GP's 126w Hydro-Grow-LED run of Strawberry Diesel in Aero

[greenpenguin]

Hi all,
Just to be clear, I didn't win any contest for this light system, I bought it myself, it's a 1st Gen version of the 126W model which is supposed to provide the equivalent PAR as a 400W HPS. I've been impressed with the scientific data that LEDGirl provided on her light systems and decided to go for it, especially due to the fact that I want to be able to grow in during the summer.
Usually I Veg with 156W of CFLs and Flower with a 250W CMH. It's funny because I started out with a 250W HPS and got sold on CMH, and now here I am again sold on yet another light system. I still believe the CMH has benefits over HPS, and I also believe that this LED system will provide benefits over my CMH, I really hope I'm right.

Now for info on the rest of my setup:

I have a cabinet i got from homedepot and customized to fit my needs, for the most part I'm pretty into the DIY model of things, I just recently started doing Low Pressure Aeroponics, I love not having to deal with any medium, it keeps my pH super stable and I can easily see how my roots are growing. Maybe one day I'll do TAG but for now this is fine for me. The only downside is that if I have extended power outages or forget to plug my pump back in after some maintenance, I'll have just killed my plants.

I also employ LST during veg and SCRoG during flower. For this grow I'm also going to try my hand at FIM during veg and possibly in the beginning of flower.

For nutes I use the 3 part GH flora series but using the lucas system with tap water.

The strain I am growing is Strawberry Diesel. I got these from a reputable club in clone form as I had trouble locating seeds of these genetics, I believe the Strawberry Diesel has a 65-70 flower period, I'm currently still in Veg. I started Veg using my flouros but starting today I'm using my LED lights since it just arrived. I currently have them under a 16/8 light schedule.

Now onto the pics....

I received my lights on friday, shipped in discreet packaging. It's pretty heaving and I'm hoping that my hangers wont have problems holding it up.

When I got it I plugged it in to make sure it worked, there's a bit of a delay when you first switch it and before the lights come on. I didn't know this and I thought it was broken so I brought it to my face and it suddenly came on with me looking straight at it. That shit hurt my eyes!


Here are my Strawberry Diesel clones from when I first brought them home about 25 days ago.

about 12 days ago under flouros

And here they are about 4 days ago

Finally this is them today under the LED lights.

They are the ones on the left hand side, the right hand side are some clones I have of Vanilluna. I have two other Vanilluna clones under 12/12 sexing right now. Once those are sexed I'll take two SD clones and then toss these current ones into the flower room under the LED lights and start scroging them. We'll see though, I kind of like the challenge of growing just one plant and pulling as much as I can from just one plant in scrog.

Feel free to take a seat , ask questions, provide suggestions, etc. I'm just a novice that loves to experiment, and I like to grow strains of beauty like my F13 grow which I feel is one of the most beautiful strains in existence. I really want to grow ACE Panama (red pheno), Oaxacan, Malawi and many other landraces. I'm excited about the Vanilluna and I'm constantly on the lookout for exotic strains to grow, I just wish I had more space to grow it all. I know strawberry diesel isn't exactly exotic but I really like smoking strawberry cough so I was interested in this strain.

 

[greenpenguin]

It's been a while since my last update, and I've already got a Strawberry Diesel plant in Day 3 of flower and some clones made.

A little over a week ago I moved one of the SD plants into the flower room and it quickly filled up the screen.

I left the other clone in the Veg room and found some suspicious stuff on one of the leaves

I was worried it might be PM so I cut it off. But that was the only leaf that had it and since then I haven't seen it come back.


Now the Plant has really filled up the screen, I almost think I should have flipped to flower a bit sooner since I know sativas like to stretch a lot in flower, we'll see how it goes. Here's what the scrog looked like on day1 of flower.

 

[WizeWizo]

things are lookin good mate.

 

[apollonio]

nice setup and grow! hope to see some nice buds soon!

 

[Sleepy]

looking good from here!!!

it fits perfectly in your cabinet!

 

[Biatchzxz]

Pretty cool bro looking nice can't wait to see the bud production from that light u got. Keep up the good work

Btw. I GOTTA Have more Cowbell

 

[Barnt]

Nice LED run. That pic of the leaf looks like PM to me. You may want to check on your ventilation. I used to have problem with PM with humidity levels around 50% due to poor circulation. Now with all the fans and added ventilation, I've had humidity levels 80% and up and haven't got PM. Instead with such high humidity the plants don't transpire much which in turns leads to less uptake of nutes and thus smaller plants.

But I'd hate to have your hard work end up in a mess of PM. Been there, done that. Fix it now otherwise by week 8-9 you may have little left that isn't covered in powder.

 

[greenpenguin]

Thanks to everyone who stopped by, sorry I haven't been updating this more regularly but if you check my sig... I have a lot going on.

Barnt: Yeah it was PM, I ended up killing the Strawberry Diesel that I left in Veg. The clones I made had rooted and that plant was getting HUGE so I needed the room.

So lets catch up with what's been going on with the SD....

My clones as I mentioned started rooting, this shot of them starting the roots was from about 9 days ago and today the roots are growing quite nicely.

I've really just been letting the plant sit in flower while maintaining the reservoir, I had a scare where the pump got dislodged and I came into a room with a droopy plant, I hope it didn't stress the plant too much.

Here's a shot at 5 days of flower

Here's the Veg plant just before I killed it. It was taking up too much space anyways, I have a few other strains in the queue that will be in here including F13, Vanilluna and Panama.

I moved the clones back into the veg room after killing the big vegger. They are on the Left hand side, the right side is my vanilluna clones.

And here's some shots from just two days ago, the scrog has a gap at the corner but I think it's populated good enough.

And from this morning which is day 9 of flower, the pistals are starting to increase in numbers!

I'll probably not update for a bit until things start getting more interesting and really flowering.

 

[greenpenguin]

Ok I lied about not updating for a while, but the Strawberry D in flower really stretched and you can really tell it's flowering now. Nutes are currently at 850PPM (0.5) using the lucas formula. I'll be slowly increasing the PPMs as I add solution back into the reservoir. This is mostly just a photo update, these were taken on day 14 of flower.


This side shot you can really see the stretch... so much for a flat canopy eh?

Top flowers shot, one with light on, one with light off.

 

[yesum]

I have the 63 watt Penetrator, so I have an interest here. Are the Panama and Oaxacan seeds not pure? I thought they were hybrid with something else. I am not interested in hybrids, except if the main landrace is heavily dominate.

 

[greenpenguin]

yesum: I don't have Oaxacan seeds but I do have ACE panama growing. You must have been reading my other grows cause I don't think I mentioned the panama in here. Anyhow check out The Ace Panama Thread, it's a hybrid but close enough to a landrace for me

 

[mdcanna]

Whats the cost on one of those leds and can they be used for veg and flower?

 

[greenpenguin]

mdcanna: they are $475 shipped but mine is a generation 1 that was slightly used which I got for $350. And yes they can be used for both veg and flower.

 

[grow2bfree]

Looking good. Cant wait to see the final results.

Peace

 

[FFawler]

I hope this led lamps finally gonne go well so I can use them!

 

[greenpenguin]

Today is day 50 of flower for my Strawberry Diesel lady. The current plan is to let this go 62 days and harvest on the 25th of this month. Less than 2 weeks to go!
Things haven't been smooth sailing though, the PM I saw came back and showed up on many of the leaves about 3 or 4 weeks into flower. I did some research and decided the best thing to do was to get some Dutch Master Gold and Penetrator and foliar spray the leaves. Many others reported success and it is safe to use in flower. I've sprayed down my Strawberry Diesel about 4 times and I'm probably gonna spray two more times and then just let it be. The leaves look clean and I haven't seen any of the spores since, I have no way of knowing if it's still there though.

Anyhow the LED light seems to be working well, the Strawberry Diesel isn't as bulky as I was expecting based on other SD's I've seen on the forums. I'm also not getting the purple hues I've seen on other Strawberry D's. I'm hoping it'll bulk up in the next 2 weeks and maybe the color change will come during my flush which I'll start in about 2 days. Enough talk, and onto the pictures. I also got some trichome shots..

Strange Albino top

Trichomes

 

[grow2bfree]

Oh yes, trich porn. Love it. Looking good, cant wait to see the end results.

Peace

 

[greenpenguin]

On day 62 of flower I finally harvested this Strawberry Diesel, from the scissor hash I can tell that this is a semi clouded and very cerebral sativa that is gonna be pretty potent as well. The flavor of the scissor hash was interesting, not sure I like it, almost had a mushroom taste but I'm sure the flavor will improve as I dry and cure it.

I spent a good 12 hours with some close friends harvesting and man is it tiring. The powerdery mildew spores came back, as far as I can see it's just in the leaves but who knows. I just hope it doesn't spread during cure. I didn't see any in the buds when manicuring but I'll be sure to audit after curing and tossing any buds I find with visible PM. Final stats are:

Wet weight = 416.1 grams
Estimated Dry weight = 124.8 grams

My estimate doesn't really account for the stems I still have attached but I'm confident I'll end up with just a little over a QP.


And onto the harvest shots:

 

[WizeWizo]

Congrats mate! Always nice to notch another one in the belt. Looks like some yummy Strawberry D