How Green Can I Grow in my copycat garden?

So “How Green Can I Grow?”

Full disclosure: This is my first ever grow. What little I know has come mainly from RIU. I’m sure that a lot of what I’m trying to accomplish is stuff you folks are already doing.

I’m a Measured Home Performance contractor; we specialize in deep energy retrofits on residential and commercial buildings. I’ve always wanted to grow my own product and I want to try and duplicate/use some these techniques in the build out of my room. Ultimate goal is to produce the best possible product with the least amount of kwh used. I believe LEDs are a big part of that equation along with reduced heating/cooling loads, thermal boundaries, correctly sized HVAC systems etc.

My room is sized similar to Greengenes Garden (8’ x 12’) with R19 to R27 walls and R40 and radiant barrier above the ceiling. Unfortunately it is in an outlying building that has no HVAC and the shell is not easily or cheaply air sealed.

For lighting I’m initially planning on building a CXB3070 based light similar to one of the ones Greengenes uses. Budget is an issue since several major contracts we have are on hold so if anyone has better, cheaper and just as efficient designs please let me know. I plan on ordering the parts tonight when I get home from work.

(12) CXB3070’s
(3) HLG-185H-C1400B
(3) 36” 5.8” profile heat sinks

My three plants are 7 weeks out of the ground and I’m sure they hate me at this point. I’ve done so many things wrong with them, from waiting too long to start feeding, not enough light, temp/humidity….you name it I’ve done it. Even dropped one of my ghetto fab lights on one of them and it stayed there overnight frying it.
I don't have any idea as to what strain they are or if they are even female at this point so I'm calling it "Training Wheels". The seeds came from a friend who got some product from a friend of theirs who was trying to grow outdoors and produced a plant with seeds. I know I should have gotten clones and it goes counter to what I'm trying to do by wasting resources on the unknown. On the other hand they were free and I'm learning on something so it won't be a total waste.

Advice, guidance and criticism is all welcome and appreciated.

yes, it costs a little up front but is well worth it if you are trying to save kwh, buy feminized seeds from a reputable vendor

CXB3070's just arrived, hopefully the heat sinks and drivers will arrive this week.

So I got 1/3 of my panel done last Friday (4 CXB3070AB w/HLG-185H-C1400B and a 36” 5.8” heat sink)
It runs at 84 watts on low and 215 on high. Right now I'm running it at 105 watts. The HLG-185 is running at 92°F and the COB's running from 97° to 101°F (the two inboard are running cooler than the outboard ones by 3°). Also took some shots of my LED bulbs and was surprised as to how much hotter the Cree's were running than the Target generic bulbs (all 100w eq) granted I don't have any way to measure light output right now so they may just not be putting out as much.


Target bulb (claimed 16 watts but 17 actual)


Cree 100w eq 19 watts claimed and running at that.


Ecosmart 100w EQ CFL claimed 23watts running at 25


Garden pictures, Plants were 8 weeks from sprout on Friday.




Relative humidity 57.8% and 75.1°F at canopy




Male? Female??? I need to get something better than my crappy old loupe to view this stuff.

So the Hyper fan is cruising along on low pulling just 6 watts!! :O I will try and remember to bring the flow hood home tonight and see what the actual CFM and static pressure numbers are. The biggest energy hog in the room is that damn oscillating fan at 45 watts! WTF over...... Anybody tested theirs and have a recommendation? Right now the whole room is pulling 189 watts so not to bad.

I’ve been in somewhat of a first time grower survival mode lately so I haven’t updated this thread in a while. The plants are living under 3 36” CXB3070 (4) light bars, basically like the three segments of Greengene’s Super Panel. One is in my 4x4 tent and two are over the one remaining female from the original three seeds I started. At this point she has been in veg for four months. So one question I have is “are 8 CXB3070’s enough to flower a plant that is comfortably taking up a 3’6”X3’6” space? The other question would be since right now with the 7gal pot she stands six feet tall and I have an 8’ ceiling to work with, am I SOL?

I picked up and attempted to germinate a few seeds, unfortunately the three sativa’s failed to pop. I’ve also finally been able to get clones to thrive(I’m a slow learner) and hopefully I didn’t wreck the first five with the topping they just received.

If time permits this weekend I plan on doing a watt draw, static pressure and delivered CFM test on my 8” Hyper fan. I’m curious to see how it fares throughout the range of the speed controller.

...MK what kelvin are your CXB3070?...

...maybe 4 (one bar) - 5000k for vegetative and 8 (two bars) - 3000k for floration?...

pd....

4 x CXB3070 AB = 49.83 Dissp.W @ 1.4 A @ 48.02 % = 23.92 PARW x 4 = 95.71 PARW / bar

3’6” X 3’6” = 12, 96 ---- 13 ft²
------------------------------
95,71 PARW / 13 ft² = 7,36 PAR W / ft² (only one bar)
7,36 PAR W / ft² * 4.66 umol / s / PAR W * 10.7 = 366,98 umol / s / ft² = PPFD.
------------------------------
191,42 PARW / 13 ft² = 14,72 PAR W / ft² (two bars)
14.72 PAR W / ft² * 4.66 umol / s / PAR W * 10.7 = 733,96 umol / s / ft² = PPFD.
------------------------------
287,13 PARW / 13 ft² = 22,09 PAR W / ft² (three bars)
22,09 PAR W / ft² * 4.66 umol / s / PAR W * 10.7 = 1101, 45 umol / s / ft² = PPFD.



Saludos

Thank you for the reply salmonetin, my CXB's are 3000k.
So given that SupraSPL uses 14-15 PAR W/ft² for flowering I technically should be ok using two bars as long as I don't run out of ceiling height?

The one plant will hit the ceiling for sure bro the way it is now. The first pic I'm talking about. If I were you I would bend her down and spread her open and put a trellis net on her. Otherwise all the foliage under 2 feet from the light is going to be worthless. Bend her down spread her out and flower her now. She's massive and when stretch hits when you put in flower will reach your roof. Just my opinion but I am pretty sure it will

Clean grows and new LED gear...!!!! OH YEAH...!!!

Keep trooping on...your journey is young...

I got my mini-split installed on Saturday, outdoor temps got up to 99F on Friday but luckily it only hit 87F in the room.
I built a trellis to tie her down with, I wound up adding a second layer not too long after this one.


In the process of trying to spread her out I broke the stalk on the right almost completely off (90%). Fortunately it was a very clean break so I grabbed a spare bicycle inner tube. and tied her back together. She didn't even blink, happy as can be.


Once she perked back up and settled in I flipped her and today was day 27.

Monday was the end of week six, so here are some pic's. She's covering about a 3.5"X4" space, flowers aren't super big but I'm sure happy for what I've done with my first grow.

Hey, it's looking great. You'll pick up some good tips that will improve it. I more than doubled production when I went R/O water and five gallon cloth pots along with Subs super soil mix. I rarely need nutes for most species. Keep on growin

A couple pic's from this morning in the garden. I sampled a lower bud and I'm REALLY happy with the results! Still some white pistals and tricombs are just starting to cloud so maybe another week?

Awesome effort, looks good to me

I decided to go ahead and start the harvest on the one plant since this week is going to be crazy busy. Being new and I realize this is the question everyone hates but whats your guestamate on what I might wind up with? I'm hoping 5-6 ounces dried but could be less. The flowers seem pretty dense and super sticky. I've still got a bunch of small stuff to cut down but it's getting to late.

She grew under 8 CXB3070's 3000k with General Hydroponics Maxi Bloom 1tsp per gallon.
Her clones are at week 5

WTH is wrong with the edit functions.

Looks like you killed it for the first time around I would guess you estimate to be reasonable.

It does look like my room in some pics. Freaky.
Great grow man. Beautiful.