Lazyman's 16KW Headbanger

[Lazyman]

Picture time!

Veg room at 11 days:

One of the Blue Dragon moms to be:

And the other one

GS moms on left, JP moms on right:

Row of grape stompers at 11 days flower:

GS at 11 days on the right, one of the GS moms at 41 days on left:

Grandaddy Urkle at 41 days:

Purple Mr Nice moms in green pots, Jackpot in Beige pots at 41 days:

Row of Jackpots:

Grandaddy urkle, lookin good, I have been giving them more N to slow the yellowing but not stop it:

Love this pic, Jackpot at 41 days:

Another Jackpot

Grape Stomper at 41 days, she got a bunch of N tonight

GS babies at 11 days:

Wider room shot:

Oh yeah, the Jackpot has mostly orange hairs now, and amber trichomes abound. I will give her another couple weeks to add some more weight though.

Night all!

 

[AfroSheep]

oh yay love new pics lookin great as usual, im lovin those monsters in the bud room, i guess those are the old mums lol they r god dam tall, keep it up man /.

 

[Lazyman]

Yep there's 2 PMN moms and two GS moms budding right now, I figure they should each be good for 4-6 oz each, when they finally get around to finishing!

Damned heat wave, temps went back up to 86 in flower for a while. At least it cooled off again to the low 50's tonight.

 

[Lazyman]

Well it's been hot but I have been busier than hell outside:

Transplanted about 70 of my jackpot cuttings into 4" pots of soil outside in the shade, been misting them 1-2 times a day and most look like they will survive.

So we've been working on our big ass veggie garden, I have about 3K square feet of my yard I keep rototilled and and covered with black plastic.


So far we have 5 kinds of tomatoes, about 20 plants in all. Plus 2 ea X 6 kinds of peppers, 2 ea of 4 kinds of squash and 2 each of X 4 melons, 2 cucumbers, 17 eggplants, shitloads of radishes, lettuce, purple carrots, spinach, about 50 sweet corn, 30 tall telephone beans, 30ea sugar and snow peas, 8X2 kinds of strawberries, 15X 2 broccoli, purple cauliflower, purple cabbage, potatoes and an herb harden. We also put in a bunch of different flowers sprinkled along the fenceline to attract bees.

Plus a couple grape stompers and a few Grape Apes sitting in a patch of mud where water runs off the hill above me. I figured the roots would grow through the smartpots right into the mud as needed, after one day they already look happier!

Also just popped some beans last night, all pure sativas:
3 Purple Thai (entire plant stays DARK purple, no green whatsoever.)
3 Hawaiian from a buddy, possible selfed backcross.
4 Cambodian that a buddy brought back from Cambodia

K gonna take a break and go re-plant half my lettuce and carrots.

Basement is at 77* and it's almost 90 outside, not bad for aircooling!

Oughtta be some fun things goin on in my mom room in a few months!

 

[SordidSole]

In regards to the staggered lighting...

Would it be reasonable to hang a few 6500K CFLs (maybe around 100-200W total) around the 1KW HPSs and turn the CFLs on for 2 hours while the HPSs take a nap? This way they would be getting some blue spectrum and only a bit of dim light (compared to HPS) to keep them "awake" until the HPSs kick in again.

Obviously your setup allows 16 lights worth of plants with 8 lights worth of electricity usage and heat output, which is amazing. However, for my current 5 light room, would this work solely as a means of keeping down temps/electricity? I don't mind the lesser plant count (for now).

This way, all of the bright lights would be on for 2 hours, then there would be 2 hours of chill out time, and so on.


BTW, great job on the room, it looks beyond amazing!

 

[Lazyman]

Thanks SS, the yield out of the staggered lighting array was dismal, so I flipped all 16 lights back on. The areas where lights were off were still receiving over 2K lumens from the surrounding lights, which is over double what I get out of T-5's even right against the canopy, so no I'd say that would probably be a waste of money on fluoros.

Better to stagger MH and HPS bulbs for color, but without the full 12 hours of intense light my yield suffered tragically. I wouldn't advise it unless you can afford a weak crop or two to see if it can be dialed-in.

 

[Lazyman]

Oh last night me and my buddy dug a compost pit, and two big holes for the Grape Stompers in the sunniest spot in my yard. Amended the holes with FFOF, composted rabbit manure and some composted hay, and some old coco. Mixed it all up with some good topsoil (nice black humus) and dropped the Smartpots right into the ground. Hoping to prune and bend them so they only get about 4' tall but 6-8' wide each. Surrounded by rows of beans and corn they should be pretty well hidden in my garden. My very first outdoor grow, popped my cherry! lol

 

[Strainhunter]

........

My very first outdoor grow, popped my cherry! lol

.........

The results will "scare" you!

 

[Lazyman]

Hehe that's cool with me, I've just gotta keep em shorter than my tall telephone beans and corn and I'll be set, I am also using a hose-end fertigator with some GH 3-part (hardwater micro) and some ACT my hippie friend made for me, it's got an adjustable feed rate and everything I spray with it goes nuts! I want to get one of the big ones from Farmtek so I can plumb it inline with my sprinklers, 3 gallons of nute concentrate would last all season I think!

Oh I picked up some soil test kits yesterday too, will do that tonight.

 

[Strainhunter]

.....

Oh I picked up some soil test kits yesterday too, will do that tonight.

One of these?

Those are the ones I used while I was still growing.


From Lowe's HERE.

 

[Lazyman]

Yep that's where I got em too, I'll use a couple on my outdoor soil and a couple on my indoor soil.

 

[Cheeb]

sucks to hear that the checkerboard lighting method isnt panning out.

I was really hoping to implement in a future garden to save on electricity costs as well as heat.

TooHigh around? Wasnt he trying to same type of thing but posting more promising results?

Perhaps vertical lighting doesnt work as well as traditional horizontal lights above the plants??


Nice work none the less

 

[Lazyman]

sucks to hear that the checkerboard lighting method isnt panning out.

Thanks man, me too. I had high hopes for it, I got the idea from Hydrosun but his was over a SOG and had hoods. I tried to combine this with Doubleds bare-bulb trees and medium-sized plants (2-4' tall) but it didn't pan out.

I'm starting to get suspicious about the Ushio bulbs. With Eye Hortliux Super HPS in a half-decent hoods (Xtrasun 6AC) I got around 6500 lumens at the canopy 22" away, but with the Ushios I'm seeing around 5500 at just 6"! I will conduct a side by side shortly.

I was really hoping to implement in a future garden to save on electricity costs as well as heat.

Man it does that, my temps jumped and required an extra 2K CFM of exhaust to keep the temps under 80 when I flipped the other 8 back on.

TooHigh around? Wasnt he trying to same type of thing but posting more promising results?

Perhaps vertical lighting doesnt work as well as traditional horizontal lights above the plants??


Nice work none the less

These are the questions that keep me awake at night man. I will get you some data shortly, it's pretty easy to test. Another harvest is about due, will know more about the results in a couple weeks. If AC and CO2 and some better veg lighting doesn't help, I can always buy 16 hoods and duct them.

 

[Teeg420]

Hey Lazy thanks for being honest and telling the truth in your grow, there's no shame in trying new things.

Interesting about the lumen output of horizontal bulbs vs the vertical, that might explain as to why I get way bigger cola's compared to when I was growing vert.

I think when gardening vertical you are spreading that light in a bigger space less concentration of light or lumens. That is just my theory, anyways you have one of the cleanest most professional rooms I have ever seen! I wonder how those master blaster 1500 watt lights would do in a vertical situation.

 

[Lazyman]

Thanks Teeg, I try to push the boundaries of what we know and how we grow, but yep often that means "taking one for the team." The checkerboard lighting may not be a failure if applied to a different growing style, but for mine it just didn't work out well.

There are definitely good things about the bare vert bulbs:

Much more even canopy
Buds on lower branches get much better bud development
Less (or no) pruning needed
No heat buildup around bulb
Plants can be placed closer to bulb
No hoods to buy or duct (or clean)
Easier bulb changes
Better side lighting

I think by placing the bulbs closer together (about 4' apart) light intensity is maintained, but the grow has to be built around the idea as it effects plant sizes etc.

Yeah the 1500's might be a decent application but I don't think that kind of penetrating power is needed. Might be better to use more 600w bulbs instead, strung about every 3'. I am also going back to the staggered MH/HPS setup, blue lighting in flower is important for good development IMHO.

 

[Teeg420]

yea the vert bulb is easy to cool, i was impressed with that, I wound want cool tubes cause it would be lass taxing on your ac, and less burning of the forehead unless I make those cool cages like you did.

I agree with the mixed spectrum you will get a nice product in the end.

I too hate running ducting it is probably my least favorite thing to do when setting up a room, especially the insulated shit. I went back to basics and went with super sun 2's with 6" non insulated. I don't have helpers so I have to be able to do everything my self and my room is limited in space, can only ask the girlfriend so many times for help especially when she works her 9-5 last thing she wants to do after work is go to work in the room.

 

[Lazyman]

Yeah I considered doing the cool tubes and ducting them like Doubleds, but man, 16 lights is a lot to cool, and I'm gonna take it to 20 in a couple months. Also means I have to run an inlet duct across the floor (4-5 long runs and tees) and another setup on the ceiling, compromising my already low 6' ceiling height.

Perhaps I'll try that at another grow, but I think the basement will probably remain open bulb and AC. If I switch the lights to anything they'd be ducted 6" AC Magnum XXXL hoods.

 

[Teeg420]

Nice! Those magnums are huge I would think they require 2 people just to take off the glass when cleaning but I have never used them so I'm just assuming. Im pretty sure they dont have hinges right?

Yea I saw a killer room around here with the T's and flex ducting and cooltubes doesn't look fun to set up.

I am in the same problem low ceiling height, oh well gotta work with what you got. Its funny cause I bitch all the time that I hate my room, but 2 years ago I would have shit my pants if I had what I have now. Hindsight is always 20/20 its funny like that.

Sending positive vibes to your outdoor this season, Im way jealous I have yet to grow outside after 7 years in this fun hobby.

 

[Lazyman]

Hmm you know I don't remember if they're hinged or not, but I thought they were.

Yep I hear ya, I can't believe my basement used to be an empty waste of space, now it's a living garden full of goodness! Amazing to watch eh?

Thanks for the + vibes bro, it's my very first outdoor and I'm excited. I planted tons of camo plants around them so they should be well hidden, and I amended the holes with FFOF and lots of rabbit poop. I gotta remember to go top them this weekend so they don't get any ideas, but they're caged up now and looking good! Will take some pics here shortly.

 

[milehighmedical]

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