QB96 LED Grow Tent

[Guest]

*I edited this post to reflect my current grow set-up.*

Hi everyone.
I am returning in earnest after about 2 years break.
I've been posting on ICMag over the years since OG and CW went down. I love the IC community in particular and enjoy participating as well as learning and spectating.
Oh and making friends along the way.

I am jumping into the deep end with HLG's QB96V2 as my intro to LED. I have a 4x4 flower tent and a 1 m² veg and drying tents.
Flower tent has a Greenbeams 315CMH in the center with 4 QB96 in a square pattern around. The veg tent has a solitary 315cmh.


I'm a coco grower and I enjoy airpots for their overall awesomeness. I lean toward bottled mostly organic bottled/powdered imputes with some fringe things thrown in for good measure. I'm always tweaking my recipe and am usually happy with the outcomes.

 

[starke]

Count me in.

 

[Guest]

OK, finally got something to show for my troubles!
I'm getting the hang of these LED somewhat... I am now to the point where the plants are photogenic enough for me to share.
I have been having a difficult time figuring out temp, humidity, distance, wattage as well as nutritional requirements.
And NOW they tell me I need to consider the total saturation of light for a DAY.
FML
Well my trusty lux meter and I are going to do the impossible and learn to speak fluent LED... someday.
Right now it's about letting the lights lead and I follow.

Up first are the F13 ThrowBacks. I dropped 9 beans and 6 came up. Some look more to the F13 and some more to the BlueBerry, with neither looking exactly like either parent. They are at the point where they are showing sex. I gave them a 3 day LST tx to encourage branching and in a week I should be able to take clones and throw in flower.
I took a top and side pic of each plant to show structure.

 

[Guest]

The top and side shots are of the same plant, but I haven't numbered them as I am waiting for sex. I do plan on keeping the males and using the pollen for some chucking...

 

[Guest]

And last two F13TB . So, if I take a F13TB leaning mom and dad and pair them together I should be able to get a larger percentage of F13 leaners in the offspring, or is the Blueberry line to established?

 

[Guest]

PeakSeeds SkunkBerry. I dropped this bean on the 24th of July. She stalled hard after producing the cotyledon. Strange thing is that it produced a tiny whisper of a pistil immediately after the cotyledon and before production of any true leaves. Well she has been puttering along and picked up the pace in the last 3 weeks or so. She is now showing her sex (as female) and looks like she is trying to work her way out of some of the more damning mutations. This will be a fun gal to run, and if I like her structure/personality I don't see why she shouldn't be introduced to some F13TB boy batter.

 

[Guest]

TrainWreck by the Richard Williams Seed Company. One lone seed was sewn and here she is now. She got off to a rough start, but seems to have pulled through and hit her stride.
I've taken clones and am waiting for a little more height before throwing her into flower.
If anyone has experience with RWSC's Trainwreck I'd love to hear your thoughts. As of now the structure is not viney, but rather stocky/compact. This could be a byproduct of the LED, but only time will tell how authentic she may be.

 

[Guest]

DeadLights by Subcool. I grabbed a 5 pack of DeadLights and all came up. These are the nicest plants in the garden right now (not as reactive to my learning the ways of LED). I love the structure of this strain and know it will be a breeze to work with.
These are beginning to show sex. I will take clones and throw the girls in flower. I have a friend that wants to boys and I'd rather S1 a good CBD plant than try to cross via a male.

 

[Guest]

And I think that's it for right now.
I have some RosaBerry by SGG and Starkiller by RareDankness that will get their 15 minutes of fame when I deem them pretty enough to be parade around.
Oh, I also have a feminized Lilly by Original Delicatessen seeds that will be featured by the end of the week. She is my Grail. No doubts about it!!
And her outcrosses I am very excited about.
I have a single Lilly x with Sugar Berries f2 made by our own MJ Passions. Sugar Berries is the most sweet smelling strain I had encountered until I met Lilly. So I crossed them.
In addition, I dusted a Lilly with some Pie Face pollen and can't wait to see the results of that mad cross. Unfortunately I don't remember the structure of the male used and can't comment if it is Cherry Pie or Face-Off leaning. Leaf structure on the cross doesn't lend itself to any of the 3 parental imputes...

All the rest will be documented as time, space and vanity allow.
Hope you enjoy my little grow and that some of the genetics I'm running are intriguing to you. Or at least you can use my diary as a list of what not to do when foolishly running into the LED arena.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far. We have termination dust on the mountains surrounding Anchorage. We have been hitting low 40's at night, and a few nights ago we hit freezing. So winter is coming (sorry) and it will be here before it is there. Unless you are Montana...

 

[Guest]

Things are starting to come together in the tents. I'm getting nutritional uptake under control, as well as temp and humidity.
I still have considerable tweaking ahead, but I'm seeing progress.

Also succeeding with finding the correct wattage and height for the QB's.Ballparking with my lux meter has been mostly positive

I added a 60 watt incandescent bub to the center, and slightly below the QB's. I hope that will bring a level of heat to the leafs surface and possibly a dash of IR.

The next big hurdle is getting the pictures to look more like what I see when the plant is in front of me. All these pics are off of a phone. I have a decent camera, but that will have to wait.

So up first is RosaBerry. I was able to get 8 above ground, but only 3 were female. Two look shorter and bushier and the last has a much different structure. I'd say she was lanky in comparison. So hopefully I have some different CBD ratios between the 3 girls. They started flower yesterday.

 

[Guest]

And the lanky girl.

 

[KiefRichards]

Looking good! Hello from Finland,61 latitude Some day i com there and catch BIG salmon at my rod and washing big nugget of gold in my vaskooli, hehheh!

 

[Guest]

@KiefRichards
Thanks and hello fellow northerner!! Please come and visit anytime! We are a friendly folk and we love to share/show off our beautiful and plentiful state!! Also don't forget about the legal weed, gotta put that on your list too..

 

[Guest]

Group photo. Everyone is looking pleased as punch in the flower tent. I'm getting a control on temps and humidity in each tent and the plants seem to be responding.

Upper left is Trainwreck, middle back is F13Throwback, right Lilly
Middle row left is F13Throwback, DeadLights, Rosaberry.
Front left is F13Throwback, Rosaberry and Rosaberry in the near right corner.

All of these plants are from seed.
Looking specifically at CBD% with DeadLights and RosaBerry.
Looking for !WOW! with the F13TB. I figure, with a larger population to choose from I'd get a sweetF13 leaner and a BB leaner just from 1 pack! Right now it looks like I have one more F13, one middle and one more BB. We shall see...
With TrainWreck I'm looking to see what potential is in essentially an F10 of Deep Wreck by Richard Williams Seed Company.
And lastly, looking for what I remember of Lilly. She is my grail, and her s1's are all interesting representations of the original. I just hope mine is extra special

Incase you are wondering what the naked bulb in the center is, its an incandescent. I understand they offer some infrared and may help to keep the leaf surface warmer... Its an experiment to see what it is my plants are lacking.
Like I said a few posts up I'm slowly wrapping my head around all the different needs of our beloved plant under these strange newfangled lights.

 

[FunkBomb]

That's a nice LED tent you have running. I had to change many things when moving over to LEDs from HID.
Humidity and temperature play such a dominant role when you have the light spectrum and intensity of quantum boards. Feeding is stronger and more often too which helps create rediculous growth rates.
I'm in coco and have found the dry fertilizers like Flora Flex and Jacks to be extremely simple and effective. Throw in microbes and kelp and you will see craziness. It makes it more challenging and thus more rewarding.

-Funk

 

[Guest]

Back again on day 13 of 12/12.

My flowering tent has high humidity 60-65%, low temps 68-74°f but the girls are looking great!
I wish the camera filters did them justice, but they look fine under normal light and not pale/malnourished.
Everyone needs a haircut, and they will get one when stretch stops. I need to defoliate just so I can bring down the humidity some. I'm happy right now, but in a month I'm gonna want to be around 50°f and I'm still tweaking my room in order to get temps and humidity acceptable.

My newest idea is to replace that 60w incandescent with an 150+/- HPS bare bulb vertical.
I need to heat up the tent more and this may be my most practical recourse for quality bud and reasonable utility costs.
I wonder if they make lower wattage CMH bulbs. That may be a cool combo with LED...!

In a way I view it as cheating (if I am successful in my goals), but at this point I don't mind. I really want to smoke some of my own homegrown and not rely on what my friends can find (not going to a dispensary to buy bud to hold me over).

So here is something interesting. In the first picture I have a Rosaberry about 12" away from my QB96. She looks as happy as can be, but I am monitoring for bleaching.
One reason it may not be bleaching is the low overall wattage. I am running 4 of these QB96 and the total wattage is around 300. Weird I know, especially with great growth and health. I wonder how much power adjusting will be needed to produce dense bud?

 

[Guest]

RosaBerry 8

 

[Guest]

RosaBerry 4

 

[Guest]

RosaBerry 2

 

[Guest]

F13 Throwback #2