DWC 300W DIY LED SCROG Grow: AK47 and Mazar

[Sammle]

Hi Hempfield,

Been lurking this post for a while now and really keen to find out your gpw. Really interesting grow as this is exactly what I do currently do (scrog with dwc) but with 600w HPS. Been doing it the same for years now but starting to seriously think about switching to LED due to heat constraints in the summer.

I've seen so many contrasting reports, and I know its hard say but am I going to see an equivilant yield with LED?

Any thoughts appreciated and serious kudos on the grow.

 

[hempfield]

The buds are drying as we speak and I think tonight they will go into the jars, so we will find the dry weight and the gpw.

I did took a first smoke test from both plants (AK47 in vaporizer and Mazar in a small rolled joint) and overall I am pleased with the results. The flush was perfect (maybe even to long) as now traces of chemicals can be felt in the smoke.

AK47 is extremely potent (it even gave me start of panic attack - but it was easy to control), with strong and full aroma.

In the other hand, Mazar is not quite I was expecting for a true indica. I was expecting a string couch lock, but it's more a very nice relaxing stone effect, with a perfect clear head and slight euphoria feeling.

Bellow are some post-harvest pics :

 

[hempfield]

And some pics with drying buds, waiting to go into the jars :

 

[fenomeno_djo]

Lol, the Mazar's roots look so heavy, I was like: "I'm wondering how many times the whole plant capsided under its own weight and fall into the tank"
Great root porn photos, nevertheless, I'm liking more the FROSTY BUDS!

 

[GP73LPC]

very nice hempfield

look forward to your yield report

 

[rootidec]

great show hempfield!!!

 

[hempfield]

Until the dry weight will be available (hope that this will happen tonight) I want to share my conclusions over this round.

As you can see in the picture bellow , the plants did not grew as I expected, filling just half of the screen but the tops have spread over the entire surface (and this was one of the things I want to avoid, but somehow, during the early days of flowering thing got complicated and it was impossible to change this).

A week or two of veg could change the situation but I thought 60 days were enough. Remember that I started from seed, which means smaller plants on the same veg period. The situation could be totally different if I would use clones. Maybe somewhere in the future I will try this setup (modular SCROG) with clones, but definitely I will not grow in the same manner starting from seed (to much maintenance needed).

Also DWC works great, the buds take forever to dry (the stems where literally dripping for several minutes after cut). Maybe if the reservoirs would be emptied two-three days before harvest, the drying (post harvest) would be also shorter.

I would not recommend this setup for a budget grow, as to many nutrients has been used on the veg cycle.

I also believe that better results could be achieved if instead of SCROG I would have used SOG, with clones taken from the plants after 45-50 days of vegging, but this is just a theory and I hope to prove it in the future.

 

[exploziv]

Until the dry weight will be available (hope that this will happen tonight) (..)

So you think those dripping wet hydro buds dried in 3 days? are they hung in a wind turbine??
I'd expect it to take about a week, maybe a little less if the humidity @ your drying place is under 40-50%.

congrats on the harvest, man! lots of work gone into this, but you got some buds to thank you for that work.

P.S. your picture makes me ask if revegging would be possible in hydro at this point? I bet the plants you'd get the second time would be much bigger with that root system already up and running.

 

[hempfield]

The harvest took place on April 4th, and today is April 8th, so yeah, one ore two days would be necesary for them to completely dry. I checked them last night and the thinner stems where crispy and snapping already.

I hanged them for drying on the growroom and because it is almost empty now, the air movement is pretty intense (I have 4 12cm PC fans blowing at max speed). The humidity is quite stable - 45%.

About reveging - I am sure that reveging could be done on that plants (with or without keeping the entire root mass), but I did not intend to do that so I cut them down. When I was cutting the roots outside the netpots I was asking myself what if I take them outside and plant them in dirt ... . But I have so many clones of them that do not worth the effort.

 

[NKOTS]

Great harvest, hempfield, congrats!
Enjoy fruits of your labour

Stay relaxed and keep us updated on dry yield as well as your smoke report

 

[GP73LPC]

i found that SCROG is a lot of work also. when i used to grow in my cabinets it was really the best technique i could use. if i went three days without paying attention to my plants they were completely out of control.

i have now switched to SOG and am currently running my first grow that way. in fact, that reminds me my plants are due for a trim job soon. the strain (Nirvana NL) i am running turns out is not ideal for SOG as they are very, very bushy, but i'm into now so we will see what happens. i expect as good or better results than when i was scrogging.

on the topic of DWC, that's a great way to grow. growth is just explosive, no other way to describe it. and i feel, fairly low maintenance.

look forward to your yield reports. and i agree if the screen would have filled in you would have yielded even more.

 

[xmobotx]

i knew the end was near ~lol

congrats on a fine harvest; i cant wait to see how you net'd {dry} sounds like its going to be another awesome grow for GP's gpw thread

LEDs are pretty cool and yours is a stellar example

 

[hempfield]

I finally got the dry weights :

- Mazar : 157g
- AK47 : 165g

Which means 322g of dried bud. Doing the math, the gpw ratio is (157+165)/(285[main led panel]+100[side led bars])=322/385=0.836g/w

Overall I am satisfied with this results, but I am convinced that I could have done much better if the plants were vegetated more. I wonder what the results would have been without supplemental side led bars.

I also smoked both strains , but without proper curing we can't talk about a serious smoke report.

Mazar is easy to smoke, not harsh at all, the smoke is thin and soft, but a deep inhale can make me cough a little. The effect is a mild stone, good for meditation and relaxation. The taste is somewhere between milk, almonds and grapes.

In the other hand, AK47 is quite challenging to smoke. The buds are literally white in color, covered in thousands of trichomes, which give a very dense and heavy smoke. After 3 hits I had to let the joint to rest and also to relax my lungs, after several rounds of cough. The aroma is more intense, going from a pine/chemical taste at the beginning, changing to a more earthy taste on the middle of the joint to a final strong herbal taste (very hard to distinguish the real taste as the smoke became too concentrated).

Hopefully, I will do another round starting in September , but this time I will try a SOG grow instead of SCROG.

In the meanwhile I will conduct a small LED experiment, growing a single plant ( a feminized Bubblegum from Serious Seeds) under 6 CREE XML LEDs ( 1xCW, 2xNW, 3XWW), driven at 2600mA, for and average consumption of ~8W/LED.

 

[xmobotx]

under 6 CREE XML LEDs ( 1xCW, 2xNW, 3XWW), driven at 2600mA, for and average consumption of ~8W/LED

interesting; the 'usual suspects' @ 80% ~you gonna center the CW?

 

[hempfield]

Well, I will try to mount the LEDs on a circular (or hexagonal or 6 corner star - you name it) pattern , on a small CPU Cooler :

I want to have all the LEDs closed together, for a more homogeneous spectrum blend.

There will be two separates circuits : one consisting on 1xXML CW and 2xXML NW (which will be used during first 30 days of veg - 24/0) and second consisting in 3xXML WW (which will supplement the light on flower - 12/12). I will not use any driver, but two simple current limiting circuits, powered by a 12V, 60W power supply (which will power the PC fan also).

The building processes is documented on Romanian section thread ( https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=258324 ) , but the grow will have a thread of it's own (here on LED Grow Lights section).

 

[rootidec]

well done hemp!
0.8+ ... :O

 

[xmobotx]

its OK

you can say 'merkaba'

lol; but more seriously though; not just "yeah" i will defo like to check out the build! u r making your own switching controller for a driver then?

 

[hempfield]

For the beginning I will go with a less effective current limiter circuit, which use a MOSFET transistor as variable resistor, controlled by a feedback loop composed from a load resistor and a NPN transistor. There will be two strings of 3 LEDs, powered by a 12V power source. The circuit will be built right on the base of the heatsink, without any PCB, for simplicity.

This will be the 'poor man' version.

If the results of the grow will reach the expectations , I will change the current limiter with a switching driver, based on a LM257 (http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm2576.pdf) and I will try to build it with PWM support, for dimming (I personally don't think this is necessary for a grow light, but my intention is to create a circuit that simulates sunrise and sunset).

My final goal is to create a simple and cheap light source, compact and modular (this light is intended to cover a 1sqf area -for best results and up to 2.25sft ), easy to build and operate, especially in the case of small scale grows. If the plants will require this, a 10W multichip RED LED will be added (http://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Power-10W-Red-Led-400LM-620-640nm-Energy-Light-Lamp-/260965696179).

 

[GP73LPC]

congrats

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[Rondelia]

Great grow and a great source for knowledge! Congratulations man!