border&grower
Member
... sounds good but I'm counting that not every grow cycle will be a successful one ....
First time ever grower wants to do hydro ...
- Thread starter border&grower
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border&grower
Member
I know there is lots of bro sience out in the world ... hope common sense with a pinch of trial and error will prevail
Tolerance Break
Well-Known Member
If you learn, it will be successful. Just try and frontload all your failures... sounds good but I'm counting that not every grow cycle will be a successful one ....
Jimski
Well-Known Member
I am taking this route. Killed 2 seedlings and tried my best to kill this last plant on my first grow. Water issue should have gotten a test. Tried to let the seedling catch up so slow rolled nutes turned yellow. Then sick plant got bean blight from a field down the road. I stopped the pathogen but the plant was so sick the nutes were spot on for a plant 5 weeks in but not a sick plant. Key point is I will not make the same mistakes.If you learn, it will be successful. Just try and frontload all your failures
Looking foreward to making all new mistakes ......
border&grower
Member
Thanks @Jimski looking forward to also learn from your mistakes ...
I want to start my seedlings in the growtent on a heatmat set to 24 degree Celsius or 76 degree Farenheit ... I know some people also think this is bro sience but if yo ucan give your sprouts the best chance in their plant life ... why not?
Jimski
Well-Known Member
Agreed.Thanks @Jimski looking forward to also learn from your mistakes ...
The biggest adjustment I have made is that the data can only take you so far. Every mistake I made the data I collected showed WHAT HAPPENED after the fact. It did not help me during the issue because I do not have the experiance to judge plant condition. I based my entire operation on data driven but what is fixing my problems is touching the plant to feel the paper thin leaves during lockout. It is looking at the plant and seeing it is hungry or thirsty or grumpy cause I tied it down. Data is important but we are growing stuff here.
This reminds me of a story my grandpa told me. He work in a forge shop that made gears for heavy tractor yrans and differentials. The plant underwent a update where everything on the line had a data point and they started making temp adjustments on the steel. Grandpa told me he could tell from the color and taste of the metal in the air that the steel was too cold for tempering and drop forging. He told his super who blew him off. Grandpa knew the steel was making scrap blanks that were useless.
Grandpa went to the production super and explained the issue.
Production superviser made it clear to the entire plant that if Stanley says something is wrong with the steel moving into blank production than you better fix it or you are looking for a job.
His 30 years of turning a liquid into an organized solid sutible for 42000 psi shear on a gear face was more important to the DANA corperation than all the fancy sensors and data in the plant.
Jimski
Well-Known Member
O just great another thing to worry about.
Ohio Proud Partners | Ohio Proud
I have hemp all over my property. most is 100 yards from house. If it gives me trouble I will nuke the whole place.
Tolerance Break
Well-Known Member
If you're not taking cuttings don't worry. HLVD is only a problem if you keep mothers. Basic sterility and quarantine procedures with any new cuts will take care of it. Even of you grow a plant with HLVD from seed, it tends not to present itself until you try and grow out the cuttings.O just great another thing to worry about.
Hops farm 4 miles away. its downwind so not gunna loose any sleep.Ohio Proud Partners | Ohio Proud
ohioproud.org
I have hemp all over my property. most is 100 yards from house. If it gives me trouble I will nuke the whole place.
Jimski
Well-Known Member
Well long term I was planning to have mothers but thats down the road. I am going to move my grow into a bedroom in the basement and install a double door and outside duct work for positive pressure. With all the pathogens in fields and gardens close by I think I have no choice even for a small tent grow.
Tolerance Break
Well-Known Member
Hlvd requires contact from either an Hlvd infected plant, or persons/equipment,water contaminated with HLVD. It's a big deal for the industry, but not for small timers growing from seed in my opinion.
border&grower
Member
... nice story bout your grandfather @Jimski and I feel your guts. Those seeds contain the dna for a complex breathing living organism that facinates me not only on a scientific level. On the other hand data and measuring are things you can thrive on ... I like to have a snif of both
border&grower
Member
ke ... had again som progress and planning this weekend to hatch the first children(or maybe I'm just to sentimental bout this
)
)
border&grower
Member
... still need to try to do some PAR / ppfd readings regarding the height of the lights ...
Jimski
Well-Known Member
Careful with the light readings. Another data point I had that did not work as I expected.
Like a lot of new growers I got the Ut 383bt and used the par tool app. Par was way off due to having to choose a spectrum in the app. Nothing was really close but I picked the closest. App reading way low.
Used 383 tool as a lux reader and found a website with a converter that had a lot more spectrum choices. Par set properly.
But not for long. Again the data point did not tell me when the tips started to curl my eyes did.
In my opinion par/lux/dli/ppfd is a starting point that you adjust based on what the plant does. It is a data set it is not the data point you setup lights with. If you start with say 8k lux and adjust up you journal what moves you made so you can blame yourself when it goes south, I mean learn from your mistakes. Do yourself a favor and journal as much as you can as you will learn from it. When moving lights or nutes or VDP only change one thing at a time because if what you did has a negative event you do not know if it is the lights you went up 6 % or the 80ppm change in nutes.
Made each and every one of those mistakes.
border&grower
Member
I’m going to try the Photone app like many before me did … to reference the manufactors specs
Tolerance Break
Well-Known Member
Don't overthink it buddy. You don't want or need to push your plants.
What light are you using that isn't close to any of the spectrum choices in the PPFD Meter app? How did you determine the lux meter/app was reading way low? I'm curious as Shane/MIGRO and people here have said it compares well with Apogee and other quality PAR meters.
I think one complication is that many lights now have UV or far red that is outside the normal PAR range.
border&grower
Member
you're probably wright ... do you think I can push my plants with my equipment? Or what do you mean with pushing ...
Tolerance Break
Well-Known Member
I feel like measuring equipment is good, as long as it works, but there's a inclination that only seems to exist with weed to push your plants hard. More light, more food, more water can produce excellent flower, but as a beginner, you just need to focus on keeping them happy.
Just remember you don't need to hit the max Lux or par someone else suggests for plants in your garden. Get good at giving your plants what they need, get your plants to harvest happy and healthy, and then try pushing more PAR, maybe higher EC, more fertigation, less fertigation, etc.
Someone I won't name came on here and started a grow gun ho this year... they wanted to pheno hunt something like 50 seeds in a 4x2, using lst, co2, small containers, and something like 8 fans in the tent... they ended up leaving town for a week, all their plants died, and they seemingly dropped the hobby because they couldn't do everything at once.
I'm not saying I know you're going to over do it, I just hate seeing people get obsessed with perfecting anything before they've completed a flower cycle. That first complete run is really a foundation for future success in my opinion. Overcommitting for me meant spending way more money than I needed to on equipment for my first personal grow, and blasting my plants with full strength light and nutrients. I only made it to the finish line because of the plants resilience, this forum, and previous experience working at a grow opperation.
Jimski
Well-Known Member
I am running 2 vivosun 150w with selectible spectrum. There was nothing really close to the seedling spectrum "map" in the app and I had 2 seedlings just out of the hydroton. The par app said I was at 170. in the middle and an outer ring the size of the netpot was 160. The bigger seedling was wilting with no nutes, intact green sprout leaves and a root in the water. Backed off on lights and it filled in just fine.
later I found a converter that had a lux input and you choose the light spectrum. It had a very close to my settings and the input showed about 230 ppfd and for new out the pebbles seedling that seemed high.
BTW when I got the bt lux meter I found the par map was NOT to specs on the map for value but the mapping of the grids was proportionally correct. The light got weaker at the same rate as the published par map but was reading low from the app.
In addition the par mapping gave me the idea to run 2 of these slightly offset in the small tent. It gave me a very even par map when adjusted as good as any of the high end lights available in the 250-400 watt range.