ArtfulCodger
- 747
- 143
If cutting back on water and nutes doesn't do the trick, I'd consider turning your lights down. There are a lot of ways to grow successfully, so I'm not claiming to have THE way, but here's a lighting scheme that has worked for me for years. For the first month from seed, my plants are under a single 25 watt fluorescent T5, adjusted to stay 6 inches above the tops of the seedlings. It might be 100 ppfd. Maybe a little less. After a month or so of that, around the time the plants outgrow the seedling setup, I put them in the veg tent, under 25% of my finishing light intensity. I run like that for three weeks. On the first day of the fourth week of veg (V4D1), I bump the lights up to 50% of finishing intensity. They stay like that until I have enough canopy to fill half my flower space, and continue through the first two weeks of flower. On F3D1, the lights bump up to 75% of finishing intensity. On F6D1, they go to 100% of finishing intensity.
Considerations: the big one, obviously, is what is finishing light intensity? In hand-watered soil, without supplementing CO2, a perfect grow in my garden might finish around 35 watts of modern LED per square foot of canopy. A lot of people will say that's low. I'm trying to finish with a tent full of healthy plants. The second consideration is that no recipe is 100% right, and plants don't care what a light meter says. Plants that are happy with the light level have flat, level, big, green leaves. When they pray an hour before lights-out, they're ready for more light. When they canoe, taco, curl, twist, angle down, or anything else that reduces surface area, they want less light. Turning the lights up on sick plants is always wrong. It just makes them get sicker, faster.
OK, I'll get off my soapbox. Good luck with your grow.
Considerations: the big one, obviously, is what is finishing light intensity? In hand-watered soil, without supplementing CO2, a perfect grow in my garden might finish around 35 watts of modern LED per square foot of canopy. A lot of people will say that's low. I'm trying to finish with a tent full of healthy plants. The second consideration is that no recipe is 100% right, and plants don't care what a light meter says. Plants that are happy with the light level have flat, level, big, green leaves. When they pray an hour before lights-out, they're ready for more light. When they canoe, taco, curl, twist, angle down, or anything else that reduces surface area, they want less light. Turning the lights up on sick plants is always wrong. It just makes them get sicker, faster.
OK, I'll get off my soapbox. Good luck with your grow.