-
Happy Birthday ICMag! Been 20 years since Gypsy Nirvana created the forum! We are celebrating with a 4/20 Giveaway and by launching a new Patreon tier called "420club". You can read more here.
-
Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!
Can LED's do a pound or better per harvest?
- Thread starter GP73LPC
- Start date
agreed but man some strains really make the yields an easier to attain job than others so that really should be dialed in 100%
A strain that can hit 3/4 ounce versus an ounce can mean a huge yield difference once plant count comes into play.
I am rootin for the cheesedog from con gen
It sure was nice getting over a lb from my most recent grow with LEDs. It's great proving people wrong
I think anyone who is having issues with yields should give leds a shot. As long as you feed them enough, they can and will perform no doubt.
Kill a Watt
Member
i'm looking for an elbow with this current grow i'm runnin.
Why do people always consider the price of the lighting equipment like cause it cheaper its better the only thing that makes hps better in my opinion is if your a cash cropper growing illegally if you get busted you don't lose as much in equipment . If your legal like me here in Canada licenced to produce plants by the federal govt I don't have to worry about busts or my equipment being confiscated. Generally every major grower I know every 2 years about ends up spending 14k plus on new lights fans etc to set up some where new. The problem isn't the lights are expensive the problem is people know if they get caught without a licence then they are gonna lose big. So of course anyone who is running a 14k+ grow room is never gonna see an advantage in led's but if laws change and marijuana is legal a producer would waste money on power expensese for cooling , as well as the wasted power that goes into a hps or mh which produces no light that helps theplant and only heat. So if your a legal grower no chance of a bust and you don't like spending 600 a year on bulbs per 1000w light get led , I say 600 because I used to replace my hps 3 times per year every 2 crops mh 2 per year , at 199 per hps and 99 per mh. So in 3 years which is the average warranty on a quality led panel I will have saved on bulbs enough to replace a panel which should have another 2-3 years of efficient life. And when led designers figure out they can put the same kind of liquid cooling system as they have for high end gaming computers the heat signature could drop to 0 . and if a diode is anything like your pc's cpu then super cooling could be the key to producing led's panels that can draw over 1k watts with no heat . So don't limit your thinking doing so is what led most of the people in the world to think it was flat long ago.
Has anyone ever compared Ceramic Metal Halides and high-end LED lights? I'm currently using a 250w and a 400w retro white, I was thinking of changing my 400w to a Philips D-Papillon 315w with the agro bulb. It costs 499€. The only LED panel I've tried was a "240w" Blackstar by Lighthouse Hydro which sucked ass even compared to a 250w HPS.
It just doesn't seem fair to compare LEDs to HPS lights which are basically ancient technology.
It just doesn't seem fair to compare LEDs to HPS lights which are basically ancient technology.
I have never compared any of my hps grows to my led grows as there is no point in doing it. They are two separate systems.
Now if we are just trying to compare apples to apples wattage wise, what would be needed is to get your blackstar and your 250hps on a kill a watt meter and see how close to running wattage they really are.
I am not sure what the running watts of the blackstars are and if they list the running or spec'd version of their wattage.
for example
200x3w led panel is a hypothetical 600 watts but most run around 75% or so of that when turned out. Most hps ballast usually run ABOVE their listed wattage so a 600hps would be a true 600+w running system.
I have not hit my pound with my 180x3w ( running watts of 364 on my kill a watt ) but have hit 13+ ounces (1.0554 grams per watt ) and feel it is more than doable with 400 watts of leds with the right strain no problemo.
If someone ran a real yielding chunky indica under the right leds a pound is DOABLE, last year I wouldn't have thought so but as I keep working towards my goals the realization is getting less foggy and more clear a possibility.
Now there are those who have already "hit their eLBow" with a led panel and I hope to get on that list as well. I have some pollen chuckin projects up next and hope to locate some great LED READY phenotypes to run through my various tents here.
for those of you shooting for a pound
running watts of 300-600 of leds can get you REAL WEIGHT but you must provide the right environment for that to happen including genetics BUT more than doable.
the aardvark
Now if we are just trying to compare apples to apples wattage wise, what would be needed is to get your blackstar and your 250hps on a kill a watt meter and see how close to running wattage they really are.
I am not sure what the running watts of the blackstars are and if they list the running or spec'd version of their wattage.
for example
200x3w led panel is a hypothetical 600 watts but most run around 75% or so of that when turned out. Most hps ballast usually run ABOVE their listed wattage so a 600hps would be a true 600+w running system.
I have not hit my pound with my 180x3w ( running watts of 364 on my kill a watt ) but have hit 13+ ounces (1.0554 grams per watt ) and feel it is more than doable with 400 watts of leds with the right strain no problemo.
If someone ran a real yielding chunky indica under the right leds a pound is DOABLE, last year I wouldn't have thought so but as I keep working towards my goals the realization is getting less foggy and more clear a possibility.
Now there are those who have already "hit their eLBow" with a led panel and I hope to get on that list as well. I have some pollen chuckin projects up next and hope to locate some great LED READY phenotypes to run through my various tents here.
for those of you shooting for a pound
running watts of 300-600 of leds can get you REAL WEIGHT but you must provide the right environment for that to happen including genetics BUT more than doable.
the aardvark
Psy, check out the CMH thread. I'm currently running a couple of 315w CDM lamps (930s, not the Agros), and am very impressed with their performance. I need to get another grow going in my other tent to get a more equivalent comparison, but at this point I think that LEDs would be hard-pressed to keep up, and I'm an LED advocate.
Medmaker, a single 315w CDM is very comparable to the Lumigrow ES330 in wattage. The ballasts draw @ 25 watts, so the gross wattage is 340 vs 330.
tenthirty
Member
I'll have to second that!
I am running the agro bulb and the results are very good so far.
I noticed this post about how you mentioned youhave to rethink your methods over hid so had to ask if normally I run a drip table using grodan slabs with plants in 3x3" grodan cubes drip irrigation under my 1k hid I was watering 4 times per day for 20 minutes , temps of the room ran at a nice 78-83f , do you think I will need to reduce the feeding schedule considering the fact I use rockwool which has massive aeration or do you think I will need to dial it back.When growing with LED, everything changes, feeding frequency, types of ferts to use etc. Most people that go to LED and get bad results blame the LEDs, only if you get some shonky LED from china with the wrong spectrum then yes, blame the LED.
But when using a quality LED grow lights with the right spectrum and the grower gets a bad result, its the grower not the LED.
Most of the LED problems arise with people who grow in soil or coco (high water retaining medium), I will bet my bottom dollar that they overwatered or watered to often, when using LEDs, i water my newly started clones which have been transplanted into 2 litre pots onces every 2-3 days for the first 2 weeks, and i then increase the water frequency to 1 - 2 days (depending on how light the pot is), if growing under HID i'd have to water every day or otherday.
LED growing needs some tweaking, but when you get your garden dialed in, the rewards out number HID growing, Currently Running 535 total watts of LED and i dont even need to turn the air con on during summer nights, only during summer days to cool grow room down to 21c, when using a 400watt Son-t argo HID, had to turn the air con on to run it in summer, and even on winter days, Could only run it during winter nights when the temps had fallen to 10c outside. LED grown buds are much more potent than 400watt HID grown buds from teh same strain, Must be the cause they have a high amount of UV-A which LEDS produce between 300 - 400nm spectrum.
Overall you might have to dish out a huge investment, but the electricity saving alone makes up for it after 1-2 years of growing.
Peace all
And on a side note if my 1000w hid with only a 400cfm extraction fan and passive intake only brought a 7 x 6 room to high 70's low 80;s do you think 800w of led's will need cooling in a 10 x 11 space with co2 addition I only ask as I know co2 saturation needs higher temps from what I read about 85f , so not sure if I need to consider heaters as with no lights the rooms ambient temp presently is 72f.
I can say for sure a that the panels I bought will produce about 880w of actual light 940 actual draw cost was 3400.00 including shipping from the states to Canada and the duty .
Well when you take into consideration that cheap lights are also easily replaced , hid lighting main appeal is in the large scale cash cropper who cant afford to loose 14k watts of leds over a bust but can afford to loose 14 1k hid lights as thats only about 7k where 14k watts of led's of decent quality your looking at 30K + in lighting so if your not growing legal cannabis in a country that has only one set of laws like canada we have a federal program if you dont have a licence from health canda your illegal , but for those of use who dont have to worry about leo coming and taking all our gear ever, the overall reduction in cost over 3-5 years on led's over hid lights is massive . No expensive venting, no need of airconditioners most of the time, no bulb replacements I know for myself I replace my hps lights every 2 crops which is 3 hps at 199$ a piece and 1 99 mh bulb each year so bulbs alone per year are 700 for me onver 3 years 2100 just for bulbs that doesnt even factor in ventilation , reflectors extraction fans, enviroment contriols to make sure no co2 is being dumped into the room while heat extraction is going on , and the list continues if you live a warmer climate , aquarium chillers become neccesarry and even bigger air conditioners.So initial start up using a hid may seem cheap you have to look at it life expectancy and all the other gear needed to keep you enviroment 50-60% humidity max heat of around 85 if using co2 , 76 with no co2 supplementation and also fans to circulate fresh air into the room constantly . All in all I still say HID lighting while effective is prefereable to a cash cropper while led is , the light of the personal grower who only needs to harvest 12-15oz every 3 months, AS from almost every journal I have read most people are agreeing that cannabis grown under quality led's have generally higher amount of trichromes and generally higher quality more aromatic bud.
So how about a grower who on hid's harvests 1.7-2+lbs on a 1k hid light , think its possible to improve on that with about 840w of what I consider quality led,s using movers to move that sweet spot around and using co2 supplementation for the first time.
i would say that's definitely possible. a lot of people are getting 1 gpw or close to it with LEDs, so with a light mover and co2 supplement it's definitely doable.
yes and everyone in the LED community is going to love seeing your thread. first ever led on light mover grow
I cant wait either , even thought first grow will be 12 autoflower candy kush they will give me time to either start moms of purple wreck or skywalker from reserve privada but after the past 5 years of growing I have collected a ton of strains and I think these are about the best I have other then a la snowcap I got from the dna genetics new limited edition line. One question anyone know of anywhere that sells a quality 300x-400x usb microscope as I have found they are probably the best scopes for examining your trichromes and they make wicked close up movies of sticky buds to share.
