2nd grow - Trustfall’s Red Velvet

[Mikedin]

Day 1 of my second grow, very excited! Not much to report yet, except for the novelty of one of them having triple leaf genetics.


View attachment 2090893

Let’s gooo! In for the fun!

 

[Rama777]

Oh no you need to dial in your lights. For instance I hang my light about 30 inches above canopy at no more than 40% at veg.
Other wise you will start to pull all the mag out of the medium. Your light will still generate plenty of warmth regardless. Then once in flower drop the lights 10 inches or so and adjust up to 100% over the first 30-40 days of flower. This allows the plants to acclimate to the lights slowly. Then they will pack weight.
Otherwise you will run into light/heat stress if you don’t allow the plants to harden off before hitting them full blast. This is how stress builds in plants. Or one of the reasons anyways…..

To clarify, especially since my question was probably stupid to begin with..

Let’s say arbitrarily that you have your LED 100” from your plants at 100% power and the par at your canopy is 200, OR, you have your light 10” from the plant at 10% power and your par is also 200 at canopy.

Is anything different to the plants or is the only main difference the wasted energy at 100” in this example?

 

[Captspaulding]

To clarify, especially since my question was probably stupid to begin with..

Let’s say arbitrarily that you have your LED 100” from your plants at 100% power and the par at your canopy is 200, OR, you have your light 10” from the plant at 10% power and your par is also 200 at canopy.

Is anything different to the plants or is the only main difference the wasted energy at 100” in this example?

As you turn up the power percentage, led ramps in reds and blues at the appropriate clip for healthy growth. So if you hang it high, that won’t change the fact that you will be giving the plants the wrong color wavelength from what they want at that stage.

 

[Rama777]

Ahhhh okay thanks for that! Definitely important and not something I would have expected..

 

[Rama777]

Okay I referred to the manual for dimmer setting and height for seedlings. Seems to put them at around 300 par.

 

[Captspaulding]

Okay I referred to the manual for dimmer setting and height for seedlings. Seems to put them at around 300 par.

With led those maps are really ball park.
Not all strains are the same. With that in mind watch your plants. They will tell you everything. Less is more. Start low power and high height, then dial it in towards the plant.

 

[Rama777]

Alrighty so my current flowering plants were under MH and then HPS. I use RO water due to untested well water for now. I used 2-250ppm of calmag throughout this entire grow (though now starting to taper down in the final few weeks before harvest..) and have had basically zero detectable issue with magnesium and calcium.

The Velvets are under LED but will be flowered under HPS. Might even do the last couple of weeks of veg under MH unless switching from 3 different types of lights sounds like too much stress. I’ll save that question for later..

But what I am hoping to learn about right now is how to treat my calmag/RO water potentially differently under LED.

Two unknowns jump to mind. One, my calmag is a 4:1 respectively and I have heard that the plants have higher magnesium needs under LED.

Is this true for calcium as well?

Am I good with my 4:1 or do I need to be cookin’ up my own mineral mixes to give them the balance that they need? Maybe just an addition of epsom to the calmag solution? I’m good at math and chemistry so shit, if you say god has deemed the perfect ratio to be 2.37:1, I will make that happen..

And lastly, aside from the eternal variable of strain differences, any suggestion for how many ppm of calmag I should use with every watering in the first few weeks of veg, and also the last few weeks of a roughly 6 week total veg?

Thank you fine friends, and remember, every time a thcfarmer question is pondered, an angel gets its wings!!

 

[Rama777]

It's almost topping time. What are some pros and cons of topping twice? Once for 1/2 the desired number of tops and then again to get to the total number? I'll either try that out or I'll just top once and LST for as long as I can. Open to mainlining but I'm not sure if that's something I should have already started by now at 3 weeks from germination?

 

[Rama777]

9 and a half weeks old today. thinking I’ll flip them in about two weeks. Happy and healthy!

 

[2Water]

9 and a half weeks old today. thinking I’ll flip them in about two weeks. Happy and healthy!View attachment 2129945

Looking good!

 

[Rama777]

Looking good!

Yep! Planing to take them to 18” tall and then flip, perhaps all finishing up between 40-50” tall.

But also oddly tempted to top everything again, keep things lower profile with fewer nodes but more tops? 96 tops lower profile or 48 tall ones? So many options and decisions throughout each grow..

 

[Rama777]

Okay let’s see where we’re at 9 days since my last update, now at 80 days old..

I learned late in the game that I ought to have kept my tops in a tied back circle to develop the lowers by exposing an open interior. Oh well, lesson learned!

So a few days ago I started the process of retraining everything. Finished that today, pruned the interior and pinched back the growth tips on all the tops in the hope that the lower shoots can develop a bit before flipping in…? At least 7 days, hopefully more like 14..

 

[Rama777]

Yo! A few weeks into flowering. The aroma is still rather faint, but very special :))

 

[Mikedin]

Yo! A few weeks into flowering. The aroma is still rather faint, but very special :))View attachment 2145453

Looking healthy as hell fam!

 

[Rama777]

Truckin’ along. Wouldn’t mind giving them more light but I’ve been pretty cautious. Does anything about these leaves say “no more light right now please?”

 

[lenhug]

Looking fantastic. I would just start to turn it up in small increments every week. Say 5-10% at a time. They'll soon let you know if not happy but I'm sure they'll lap it up.

 

[Rama777]

Cool thanks!

 

[Rama777]