Five assorted clones in a shed

Okay, now the UVB really interests me.

I got impatient and blasted for 30 minutes around 6:00 p.m. yesterday.

Lights out at midnight and wake up at 4:00. A.m..

The UV Cookie Apple top bud turned toward the UV bar that was most focused on the bud. The other closest bar is more across the next level down.

She was light-seeking towards that source. She really wants it. That's my interpretation and I'm sticking with it. Until I know better.

Now I really want to know.

100 minutes later I go to take a picture and I see she's turned back up.

Okay what is the question and what are the possible methods to finding a solution?

Wtf does commercially available UVB do to cannabis, if anything? Without going all scientifically on the wavelengths because let's face it, we don't get access to cheap scientific level equipment. We will never be sure of the wavelengths our equipment actually produces. And at what moment it stops producing it.

There is a huge amount of conflicting recommendations and studies and information because the bottom line is while few of them know, it really hasn't flowed to the rest of us in a cheap commercially available way that we are sure about. I'm not sure and I've read way too much. I can only try to play with what I got. Or what I can acquire and then recommend.

Number one is I can never reproduce since I can't buy more of these bars. It doesn't matter what this experiment does if I can't say to someone else, here you go.

So I ordered a Migro UVB 310 single bar fluorescent tube. That was 90 bucks with shipping.

That should handle two plants.

And then I ordered a couple of reptile bulbss. Yes, we know it should be BS. But fluorescent bulbs emit a range of wavelengths and I'd be quite happy to hit a couple of plants with a range of UV wavelengths out of those bulbs to see if it had any effect.

ReptiZoo UVB 10.o 26 w


So 10 percent of UVB, clueless on the exact internal spectrum of that, in a 26 w bulb, so that means 2.6 W of some UVB.

I'll put two of those on two plants.

I'll have the UV light on a single side at a slight angle. I want to see if one side of the plant gets more frosty than the other or behaves any differently.

I have to have siblings that go under a standard non-uvb. I will use one of my quantums with the UVB turned off to make sure all the regular grow light is identical. I will keep light shield separation between these three sets of plants.

This is the $6 million man moment. We have the technology. Or at least it's on its way.

I can't use clones because clones are all the same plant and the goal is to blast a seedling and then blast it when it's an adult and compare it to a control group. As well as don't blast seedlings and then blast them later. Always have at least two plants when testing any setup.

There can be additional variations of course. But the key issue is I need fast growing plants that flower early.

Which means these autos are perfect for that. I couldn't imagine doing this in under 5 or 6 months for an experiment. Now I can see I should simply find the fastest one to continue these types of experiments and it will be done in under 3 months. I can do four of these a year without having to deal with separate flowering and veg chambers. Either of these apple strudel or cookie apple will probably do.

I will limit myself to three pairs for each of the runs. I currently have three identical rectangular quantums that will be able to handle it. I can see myself dealing with six plants in this manner but not more and I will not have the downstairs available to me in 7 months. I should be able to do this in a 4x4 tent that I've set up in a shed in the back.

Sorry about this picture quality, basically I'm shoving my phone next to that plant and blindly taking the snap. The screen on the phone is totally unreadable at that point.




When I was in there I got a blast of heat that I thought was unreasonable. Since I was walking in and out I exposed the temperature controller to the wind of me and the doorway. That triggered the heat. That's fine except the heat kept going when it was turned off since it's an electric oil-filled radiator. This will not do.

I love little heaters but I'm sure my cat will knock it over and kill us someday. He's an 18 lb Russian blue that owns the place. So I can never use it without a lot of protection.

So I built a cage around it.



And now I have wall of wind and warmth.

Lazy post.

My old boss told me I was overthinking my grow.

He's an uptight accountant type who does smoke pot. 80 years old. I worked for him for about 6 years as I built and coded various multi-user editorial systems and then years later I hired him to act as my project manager in my data warehousing work.

He's the one who gave me a title of "Editor" even though I was a programmer. We worked for Ziff Davis so I guess it meant something. I always leave glaring typos in whatever I send him so he can twitch and correct me. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I do leave occasional typos out of laziness.

He always told me I overthought everything. And then I would reply with something like this but with a lot more business prose. It was his goal to save money and time so if he thought I was doing something too complex he would try to rain me in.

And good luck with that.

In the old days I'd have computer generated graphical diagrams to prove my point. This morning was arts and crafts. I cut a part very thick cardstock to create diagrams to be able to move stuff around as I thought about it. Here's what I ended up with:




And the I wrote this which I am now including here.

Okay, here we go for the next step. I haven't even gotten to a rulered layout yet.

Long read, kick back.

This isn't as complex as the Ameriquest warehouse, but it's close.

The plants versus the lights versus the air flow. I haven't gotten to the electricity yet. I haven't gotten to the overhead additional grid bars I have to install on the ceiling to allow it. I haven't gotten to the electrical split out to the multiple high amp feeds versus the controllers.

As I design anything I have to think about my physical movement. I will be moving a stepladder around constantly. I will be reaching up. I will be pushing heavy things around until things are set in place.

What am I capable of holding as far as a light when clipping it from one side to another?

Because I have a single arm on a light, I am on a stepladder. How far can I lean before falling over? Do I really want to get down, close the ladder, move the ladder, open it back up and then step back up and then reach over from before? While holding half the light in the process? As there are dozens of wires and strings and cords at both vertical and varying angles everywhere blocking me, and the cords and hold lines that I am currently moving.

This light wants to flip in my hand. I might be holding a corner or a string. It is very difficult to move a light once it's there.

I want to have the most control via the most controllers, but at the same time I want the simplicity to never have a controller feed a controller because it throws them off the network since one controller will turn off the others and the network will fail when probing them.

I have to handle several different characteristics of each plant, light, fan, and electric feed. This is like designing an object oriented environment as I assign the attributes to each object.

Start counting.

Light characteristics including wavelengths and strength. Amount of light from a single high source versus light that can be distributed around from clustering lower sources.

The manner which that impacts each of the plants since they have very different growth, characteristics and reactions to particular strengths and wavelengths. Major differences are white, flowering, UV, and red, light strength and wattage which impacts coverage and height, heat generation because they are different efficiencies, and the fact that certain plants react very badly to certain wavelengths at the wrong time while I want those wavelengths on the other plants. And I can't isolate via any type of reflective block environment such as Mylar Shields because it will block the air flow.

Air flow requirements for the room for general temperature control combined with air flow requirements for the individual plants, keeping consideration that certain plants are very unhappy when they get heavy airflow and others really want it so fans have to be positioned appropriately.

This is hitting 3D fluid dynamics. With moving objects in an environment that alters the airflow and grow and block it. Along with the light path requirements. Too much right now damages the plants and when they get bigger later too little allows them to damage themselves and get moldy and block light.

But I have to put this in place within the month.

Very specific air flow location requirements to gently hit those buds and not hit them too much. Those leaves should not wave, they should shiver, and they should not be smacking each other.

While simultaneously being sure that 12 inches above that air is pushing hard. It has to create a whirlwind at light level and a couple inches below up to 3 ft above. The lights might vary 3 ft in the height depending on how high the plants are and how many watts that light has. So that's a 6-ft spread. Without hitting underneath that too hard.

Plants are either short-term or long-term. The autoflowers are short-term. They will leave early in 2 to 4 months. Everybody else will be there until June.

Short-Term plants can be placed next to long-term plants that will grow wider. They will be removed and the long-term plant will grow into its space if possible.

Plants are movable or not. Three of the four autoflowers are movable. That means I can shift them around if I have to but I don't want to. They are 75 lb. each and I can only move them by pushing them along the floor. There will come a point when the leaves will be spread out in such a way that they will not fit down the aisle.

Two of them are high UV and I want to keep them close to the UV lights.

UV direction can be from above or the side. It depends on how much of which plants I want to hit. I definitely do not have enough UV to hit everybody on the side even though I would like to. But I'm not sure which UV bulbs are actually usable so I'm not buying any more at this cycle.

Any plant might justify a mylar reflector or additional light dropped at its edge with an angle. I always have to be aware airflow block in that situation.

Even though Glueberry is an autoflower, I expect it to grow wide and high. It will get its own trellis so it gets a centralized position but I expect it to leave and the others to grow into there.

Plants are priority or not.

Priority plants get the most light or the most attention. They also have a possibility for problems such as Gelato which is flowering now which is an indication of hermaphrodite which is a bad thing. That means pollen in the room and screwing up everything. So I have to watch that to make sure she doesn't develop any male flowers so that gets up front.

Critical Orange Punch One, non-uv, gets highest priority. She seems like she will grow best. She gets center of the room with most light and most UV.

I have to have walkway consideration of what I have easy access versus difficult. There will be a couple of tight walkways but I don't want to go to the back of the room.

The right hand side of the room has a counter running along it. The plants will grow above that counter and spread in that direction so I have to include light over it while not including it in the floor space plan.

I also have to consider every location and how it allows for an airflow device such as a box or round or reciprocating or mounted or floor fan.

I have to consider high versus low. Some plants grow very tall. This is a light consideration. I have to keep like height plants near each other so the lights are adjusted correctly. It also means they might grow too high for the ceiling so I have to pay close enough attention to bend them and cut them if required. Taller plants will block lower plants from light if there are any angles involved. I have to allow for gradations of light when shifting from one to another.

That means I already have to move SBG from where it is in the corner because I will have to pay closer attention to it. I didn't want to because she's a slow grower but she's going to get tall.

I am only sure of a couple of them right now.

Same thing with skinny versus wide. Some plants want to branch out wide, others grow straight up. I topped them when they are about a foot high so they tend to branch out. But certain sativas will go high if they can. Denser plants will block other plants from airflow.

There will come a time where I will have to have air flow swirling around the bottom. The leaves will have grown high enough and left a bare dim high moisture area that will grow mold.

Wide ones get trained in a horizontal trellis to spread them out evenly. Those trellises are fixtures and will not be moved so once that happens those plants are locked into spot. I'm not sure if SBG will justify that because of branch density.

All trellis mentions includes woodwork and either netting or chicken wire and a few days of creating grids with frames. I'm in the middle of building out my woodworking shed and I should have all my power tools set up in a week or so.

All this has to take into account the lights above but it has to be laid out for each other to start off with the assumption that I will be able to correctly fill in the lights above.

I just ordered three more

... Snip... Long post continued

Continuing...

Two big and one tiny because I just had to test them and I'm afraid they won't be available in a month after Trump comes in and slams down the border. At least he'll try.

All devices have cords and all cords have to go through various concentrators and distribution boxes for electrical. I attempt to use eight plug blocks with plugs on five sides. This gives me hangability and flexibility since they can handle most wide plugs simultaneously. When they can't I have tiny little extension cords to extend it out a few inches and give it room. I strain relief everything. If there is a hint of wiggle, they get a patch of clear Gorilla tape to seal it together.

They have to allow for the possibility of a final cord being in a remote control pod or being part of cluster. They have to allow them for the possibility of distributing across multiple source circuits. None of these cables should be joined together when crossing any turn points. They can't be wire tied together or anything like that because they always have to have the possibility for plugging into something else and redistributing them. All of them need multiple wire guides at varying heights through the pathways from the ceiling to the device hanging about 3 ft from the floor as well as a few floor devices such as standing fans.

Nothing should be plugged into the wall before getting through power controller/monitor.

Most devices have two hang points required.

They need aligned bars above the middle on the ceiling or they need a shitload of twine, pulling them left, right, front and back. These will cross each other above as well as every hanging bar and every electrical cord. They pull from an angle from above so they always cross everything and get tangled up.

Imagine a room full of crisscrossing laser beams at various angles from hip to ceiling combined with verticals all over the place. But there's wind and things get pushed back and forth so they cannot touch or if they do they will cause a cascading ripple effect.

How many dimensions have you come up with? How many exponential possibilities? How many interactions? It keeps going.

As I was laying out the plants I found out I definitely did not have enough light for flowering. There's no way for me to know when I started them because I had no idea how each one would grow. I'm definitely going enough fan buying binge.

The light layout attempts to alternate the various high power lights with spots for low power light fill-in and then with spots for UV and red filling.

The red will be shifted to one side of the room at an angle if possible, but those are combined red and UV and I want the UV as close as possible to the plants. I might end up with a bunch more of one or the other. Probably red. They are cheaper.

On the other hand, the current two bars are incredibly bright in red. They illuminate the entire room, brightly. The problem is I want them at an angle so that means their coverage will suck if I shift them to the side of a crowded room. So I'd have to lean towards lower plants on one side of the room.

If I really cared I wouldn't be using them right now and I would prioritize all the remaining veg mode plants. But I want these autos to finish off and they love it. At the same time I'm happy to find out what plants are sensitive or not so later on I'll know how to treat them if I ever grow them again.

This room will produce far more than I've ever had before and I will be quite happy with whatever produces. The key issue is the next time around in a few years I can focus my efforts and enjoy it a bit more, and I'll have all the equipment so I'll never think about it again.

I already have a lot of UV to test and I'm not sure if any of them are better than the other. That will be determined on the next grow.

The fan layout has to deal with several goals.

Every single one of these lights generate heat. Not a huge amount compared to the previous high intensity discharge lights, but the bottom line is I have total coverage in 12x12 area and cumulatively it's the equivalent of running a 600 w heater constantly in an enclosed space. A well insulated enclosed space.

I can open up the double curtain airlock to the next room but that would be too haphazard. There still would need lots of air flow. If I did that it would just be wrong and uncontrollable.

So to start off with I have a couple of air exhaust fans with 6-in tubes sucking the hot air off the ceiling and exhausting it into the room next door. That pulls about 80° off the top constantly. It pulls in cool air off the floor from the room next door, about 60°.

... Continued...

Continuing...

Those are on at all times when the lights are on. I could use them for further night time circulation but that floor air is very cold for that and I'd rather just have the room naturally cool down. I have a sliding window in that room which I will use in the future because I will be moving into the downstairs bedroom when the upstairs is being painted, but that's a month from now so that's a different consideration for all the air exchange air flow.

There is a temperature controller that has does a high set point but when it goes high it triggers a high velocity 1,000 w air mover to pull air in from the colder room which is whatever is outside temperature. There is aconstant airflow being pushed into that room from the outdoors.

That is a brutal cold drop would I would like to avoid but it is inevitable on a 15-minute basis unless I increase constant exhaust, but it's very easy to overshoot on the constant exhaust.

Either of them would trigger a heater on if I set a low point that I cared about. Whatever they hit is good enough and it rises back enough soon enough.

Then we get to fans that move air around the room with goals.

To start off with I want a circular whirlwind in the room above the lights and on the tops of the buds. Every light should get air flow both above and below it to pull the heat off. Every top bud should get constant gentle air flow to constantly pull the heat off.

To do this I put several box fans on top of each other on the left hand side of the room and push the air down it to create what I call the air alley. That spins the room. There is a whirlwind over the lights.

This airflow is unnecessary at night for temperature reasons but I might maintain It at a lower level to keep the plants moving.

I never want a bud to get over 75°. Currently I'm at 74.8. I accept they will occasionally do that but the point is it should top out at around 77. That's to lower the possibility of the terpenes volatilizing off.

I want to create an alternating gentle breeze onto all of the plants to move their leaves around and not have them touching any other leaf for more than a few seconds at a time. This will drop down mold possibility and increase light exposure to the leaves as they unblock each other.

I currently have small clip-on reciprocating fans but these might not be large enough for the task.

When lights go out at night, the temperature drops and I need to reduce the moisture so the humidity doesn't skyrocket and then condense on the plants.

This might be a dehumidifier moment or I might be able to do it via air flow and heat. Right now I only have a four and a half hour night so I don't have time for a slow temp drop. A few strategically placed infrared heat emitters on the leaves from the ceiling might be just enough to solve this right now when everything's small.

But things will change dramatically when the plants gets bigger. There will be 50 gallons of watering every 5 days. That's 50 gallons of moisture in the air. That will destroy my house while simultaneously the plants won't like it either.

I have just ordered a temperature/humidity sensor that integrates with my power plug programming environment. That means I can have programmatic control of every single air flow, light, and temperature device based on either temperature or humidity. That in turn means I can have simulated sunrise and sunsets while simultaneously monitoring the temperature and humidity and have ever increasing or decreasing exhaust from the upper area versus increasing or decreasing internal reciprocating air flow to keep the humidity under control, as well as doing subtle adjustments with infrared heat emitters.

Turn off the lights in a third of the room, while shining the red from a side low angle. As the lights turn off, turn on the infrared emitters to allow a temperature drop while keeping the edge of the leaves warm and dry. Spin the air while that happens to shake out some of the moisture and let it evaporate.

Do this across the room for 15 minutes per set of lights over 45 minutes.

Shine the red and infrared for 30 minutes. The room will have dropped about 10° at that point and turn on the heater to maintain.

Turn the red off but maintain the infrared for the heat.

It will probably take a week of monitoring and adjusting when I first set it up and when the plants get bigger I will have to double check it's working. But that should handle it with a bit of complexity as I work it out.

The light has to handle corners which are typically dim spots. I have a whole bunch of Mylar sheeting currently draping around the room and I have a whole bunch of bungee cords that will show up in a day or two. I will cut that up into approximately 6x4 sheets and then create anchor points around the room to be able to pull them into. That will be a serious arts and crafts day. When I installed them later, I have to be very careful about air flow.

Okay, I'm done babbling but the complexity isn't over. We've just gotten to the point of how I'm programming the controllers and what my options are there. And limitations because the programming environment sucks.

So, how many variables did you count, if you bothered, I doubt it, but if you did, how many exponential dimensions did you come up with?

Wow, just wow. My friend it is so much easier to grow simply than introduce so many factors. I grow in peat moss with just GH ferts , never a problem. Used to make my own super soil, never had a problem with that either and just watered. Growing good cannabis takes time and experience, throwing so many variables in there just complicates matters. I agree with your old boss.

Swiller said:

Wow, just wow. My friend it is so much easier to grow simply than introduce so many factors. I grow in peat moss with just GH ferts , never a problem. Used to make my own super soil, never had a problem with that either and just watered. Growing good cannabis takes time and experience, throwing so many variables in there just complicates matters. I agree with your old boss.

Click to expand...

This is dopamine driven behavior. I love it. I'm not worried. I enjoy what I'm doing, and get a bunch of cannabis when I'm done.

That's a lot of reading my friend! A lot of variables and tons of thought put into it! I hope your experiments are rewarding. There are literally 1000s of research studies from botanists and cannabis experts available online. A lot of us have read most of them, until our eyes are bleeding.
I hope your efforts reveal some "new", discoveries or insight. I appreciate your passion for growing and desire to find new discoveries.
There is a fine line between, passion, obsession and compulsion. It's tough to follow a post that elaborates EVERY detail! Many of the details and processes you describe about using UV bulbs could have been simply stated as "a varying light schedule" using Ultra Violet, (for example). People will ask questions if interested in fine details.
The cat, the breed and the enclosure cage for the heater are also irrelevant details. (Room was under temp, I added heat).
I never actually finished the second page. Your post won't gain much traction when you " over explain", everything. You lost me about a 1/3 of the way through. I kept saying to myself, "get to the point". All these little tiny details

testtime said:

Continuing...

Those are on at all times when the lights are on. I could use them for further night time circulation but that floor air is very cold for that and I'd rather just have the room naturally cool down. I have a sliding window in that room which I will use in the future because I will be moving into the downstairs bedroom when the upstairs is being painted, but that's a month from now so that's a different consideration for all the air exchange air flow.

There is a temperature controller that has does a high set point but when it goes high it triggers a high velocity 1,000 w air mover to pull air in from the colder room which is whatever is outside temperature. There is aconstant airflow being pushed into that room from the outdoors.

That is a brutal cold drop would I would like to avoid but it is inevitable on a 15-minute basis unless I increase constant exhaust, but it's very easy to overshoot on the constant exhaust.

Either of them would trigger a heater on if I set a low point that I cared about. Whatever they hit is good enough and it rises back enough soon enough.

Then we get to fans that move air around the room with goals.

To start off with I want a circular whirlwind in the room above the lights and on the tops of the buds. Every light should get air flow both above and below it to pull the heat off. Every top bud should get constant gentle air flow to constantly pull the heat off.

To do this I put several box fans on top of each other on the left hand side of the room and push the air down it to create what I call the air alley. That spins the room. There is a whirlwind over the lights.

This airflow is unnecessary at night for temperature reasons but I might maintain It at a lower level to keep the plants moving.

I never want a bud to get over 75°. Currently I'm at 74.8. I accept they will occasionally do that but the point is it should top out at around 77. That's to lower the possibility of the terpenes volatilizing off.

I want to create an alternating gentle breeze onto all of the plants to move their leaves around and not have them touching any other leaf for more than a few seconds at a time. This will drop down mold possibility and increase light exposure to the leaves as they unblock each other.

I currently have small clip-on reciprocating fans but these might not be large enough for the task.

When lights go out at night, the temperature drops and I need to reduce the moisture so the humidity doesn't skyrocket and then condense on the plants.

This might be a dehumidifier moment or I might be able to do it via air flow and heat. Right now I only have a four and a half hour night so I don't have time for a slow temp drop. A few strategically placed infrared heat emitters on the leaves from the ceiling might be just enough to solve this right now when everything's small.

But things will change dramatically when the plants gets bigger. There will be 50 gallons of watering every 5 days. That's 50 gallons of moisture in the air. That will destroy my house while simultaneously the plants won't like it either.

I have just ordered a temperature/humidity sensor that integrates with my power plug programming environment. That means I can have programmatic control of every single air flow, light, and temperature device based on either temperature or humidity. That in turn means I can have simulated sunrise and sunsets while simultaneously monitoring the temperature and humidity and have ever increasing or decreasing exhaust from the upper area versus increasing or decreasing internal reciprocating air flow to keep the humidity under control, as well as doing subtle adjustments with infrared heat emitters.

Turn off the lights in a third of the room, while shining the red from a side low angle. As the lights turn off, turn on the infrared emitters to allow a temperature drop while keeping the edge of the leaves warm and dry. Spin the air while that happens to shake out some of the moisture and let it evaporate.

Do this across the room for 15 minutes per set of lights over 45 minutes.

Shine the red and infrared for 30 minutes. The room will have dropped about 10° at that point and turn on the heater to maintain.

Turn the red off but maintain the infrared for the heat.

It will probably take a week of monitoring and adjusting when I first set it up and when the plants get bigger I will have to double check it's working. But that should handle it with a bit of complexity as I work it out.

The light has to handle corners which are typically dim spots. I have a whole bunch of Mylar sheeting currently draping around the room and I have a whole bunch of bungee cords that will show up in a day or two. I will cut that up into approximately 6x4 sheets and then create anchor points around the room to be able to pull them into. That will be a serious arts and crafts day. When I installed them later, I have to be very careful about air flow.

Okay, I'm done babbling but the complexity isn't over. We've just gotten to the point of how I'm programming the controllers and what my options are there. And limitations because the programming environment sucks.

So, how many variables did you count, if you bothered, I doubt it, but if you did, how many exponential dimensions did you come up with?

Click to expand...

Way too many, that's for sure! Over explaining EVERY SINGLE ASPECT is a bit much! You forgot what type of clothes you wear when entering the room. The type of fabric, where it was manufactured, the fabric used, and why, the preferred shoes, etc...
Wow... Just Wow! My head hurts! I hope your ok?

MeOhMyOhio said:

Way too many, that's for sure! Over explaining EVERY SINGLE ASPECT is a bit much! You forgot what type of clothes you wear when entering the room. The type of fabric, where it was manufactured, the fabric used, and why, the preferred shoes, etc...
Wow... Just Wow! My head hurts! I hope your ok?

Click to expand...

I have the most beautiful light jacket that was given to me by a guy named Tom when I was arrested and then put in rehab. It's got mountains and a bear on it. Whenever I wear it out I get comments on it. It's comfy and I'm happy to run around the Cold zone in it. You never know which gods are smiling or not depending on what I'm wearing and this one served me well for 10 years.

My shoes are highly specialized. They are slippers that have Velcro on both sides and a comfy padded base and they're for diabetics. Since I have a disease that puts cysts in my feet, I can't wear regular shoes.

The cat is a Russian blue, his name is Luna, he's 18 lb, he's one of two, he's my wife's but he loves us both. I can grab him and throw him on my shoulder and carry him up the steps to get him out of the grow zone and he never claws me. He understands English, I've had many cats over my lifetime and this is the first cat that made me realize they all understand your language. After I started talking to him and he actually did what I said and made me understand that he understood, I started talking to my other cat and all the sudden I understood that she understood English too. And no, I'm not hallucinating, my wife agrees.

I don't mind detailing the world in the grow journal. It's a journal. I've spent a lifetime creating highly detailed technical journal which included every detail of the environment and activity because you never know what might impact.

In this case I give historical stories. Hopefully in context. Some people enjoy them. Some people click away. Okay. Maybe I'll change my jacket next time and we'll see if it makes a difference.

If the admin tells me not to go to this level of detail I won't. But those bytes are cheap.

It's your choice whether or not you take the time to read it. Some people find it interesting. Some people have the time. I write for myself and I write for them, not you.

I don't care if a post gains traction. I care if one or two people learn something, that's it. They'll stumble across it or they won't. Google knows everything. I'll detail my failures to show Here's where I failed and it's probably a bad idea if you do that too.

I spent my life being a Don't Bee. You know what a don't be is? That's someone who serves as a bad example. I am proudly a Don't Be.

But many times when I went down an exploratory path I tripped over something that was helpful or cheaper or faster or better. So I detail those too.

As far as the publicly available eye bleeding research.

Please tell me which bar to buy for which plant and how far away should you place them for which stage in their growth cycle? At what point in their growth should you vary it and does it make a difference if you hit it with early UV? How hard can you hit them before they start to burn and react badly? Does it matter if you hit them on the side? How much coverage can you expect for a given dollar amount?

If you can't do that, it's worthless.

You're welcome keep commenting if this is something you wish to do, you don't annoy me, but you are advising me to spend less time doing something I enjoy.

Doesn't seem that I'll be following that advice.

My next post will be concerning my wind cart and my Sun zone. The Cookie Apples are coming along nicely and that Glueberry looks like it's ready to pop.

The side lights pull the buds out from under the leaves and then I adjust so the buds then turn up.

I am going to install hangers on all four corners to allow total angular control as well as vertical so I can tune it a bit easier. There is way too much twine pulling in that area. I just got a box of those. But now I'm trying to figure out how to marionate them because there is a lot of goddamn hangers now.

What type of pathway do I need to leave so my stepladder is usable. Should I just install another half layer of grid bars to handle the short plants when they flower?

I've got lots of bars left over from a previous FAILED project which I detailed. Don't use hot tub water when your water lines freeze. Even if you think you are capable of filtering out and chemically removing the chemicals in it. I killed 15 plants that way. Lessons learned.

I find fascinating as I alter these lights and then a few hours later I can see which one wins the war of attraction or if it evens out and the buds go straight up.

Those uv/Red bars are absolute winners but I can't tell you to buy them because the company doesn't sell them anymore. They're out and have been for quite some time.

Oh well.

I'm always looking at the temperature probe readout up top. Any alteration, glance. The temperature probe in the center, at Bud level under the light at the hottest point of that three plant environment. Any alteration of any significance will cause an immediate upper down within about 5 seconds due to the amount of concentrated focused heat.

There's about 1,400 w of LED lights shining in a circular and overhead fashion and there's a bunch of stretched tight Mylar Shields located in strategic positions to allow the light to bounce to hit the sides of the plants as much as possible.

The Mylar Shields were a 10-minute arts and crafts project (cut apart a box, cut unused Mylar, clamp tape, clamp tape etc) and now I can place them anywhere for both light reflection and air flow.

The light reflection calculations makes me think of when I was playing with Ray tracing during initial animation freeware days and you have to follow the path to figure out a bunch of stuff. Interference from other objects was always a critical part of that.

Even though I place them for light bounce, I then alter them during temperature stabilization. That simply means pulling them a few inches left or right. That's because when I drop them in they alter air flow paths and block them. So I have to slide them to create openings to allow the airflow.

Anytime I do this I sit back for a few seconds and I watch the temperature. Does it go up or does it go down or does it stabilize? A minute of stabilization means I can walk away and ignore it. Even if it keeps going up it doesn't matter because the room will exhaust the moment it crosses too high but if I can keep it stable I want that. Purely for my own craziness.

Those lights include UV, far red and infrared. The infrared is pure heat. It's extra but I want the UV and far red that those bars provide. So I want to give it while simultaneously blowing off the any heat accumulated.

To the left of it is a rolling cart that has a bunch of fans including a couple of box fans, zip tied together and zip tied to the cart. Those are then zip tied via a chain of them to a bicycle hook on the ceiling to give me maneuverability of the cart for a couple of feet, but being absolutely sure it never falls over. I also have a bunch of heavy ballast on the bottom of it.

On the cart itself is a couple of reciprocating fans and a vortex fan. The point is to use the box fans to blow above plant level but at light level. There's a plastic bin placed in front of the bottom of the first box fan which blocks the actual plant tops from getting that blowing wind. I'll put a simple adjustable cardboard baffle there.

At that point I use the vortex to aim an airstream that manages to create a whirlwind within those lights and reflective panels. I'm going to put a laser pointer on the top of every fan that I use to focus air so I know exactly where it's going. I finally found a use for laser pointers. Don't use them for cats, the reflections hit their eyes and hurt them.

That took about 10 minutes.

The entire room is moving and the plants are shivering a bit which is perfect for the general room and all the plants on the back wall and on the right hand side. Now I need to move these plants inside the Sun zone.

I want them to blow a little bit back and forth moving those plants, but I want to give a rest. So that means I have to have the reciprocating fans on in such a fashion that the leaves don't blow so hard that they bend up and they safely recover.

Okay, that took a minute.

Temperature at top bud near the light level in the Sun zone is 73.2° and it's been there for the last hour. 2 hours later it's 73.5. perfect. The bottom is 72.3 so I know I have a perfect whirlwind going in there. And I know it's stable because I'm watching TV and I have the remote monitor which I glance at occasionally.

For those who think I'm growing too cold. I will grow slower than you. I will produce less per plant than you. A lot less. I might get a quarter of what you might produce from a given plant.

Some plants might produce nothing simply because it's the wrong climate for them. Okay, throw them away. That's the reason for the varieties. Find plants that grow within my environment that I want. That's part of the test.

I will keep all the terpenes I can. Some volatize around 85°. If I target 78 which I typically do, I know I'll be overshooting occasionally. I don't want to. I will have far more cannabis than I ever had in my life, legally, and be very happy from whatever this room produces.

So I'm not going to warm it up to produce a bit more with less terpenes. Or a lot more with less terpenes. I don't care. Not my goal. That's why I love winter growing.

Now I know I can create a couple of these carts, half size of these, and drop them in the corners of the room and that takes care of 90% of my air flow needs. A few more reciprocating fans in the center clamped to a pole from a vertical throwaway lamp that I hate takes care of the rest.

A bit of web comparison on the plants looks good.

December 6th planted. 25 days.
Today January 16th. 16 days
41 / 7 = week 5.8

They seem nice compared to others I've seen on the web at this point. Not as good as the hydro runs though. Not going to post links because it's to other sites such as this one.

The wing light showed up and it is 200 w exactly. It seems like a perfect veg light. I can drop some mylar across the wings and extend them a bit and it gets every angle of the plant. Hundred bucks so $0.50 a watt. High quality, solid construction very light for its wattage and solidity feeling.

It was a good buy.

The edge fill flip open showed up. Heavy. 27 lb according to my scale. Big, even when still folded up. F****** enormous when open.

Beyond rock solid. Every movement is smooth sliding and then a is a firm kachunk and no bend anywhere.

I dedicated two bicycle hooks from the ceiling to hold it in place.

A 510 w. it's a flamethrower. This thing can flower a 5-ft tent for sure. At 510 watts for 165 bucks that's $0.35 a watt.

The best light buy of my life.

And finally, things are moving along nicely as far as the actual plants.

The apple strudel is filling out very well. Recovered nicely from the early burn cycle and now I am giving her center stage underneath the 500 watter. She should be done about 4 weeks. I will give her one more feeding, she's only had one flowering feeding so far, and then let her finish. I've turned off the UV for a few days to give a burn recovery cycle and I will start blasting in a bit.

One of the cookie apples is strong and very happy, a bit tall and stretchy but for all I know it's supposed to look like that. The second one not so good, but I'm still okay with how she's coming along.

Glueberry has been showing initial flowering for about a week and it seems the stretch has begun.

Gelato is still showing the continuous minimal early flowering, no stretch whatsoever. This will be an interesting one.

Everyone else in various stages of veg. SBG is slow as expected. Pink Kush hasn't been topped yet. Amnesia lemon will be transplanted into a real container in a day or two.

I've been abusing the pair of critical orange punch. The non-uv1 was a very strong grower and I decided to drop the winged veg light on top of it very close. I burned the hell out of it for about a week and then I shoved it in the back and ignored it for a few days.

I took her sister and a cut. I didn't top. I cut every single bud tip possibility.

This is the first time I've ever pruned a cannabis plant. I stuck her with her sister in the back and now I'll look at them again in a week.

And now I'll actually put up some pictures