worse than starting RIGHT THERE.

But for this grow I have paired it with a USTELLAR 30W blue flood rated at 2100 lumens
~you can review it here:
USTELLAR LED Lights on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07792QM7K?tag=greenrel-20

The idea is to do whatever I can to get some accellerated bushiness happenning, and these sprouts just all came up within 48 hours (ILGM SEEDS!!!)

I know the growth track this time for Durban should be five weeks veg, and seven flower for three months total (if done indoors) almost exactly. This time I marked a calendar starting at/on today.

The timer you see in one of the pic’s is set right now to 24/7, I think I will remove it and just use a 3=way. In fact - I might mount a second blue flood.

But this time the soil and everything are in place, so it should take right off.

I think the original idea was posted as “BLUE BLASTING”. The image doesn’t show it well, but it makes the light much whiter looking - even though the frequencies are PAR ONLY
(no green or yellow)

FINAL ARRANGEMENT:

The blue floods come in 2-packs anyway. But the lumens are now off the scale
For one thing the light meter ignores blue. And it really does look close to white light now even though it isn’t!

I think at the very least the blue floods help a lot to mask the destinctive “GROW LIGHT COLOR” of the Dimgogo array. What will happen later of course, is the “BLUES” will be taken off, and the timer set to 12/12. Reduced heat and light intensity on top of reduced light length might even do something for all I can guess.

But that is if I don’t chance moving them outdoors.

[AmnesiaHaze]

Are those diodes on the dimi or are the cobs? (Chip on board)

[FrikkinFrank]

The floods are cob type, the Dimgogo is individual diodes with it’s own power supply and cooling fans.

[steve2]

keep the experiment going - interesting - The blue spectrum is one needed in flower

[FrikkinFrank]

What I read - I thought it had more to do with the veg cycle. if anyone has an in-depth (and irrefutable) breakdown of what light is used by the plants during each cycle it would help target things.

We talk about how the plant senses the end of the growing season by triggering into flowering from the shift in how many hours of light there are. A bit of thought tells us the angle of the light in the late season could affect its intensity (the distance from the sun is a negligable change) and the longer travel through the atmosphere might affect its chromatic spectra (wavelength or whatever).

Temperature is more a matter of how many hours the suns rays heated the local area.

Why am I thinking that in the later season the spectrum shifts to a more reddish color, and that is why the LED arrays shift to a different mix (some of them) if they are 2-cycle?

One of the higher priced brands of LED lights similar to my Dimgogo has a switch on the back that lets you go from VEGETATIVE to FLOWERING as a matter of fact! I don’t know if it has a built in timer, but these are the kinds of things I prefer separate units for.

• Running a humidifier a lot in a bathroom turned out to be a bad idea because it covered the walls and everything with a light film of stuff that condensed out of the hard water around here. Humidity will not be a problem though if they are outside in this place in the summer. The air practically turns into solid water…

CARBON DIOXIDE: I’m sure there is some in this house, but they’ll get more of that outdoors too.

This experiment can’t be continued when they go outside because it would draw too much attention having blue lights out in the garden. Unless they were just used as funky accent lights. But my house that would be out of character for, I don’t even put up X-mas lights anymore.

IF I DID have a house with a rep for running lights outside, say a pool or formal garden arrangement - then it would raise no eyebrows to see pretty lights around the yard all night long. That’s quite an intriguing idea in fact, to one day have a “Formal .Marijuana Garden” with accent lights, a tanning bed (or a good spot to lay on a towel under Martian lights), if you had a pool your humidity and temperature control would be optimal, and all of your neighbors would think you had large FERNS and other tropicals…

But the pretty lights would have a purpose

(?)
Now I’m absolutely fascinated with that idea. I want to live in a place one day where I can have outdoor plants AND LIGHTS in a patio or garden kind of arrangement. It would be like something out of a Maxfield Parrish print

[FrikkinFrank]

I do have one other concern, and if I can find one of the root balls (more like a cylinder) from the first grow I can shoot a picture of what I mean.

I used several construction buckets to settle my first plants in - one of them was at least SIX gallon, but even though I had to do an emergency cut-down weeks before the flowering stage was complete THEY WERE STUFFED FULL OF ROOTS

~And that incomplete grow was indoors using lights.

Either the lights, soil, and overall environment made them produce super roots -

Or a paint bucket (even a large one) is just too small for the plants to really take off in.

Yet people swear by five gallons of soil mix! It looked much too crowded to me.

I’ve long believed (no pun intended) that a plants main stem can only be as tall as it’s main tap root is long, proportionately. Trimming roots in fact is one technique for growing Basai trees, and Mister Myagi said it perfectly:

“Plant-San will grow well, if have STRONG ROOT…”

UPDATE: 4th day from sprouting
I don’t think this first week of veg should even count, but now I have them in the fabric buckets I got a few months ago. The roots in the small pots? One was just touching the bottom of one of them inside.

Hard to see I know. They got a little toasted with the mylar screen in place too - I have to leave it open until the lights are farther up. But this way watering is a snap, just give them a shower!

Should maintain their own humidity pretty well too. I like this much better than plastic buckets, but still doubt the root space

FUTURE REF: 30MAR018 is the official “SPROUTS SEEN” date of this try.

[FrikkinFrank]

HEAT Damage: Caused by having a mylar curtain and poor airflow, with the curtain pulled back I read 74 - 75 degrees F once it stabilized

But if you look at the first serrated pair of leaves after the seed leaves (suckers) on the theoretically male sprout - they are interestingly wide:

It almost looks like a spinach leaf - but that’s wishful thinking.

Here’s one of the females (I hope) and you can see more of the burnage

Good thing I spotted that in time

In my mind this is not yet the veg stage, but still sprout/seedling, and it will be when the first “Full Hand of Seven” comes out that I think I’ll consider veg day uno.

• The timing of the entire grow is based on “WHEN does the veg stage technically begin?” and I still don’t have a definitive answer for that.

What I want to see the most is if they get seriously fat leafs though!

SOIL COMP? STA GREEN with a generous amount of blood meal, sulphur, iron, and other adds to it. Can’t actually remember them all -

BUT I DID FIND A PLACE NEARBY that sells Fox Farms products…

20 minute drive, in fact.

The center pairs now should be 3-lobed, the next pair better be 5-lobed or I’ll be upset. When the 7-lobes come out we should know if this is really doing anything or not.

3-leaf, 3-lobe, whatever…

[Covertgrower]

Seedling stage ends I believe after it’s second set of true leaves. (Not the cotyledens) @FrikkinFrank

[FrikkinFrank]

Cotyledons = Round seed leaves = “suckers” ?
(wanted to define that here for the sake of it)

I replaced one of the Fem sprouts that was badly dried in the “heat wave” with a new seed. Hated to do that, but I can’t compare without an undamaged specimen. It will be one week behind the others, but with the setup worked out it should catch up!

~ This makes me think set up everything and get it temperature and humidity stabilized first, and then sprout seeds directly to ensure no “BOO-BOO’s”. But this isn’t what I would normally have illuminated them like. It’s a bit more heat, but I can leave the room open for now so it shares circulation

Hmm…

Cotyledon (round)

First set (single leaves)

Second set (three leaved)

Third set, 5-leaf (end of sprout stage “A”)

Fourth Set, 7-leaf ( end of sprout stage “B”)

[Covertgrower]

You got it right @FrikkinFrank

[FrikkinFrank]

I officially have a sprout up to replace the one burned sprout.

• 10 calendar days behind the others. I admit, I got worried

18DPF-3, or 2018 Durban Poison Female #3, S1 = 09APR18

Now let’s see if it catches up to and passes the others…

S1 is my shorthand for “First day sprout breaks surface”

If I look at my plain old calendar, it has codes on it like that.

V1a = Day one of veg, based on 5-leaf cluster
V1b = First day of Veg based on 7-Leaf cluster
F1 = Day lights are changed to Flowering light cycle
F2 = First day of SECOND WEEK of Flower cycle
H1 = Day plants cut, and hung upside down
C1 = first day of curing in jars

~ and so on

I can look at that alphabet soup later, and see exactly what was happening.
With pictures, it is even more revealing

NOTE: The sprout took four days because it was deeper than it ought to have been. It was placed right in the soil, but not as close to the surface as it should be

Whenever sprouts lag, I explore by wetting the soil around where the seed ought to be, and then probing with a toothpick to move small amounts of soil away until I find the seed, or a sprout (a good rule is no more dirt than the size of a seed at a time). Another way is to spray a thin stream of water from a sprayer to wash the seed up out of the soil.

BE EXTREMELY gentle, if there is a sprout you don’t want to break it

Aside from the care of the plant itself, ruining a seed from ILGM would be like dropping a six pack of Heineken on the pavement on the way back from the store - the price is approximately equal, although the disappointment would be much greater…

PICS coming! I just settled on this version of marking plants and dates. You see the date, and also the designation of what part of it’s grow it is on?
DURBAN POISON MALE, #1. Sprout day 14

Tagging archive pics is a great way to keep notes as long as you can make sense of it later

Just as a test, to see if it works FOR EVERYONE, tell me what the caption on the next pic tells you?

Hint: There are 3 female plants

[FrikkinFrank]

I need to comment on an observation now, and it is this:

No matter the water and what not the plants (sprouts so far) have got very short and (?) I think green stems. In the grow lights they look purple.

But the earliest sprouts now have fourteen days behind them even if a part of that was stunted by un-intentional heat.

BLUE spectra does seem to keep the sprouts from getting “LEGGY” at all, they are still very short

The new sprout is not poking out the third branch yet - but it too is a “SHORTY”

*Pics eventually

“What has been said in other places appears to be true - the plants respond in interesting ways to the colour bleu…”

I luv it

If blue floods under bucketted plants green them up it could mean more power to the buds!

THIS!

It is THIS I want to make happen…

*The rest of you have a better chance of exploring this than I do, please go ahead

BASIC IDEA: What if you scatter blue LED floods around the floor of your grow space pointing UP?

[FrikkinFrank]

UPDATE: 17April '18
I moved the plants to what I think is a fairly secure location, the other room is being used to explore lettuce and other veggies, believe it or not. (absolutely controlled light cycles have become a total fascination with me now - worthy of science!)

First a view under “Maintenance Lighting”
~ as you can see I became side tracked while cleaning the old mirrors I used in there…

In this image the blue floods are still on, and you can see how pervasive they are

“Mister Scott? Take us to WARP II please…”
Talk about intense radiation - but this is looking like a cool meditation spot too. I can cancel the main, or pretend I’m in a space station on Mars

Even AFTER (sort of) ‘PHOTO-shopping’ the pic, the red light is overwhelming !

Details of the unit are simple, All of the power wires combine with the hanging chain to a bar (used to be for coat hangers) at the ceiling, The space available in here is much larger.

To left and right, but unseen here are another pair of tall mirrors at each end. All are left over from old furnishings.

I have to say - the mirror on the back wall almost looks like a portal to another dimension I need to hang it so that it can be moved up and down.

• (!) If I hang it on the side with the doors FROM A BAR I can remove it when entering, and it will salvage the light hitting the wooden doors and escaping

AND OF COURSE -
I lined it with mylar everywhere I could pin it up.

• a small square of tape makes a good reinforcement to prevent mylar from tearing

3 of the plants are at Veg stage finally, as I can see the beginnings of seven leaf clusters. Getting to that point after being mildly scorched has taken 16 days (NOTEWORTHY)

But I am calling it V-0 for 18DPM-1, and 18DPF-1, and 2

18DPF-3 is exactly one week behind, all their birthdays were on a monday!

** I know there is an issue with a date on one of the pics so far. I take notes on a calendar for everything important though, and re-figure by looking it up each time. The pic marked 2018 APR 09 DPM-1 should have been marked S-8, for the eighth day since it sprouted. Now I have an archived pic with erroneous data on it…

As I look back on this DAY ONE was 30 March. Hmm, oh well.

[Covertgrower]

Looks good @FrikkinFrank

[FrikkinFrank]

The mirror turned out to be simple to hang (I want it to follow the plants and the lights as they move upwards) using some cool shower hooks. I moved the front hanger rod close to the doors, but left a 2 inch space for air circulation. Swingset chain is adjustable in a blink!

~ Detail of how the coat hanger rods were arranged and used:

Since the back of the mirror had nothing but an ugly piece of cardboard showing - I decided to replace the mirror backing with a favorite old poster of mine…

I should tape off the edges and get some black spray paint to trim it but I don’t think it will give it any added horsepower. HOWEVER!

With the mirror behind the door, it not only throws back more light on the plants but blocks nearly all of the light from showing outside. Not an issue with a normal door - but these are louvered and I wanted that for ventilation.

On the back wall next to a thermometer is an INK BIRD humidity controller (which can also tell you what temperature it is) that will run one or more Honeywell Ultrasonic humidifiers.

• Temp is at 84 f (30 C) but not addressed so far. I can always open the doors

~FOR THOSE OF YOU DOING YOUR VERY FIRST GROW, this is my second. ALL OF THIS came to be because of what I learned on my first grow, so don’t get frustrated or freaked out if it all doesn’t come together right away!

Most of the fun and all of the learning are in the exploration from “What do you mean I have to buy dirt?” all the way to champion buds like the people who win the bud of the month game here can grow…

Besides, I’d rather have a pound of average weed than none at all at any price EVEN THOUGH the object is to get the wikkidest and wildest of all time.

~ a better pic of the shower curtain hooks I use to hang things. They are metal for a reason, plastic ones would break

Besides - they are bright and pretty, and this IS a meditation spot for me

[Covertgrower]

Out of likes. Couldn’t agree more. @FrikkinFrank

[Mrcrabs]

@FrikkinFrank namaste🙏🏼 My friend.

[FrikkinFrank]

I had to shut down the blue floods last night because they were causing burnage.

Currently 85 f in there

Humidity set to 45% for now, it’s climbing slowly

~ I also got an opinion on my last grow - compared to what can be found around here they said it blew everything else out of the water…

When I told them the mix (I run it through a coffee bean grinder to make the buds smoothly burnable) was 70% leaf - they stared at me like I was from another planet…

I have said before that the leaves alone from the Jack Herrer I grew were enough to give a decent buzz even before the plants began to flower and form trichomes - and that is very true. The leaves alone can get you mega mellowly high…

[FrikkinFrank]

project Blue Blast has been terminated.

The heat from the extra LED floods were responsible for burning the plants, or the extreme extra spectra of light was too much for them to deal with.

Whatever is going on - I cannot afford to lose any sprouts so the protocol has been ditched for now.

If I had a bigger grow area, it might be possible to eliminate “heat” as a factor, so that whatever dried out the sprouts can be determined to be one or the other.

I HAVE read somewhere that too much light can result in stress on the plants - so it brings to mind a guy from Austria that I once met while I was doing public service for getting caught doing something stupid in SOCAL.

He was on a ■■■■, and got a DUI. Das Herr’s memorable comment?

“A man needs just the right amount of EVERY THING…”
We were on a break, and talking about vices

Sounds to me like plants have similar problems.
( he notezzz, drily…)

• It never got above 85 F.
• Humidity 40+

** Ink Bird controllers for humidity are very affordable, but have an incredible versatility

** Honeywell makes a sonic humidifier that is only $20 to $40 (USD) and does a great job of producing a fine mist, I sent for mine from Amazon

[Covertgrower]

@FrikkinFrank you could always try raising the light a bit, and turning up the exhaust fan a little bit more.