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Soil Designed for LED Lighting?

Douglas.Curtis

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
LM301B type LED chips, they're demanding at least more magnesium and phosphorous than Happy Frog potting soil provides.

Has someone created an LED soil yet? What can a grower add to the standard (we use this soil for cannabis) bag of soil from the grow store? Basically to turn it in to a water-till-harvest soil under white LED lighting.
 
aridbud

aridbud

automeister
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Are you using full spectrum LED? You're only using white LED?

We've never had any issues, but supplement with teas mid bloom cycle for autos. We add worm castings and alfalfa meal in the soil mix from the get go.
 
Douglas.Curtis

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
The specific light I'm using is the Mars Hydro TSW-2000, which is a mix of chips, plus (off the top of my head, so I may be wrong)660 and 730nm. Not sure if it has any 430nm...

Hrmmm...
Here's what they look like with Happy Frog Potting soil and too much light. I dimmed the light yesterday, but this shows an exaggerated example of what's going on.

308w light in a 27"x27" tent
 
L

Leaflet

Active member
I would suggest using Ocean Forest instead of Happy Frog. Ocean Forest has a lot more nutrients in it. It's a very popular soil amongst marijuana growers.
 
Lyfespan

Lyfespan

Active member
Douglas.Curtis said:
LM301B type LED chips, they're demanding at least more magnesium and phosphorous than Happy Frog potting soil provides.

Has someone created an LED soil yet? What can a grower add to the standard (we use this soil for cannabis) bag of soil from the grow store? Basically to turn it in to a water-till-harvest soil under white LED lighting.
Click to expand...

running coco, and also noticed the plant using more and less of N, P and k at different heights. running a burple led off ebay, says 1200 which we know its not:thank you: it looks like i get P deficiencies bad as i near the lights
 
unnamedmike

unnamedmike

Well-known member
Hi Douglas. I saw same problem in my plants grown under Lights with different colors LEDs. My current LEDs are CRI 80 and the plants eat "standard". My humble opinion is that the soil that works under your lamp does not have to be valid under other color temperatures. Have you added any nutrients other than Happy Frog soil?
 
Cvh

Cvh

Well-known member
Supermod
Just give it a big enough pot of soil so the plant has lots of nutrients available. If the pot size is large enough, I wouldn't really worry about any feeding differences. The plant can pick for her own needs.
 
Douglas.Curtis

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
I had to laugh, they're in half gallon poly bags. LOL :)
I've given them 300ppm of MaxiBloom and a healthy pinch of mag. I'm hoping having dimmed the light will help.

So P is a big one, Mag is another. Nitrogen too?
 
DJXX

DJXX

Active member
Veteran
as soon as i switched to LED i noticed i had to increase the food to go with the better light spectrum...i added bout 25% more ...also 300ppm...man i give that to my seedlings..i give my full grown gals 800ppm to 1000ppm..are you doing multi feeds...think they are starving maybe at 300ppm....i used to give them 1200PPM but backed off a bit...good luck..DJXX
 
Emperortaima

Emperortaima

Namekian resident/farmer
Aridbud is right on point with the teas.i use foxfarm as it has the beneficial myco that ocean forest doesnt have all i do is add more perlite and also WC and seem to be having great results my last Harle-Tsu was grown in DR Earth but now have it in custom soil but using happy frog as the base soil and when im not feeding with teas i use reverse osmosis

Hope you find the info you need to help you get at where you desire
 
Cvh

Cvh

Well-known member
Supermod
Douglas.Curtis said:
I had to laugh, they're in half gallon poly bags. LOL :)
I've given them 300ppm of MaxiBloom and a healthy pinch of mag. I'm hoping having dimmed the light will help.

So P is a big one, Mag is another. Nitrogen too?
Click to expand...

To me, your plants look like they are craving for Nitrogen.
 
R

RB56

Active member
Veteran
I'm surprised to see you are using bagged soil. I'd expect coconut coir to be more compatible with your personality. Certainly more compatible with your growing style.
 
MedFaced

MedFaced

Active member
FFOF has about a months worth of food for a young plant. Happy Frog is a lighting recipe for seedlings but with the included mycos.

I start with a very light tea feeding in the beginning to build up my microbes. By the time I get close to flowering a full tea feed schedule is needed as the soil is used up at that point.
 
f-e

f-e

Well-known member
Mentor
Veteran
Hello buddy. Have you picked up your temperatures? Along with perhaps 25% more food, the temperature wants bringing up a few degree's.

HID's cause evaporation rates that are far higher. This evaporation pulls water, and thus food, upwards. Without hid's you need to find some other way of getting that same food load moving. So we both increase the water flow with higher temperatures, and the food level that water carries.

28c would be nice.
 
Douglas.Curtis

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Cvh said:
To me, your plants look like they are craving for Nitrogen.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the yellow goes way beyond regular mag def. I agree.

RB56 said:
I'm surprised to see you are using bagged soil. I'd expect coconut coir to be more compatible with your personality. Certainly more compatible with your growing style.
Click to expand...
Yeah, don't I know it. I'm at the mercy of "what's available" at the moment. Without proper dehumidification equipment, I'm unable to grow the way I'm used to. Didn't have the funding to switch to a roots-out hydro, so I went with what I had.

Someone donated 10 bags of (several year old) Happy Frog potting soil, so it's what I've been using. lol Can't wait to get back to hydro... not used to all this deficiency b.s.

MedFaced said:
FFOF has about a months worth of food for a young plant. Happy Frog is a lighting recipe for seedlings but with the included mycos.

I start with a very light tea feeding in the beginning to build up my microbes. By the time I get close to flowering a full tea feed schedule is needed as the soil is used up at that point.
Click to expand...
Good info, thanks :)

f-e said:
Hello buddy. Have you picked up your temperatures? Along with perhaps 25% more food, the temperature wants bringing up a few degree's.

HID's cause evaporation rates that are far higher. This evaporation pulls water, and thus food, upwards. Without hid's you need to find some other way of getting that same food load moving. So we both increase the water flow with higher temperatures, and the food level that water carries.

28c would be nice.
Click to expand...
Good call, I've been curious about the loss of infra-red, and how it affects transpiration rates. Raising temps is not something I'm interested in doing, it has such a negative impact on quality. If anything, I'd like to drop the temps even further, while finding a solution for keeping the root zone warm.

When my room hits 70F/21C, I'm watching to make sure it's not on the rise for some reason. I prefer 68F/20C for flowering.
 
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