This was my first grow in many years. Please forgive the conceit of saying that I have had pretty good success in the past. This time not so much.
White Widow Fem. Wet paper towels, sprouting in about 24 hrs. Then into organic soil, eventually into 3 gallon pots. 1000w full spectrum LED, starting 18 on 6 off. After 8 weeks they were +/- 26" and very bushy. When they got fed during the veg stage it was with a high nitrogen fertilizer. After flowering began I switched to a low Nitrogen, high P & K. Typical week was to water twice or so, once with fertilizer, once with plain water. About 5 days after switching to 12/12 the first sign of flowers. The temperature was 80F or below and the RH was 45/50% during flowering. The smell was (and still is) astonishing. Nine full weeks in flower, and under magnification the tricomes were mostly cloudy. A very few showed amber and/or still clear, but very few.
Now here is my problem:
After harvest and trim my green weight was just shy of 5.5oz. And most of the flowers are hardly what could be described as dense. I was not expecting anything like what the descriptions say, but I was expecting …something more. After all the time and effort (and, frankly, money) am I wrong to expect something more?
OK guys. Help me out. Where did I go wrong? And If I left out any information that might shed light on my situation please tell me. I don’t intend to give this up, but I need some help.
Light was more than likely the issue. Post some info of exactly which make and model but more than likely if it was a China made blurple you were pulling less than 200 as @AAA and @merlin44 stated.
If you can fill out a support ticket we can see if anything else stands out. Dry and cure are really important - if you drop humidity too quickly you can get airy soft buds. Most will drop power and temp towards the last few weeks to try and get dense buds with tons of trichs. Slow drying and curing will preserve these features. Good luck on the next runđź‘Ť
Suggestions please. Something that won’t get so hot as to burn my tent down and won’t run my electric bill sky high. I am in a state that takes a hard stance when it comes to weed so I really don’t want to draw any more attention than is absolutely necessary.
There are plenty of folks here to help you out, we need to know a bit your growing space (dimensions, ventilation, cooling, etc) and what your lighting and equipment budget is.
You really should be looking at something like a Quantum Board. Your upfront expense is greater but the output is phenomenal.
I had 9 blurple lights in my grow space to the tune of 1,425 watts for a 4 X 6 space. I built my own LED lights using latest generation Samsung EB strips and reduced my electrical demand to 720 watts and that only in the last two weeks of flower. Most of the grow was at 450 then up to 600 for early/mid flower. Three plants delivered 15 grams shy of 2 pounds of flower.
If I had to guess, you were burned by a light that was advertised to do more than it was capable of doing. Although things like pot/plant size, feeding nutrients, growing methods can all play into your yield some.
Also I would add that you said after 8 weeks of flower…
All of my photo white widow’s from ilgm have run 11 or more weeks till finish … I think you might have rushed it… last few weeks is when they put on the weight and dens up…
Just a thought…
The problem with these lights is they tell you 1,000 watts but here’s what is really going on:
Fixture is fitted with 100 each 10 watt LED’s so it’s 1,000 watts. Not so because the driver (converts ac to dc) is only driving them at 20% of rated output so the actual is 200 watts. This is the main number you want to go with. Adding another one will likely get you to a level that gives decent yields but temp and electric bill may suffer some. The other thing they don’t tell you is the LED’s used are early tech and much more efficient LED’s are readily available.
The expense upfront is more than made up for in your electrical demand.
I truly appreciate your help. Now to the hard part. Could you give me names (brands, models or something)
because as you know there’s a bewildering array of lights out there. I have a budget of three to four hundred dollars to put towards this. I look at it as an investment for the future.
A lot of us took the DIY route to make the $$ go further. I built a series of 3 panels for my 24 square foot grow space using some existing aluminum as heat sink material (one of the bigger costs of the build) using 3,000 K gen 1 Samsung EB strips and haven’t looked back. I currently have 5 flowering plants under TWO of the panels, running at only 75% of rated output. My electric bill went down $60 the first month of operation.
@dbrn32 is the one to really dig into what you need with your budget. I think you have enough money set aside to buy or build a killer light setup IMO.
Horticulture Lighting Group (HLG) is a good place to start. Quantum Boards are what you should be looking at.
