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When I first received my first LED I thought it would be a good idea to try a few random auto seeds using the FeroLed 864. One of the things I wanted to establish was:
Could a led produce weight and quality to match the maximum recommended by the seed companies for a dwarf auto strain?
When I've started seedlings under HID grow lights in the past they often shriveled or stretched way more than I liked, so to give me a feel for this new light I planted 6 auto seeds donated by original- ssc.com:
3 x blackjack (sweet seeds)
3 x cream caramel (sweet seeds)
I'll call the day the seeds sprouted Day 1. It took 36 hours for all seeds to germinate.
On day 1 I potted the 6 seeds into 10cm (4") pots with a mixture of 50:50 compost/perlite, and watered with a 6.3pH water.
From this point I proceeded to over love my babies :). I was so fascinated by the new FeroLed 864 LED grow light that I spent all my spare time with the plants. This, combined with the slower rate of transpiration and evaporation under a led to me over watering them .... hmmmpph. Enough said about that: I should have known better! Still, its all a learning curve ... At first I couldn't believe the problem was as simple as over watering and continued to mistreat the plants for a few days while I worked out the problem.
Here's a photo of an over watered seedling (Cream Caramel, day 13), where the over watering led to a nutrient lock out: ouch!
After running a few experiments to determine exactly what the issue was, once I knew it, it was time to treat the problem.
I needed to encourage the roots to start to take up water again .. and yet the difficulty was the roots were already soaked. The answer? More watering! However this time the water was loaded with 3% H2O2 at 3mm/litre. This mix was poured over the pots until water started running out the bottom (flushing): this drives stale air out of the root system.
After a few days I started to see new and healthy growth emerging from the tips. To be honest the wait was agony - I couldn't believe I'd f*****d it up! As you know once a leaf is damaged like this it will continue to deteriorate, and we need new leaves to keep the plant going. Also on a short-lived plant like a dwarf auto, all vegetative growth is essential.
By day 14 there was new growth, so I transferred one of the white dwarfs into a 4.5L (1 gallon) smartpot, the others into 10L pots. I used a coco/perlite mix instead of soil. Every two days I watered the plants with a half strength feed, pHd to 6.0 and kept watering until there was at least a 25% run off. The nutrient I'm using just now is Agua Vega by Canna. I would use their coco mix solution but am having a hard time sourcing it locally.
You can see from the photos that now, at day 28. they've fully recovered and are doing well under the LED grow lights. Over watering is obviously an issue that needs to be considered when growing marijuana using this lighting - its not a fault of the LED, just something to be aware of.
Cream Caramel day 26
Black Jack day 26
(I'm doing a series of trial grows using LED lights and autoflowers; if anyone wants to read about the other trials eg the 250w HID vs LED 357, they can be followed at www.growersguidetocannabis.com/blog. Comments are always welcome!)
Could a led produce weight and quality to match the maximum recommended by the seed companies for a dwarf auto strain?
When I've started seedlings under HID grow lights in the past they often shriveled or stretched way more than I liked, so to give me a feel for this new light I planted 6 auto seeds donated by original- ssc.com:
3 x blackjack (sweet seeds)
3 x cream caramel (sweet seeds)
I'll call the day the seeds sprouted Day 1. It took 36 hours for all seeds to germinate.
On day 1 I potted the 6 seeds into 10cm (4") pots with a mixture of 50:50 compost/perlite, and watered with a 6.3pH water.
From this point I proceeded to over love my babies :). I was so fascinated by the new FeroLed 864 LED grow light that I spent all my spare time with the plants. This, combined with the slower rate of transpiration and evaporation under a led to me over watering them .... hmmmpph. Enough said about that: I should have known better! Still, its all a learning curve ... At first I couldn't believe the problem was as simple as over watering and continued to mistreat the plants for a few days while I worked out the problem.
Here's a photo of an over watered seedling (Cream Caramel, day 13), where the over watering led to a nutrient lock out: ouch!
After running a few experiments to determine exactly what the issue was, once I knew it, it was time to treat the problem.
I needed to encourage the roots to start to take up water again .. and yet the difficulty was the roots were already soaked. The answer? More watering! However this time the water was loaded with 3% H2O2 at 3mm/litre. This mix was poured over the pots until water started running out the bottom (flushing): this drives stale air out of the root system.
After a few days I started to see new and healthy growth emerging from the tips. To be honest the wait was agony - I couldn't believe I'd f*****d it up! As you know once a leaf is damaged like this it will continue to deteriorate, and we need new leaves to keep the plant going. Also on a short-lived plant like a dwarf auto, all vegetative growth is essential.
By day 14 there was new growth, so I transferred one of the white dwarfs into a 4.5L (1 gallon) smartpot, the others into 10L pots. I used a coco/perlite mix instead of soil. Every two days I watered the plants with a half strength feed, pHd to 6.0 and kept watering until there was at least a 25% run off. The nutrient I'm using just now is Agua Vega by Canna. I would use their coco mix solution but am having a hard time sourcing it locally.
You can see from the photos that now, at day 28. they've fully recovered and are doing well under the LED grow lights. Over watering is obviously an issue that needs to be considered when growing marijuana using this lighting - its not a fault of the LED, just something to be aware of.
Cream Caramel day 26
Black Jack day 26
(I'm doing a series of trial grows using LED lights and autoflowers; if anyone wants to read about the other trials eg the 250w HID vs LED 357, they can be followed at www.growersguidetocannabis.com/blog. Comments are always welcome!)
