Icemud's Mineralized soil tent grow with Intelligent Gro LED's.

Hey everyone...

Today makes day 57 of flowering and the ladies continue to fatten up and get larger as they get closer to harvest. I pulled out my 30x lupe and looked at the trichomes and they are still mostly clear with a little bit of cloudy so I know I still have another week to 2 weeks to go.

Not much else to report on

Here are today's photos.

Hey everyone...

Day 61 of flowering!!

So I did a trichome check and looked at all the plants with my 30x magnifying lupe, as well as took some photos to get in a little closer. By the looks of it all the plants now have cloudy trichomes and it looks that my mystery kush is even showing slight amber. I think within a week, the mystery kush will come down, and the black cherry cola should be next, as soon as my drying closet is available. The harlequin is also getting close and I think will be ready by the time the black cherry cola is dry, possibly sooner.

I am absolutely amazed at how fat and dense and frosty the buds are this round. I have to say these Intelligent Gro Generation 2 LED's are amazing, and I should be very close to if not surpass my 1lb goal I believe.

The plants really stink right now, and with my carbon scrubber and tent closed, no issue, but when I open it up to tend to my plants...whoa... the stench is very very strong

So for these last few feedings it will be nothing but water and cal/mag and possibly a little carboload. I am going to be spacing the last few waterings out with a day inbetween to see if I can slightly stress the plants and get a little more resin to form, but I don't know if it really will make a difference or not.

Well here are the photos for today! Enjoy!

Hey Everyone!

Well today makes day 67 of Flowering (from the 12/12 flip)

I have to say I am completely blown away by what these Intelligent Gro LED's are doing to my girls... I mean I am amazed completely. I never expected to see such fat trichome covered buds in my grow area with only 500w of light...and Intelligent Gro LED is definitely a game changer for me I am completely satisfied with the growth, plant health and yield under these lights that I would at this time recommend them to anyone looking for an awesome solution for their indoor garden. I typically don't recommend things that I haven't completely used, however at this point in my grow I think it is safe to say or recommend these lights.... (based on a tent full of beast buds and cola's)

So I did another trichome check last night, and the mystery kush is all cloudy trichomes, black cherry cola is just starting to turn from clear to cloudy, and the harlequin has had cloudy trichomes the whole time (seems to be a trait of high CBD strains).

So I imagine that probably in the next day or 2 I will start harvesting the mystery kush's, followed by the black cherry cola, and lastly the harlequin.

As far as feeding, I have been giving the girls only R/O water with Cal/Mag and epsom salts added to it.... I don't want to add any NPK at this time since there is plenty in the soil to get these girls through the last week of flowering, and I really want smooth flavor. The sulfur in the epsom salts will hopefully help with the aroma

I have been giving an extra day between waterings to help slightly stress the plants, in hopes to really bump up resin production over the last week. I also raised the lights up about 8" to also help let the plants know that harvest time has come and to hopefully bump up resin formation over the next few days (a trick my buddy from norcal told me)

Well like I mentioned...I am extremely happy with the Intelligent Gro LED's and I think anyone looking for a very fairly priced solution for LED growing should definitely consider Intelligent Gro.

Here are today's photos.

Hey everyone....today is the last day of the Mystery Kush's as they got harvested last night/tonight...

Here is my last update video of this grow....enjoy!!

Well everyone.....The day has come.....

I began my harvest process last night and I chopped down the 3 mystery kush's. I checked the trichomes and they were all cloudy, with some amber so I decided they were ready to be harvested.

I have to say this strain is a wonder to manicure...hardly any sugar leaves and very high bud to leaf ratio... so harvest was a breeze

I was especially surprised in finding all the buds and cola's that I didn't expect to see laying down in the foliage, and I couldn't believe the size of some of the buds... I mean some were forearm length and about as thick as tennis balls I definitely think I should reach my 1lb goal with this grow!!!

As of now I still have my 2 Black Cherry Cola's and Harlequin growing, which will be harvested as soon as I move my mystery kush's out of my drying box. (prob 5-7 days).

My house smells amazingly strong right now, and air fresheners are a must.... even though I am legal, I don't like people to know what I do so I want to try to mask it as much as possible....definitely running through insense fast

After I harvested and manicured all the buds, I did DocBud's 2 part wash.....washing all the buds in a water/lemon juice/baking soda mix on part one, and then following up with a rinse in pure 0ppm R/O water afterwords....

I love how budwashing makes the buds look more vibrant, and really seems to even bring out the aroma even more.... !! and when the buds are ready to smoke...makes a world of difference!!

Well here are the photos for the harvest....

And some photos of mystery kush #2

And a few more photos....

Hey everyone!!

Hope you all had a great weekend!!!

Today would make day 73 of Flowering, and the Black Cherry Cola's were harvested last night/today.



We had some extremely dry conditions over the past 3-4 days here in Socal, humidity down to 10-25% so drying of my mystery kushes went slightly faster than hoped for, but I was able to raise the drying room humidity quite significantly by putting wet rags hanging in the drying room as well. This worked amazing and I was able to keep the humidity around 50%.

So the Mystery Kush I believe is definitely a Bubba x OG or something with bubba in it, the smell and earthy taste give it away, plus the bud structure is just like my pre98's I grew a few grows ago.... I'm not a huge bubba fan, so I most likely will be culling this strain after this grow is all said and done with, and after I can sample the overall product. I did take a clone which is rooted and vegging now, but I have other strains I much would rather use in its space, so most likely this will be the last run of my Mystery OG/bubba. I also don't like having genetics I don't know the strain so it bothers me to keep somthing that is not my favorite, and doesnt' have a family tree

So I weighed the 3 Mystery Kush's that I ran, and jarred them for curing. Here are the weights so far...

Mystery Kush 1: 44.4g
Mystery Kush 2: 58.5g
Mystery Kush 3: 64.4g

Total so far...168.8g



So looking back at my last grow running the Mystery Kush's (different grow style) I only got 1oz per plant... on average this grow with the exact same strain I got about 2oz per plant which is quite a significant increase for only adding 1/3 more light not shabby The Mystery Kush/Bubba nugs look very large, but don't weigh a lot as it is more of an airy strain (like bubba) and unlike OG kush. So for those huge nugs you saw me chop down, they shrunk significantly and the weight actually was under what I would have visually guessed. Either way the buds are coated with trichomes, smell amazing, and I quick dried a few samples and tried it and even with no drying time or cure, the buds were very very smooth, very sweet and earthy tasting, and packed a very intense cerebral high only to get better over the next 3 week cure

Its going to be really close as far as hitting the 1lb mark. I have only 1x hit over 1lb out of my tent I believe, so its been a challenge to get my yield numbers up. Obviously I am not a hydro farmer which typically makes for much larger yields, and I also don't use chemical fertz whiich typically take longer to be available for the plant so again I think I'm at a disadvantage in that aspect as far as huge yields, however I know my quality is amazing so not the biggest concern but definitely a personal grudge I hold with my grow area to produce over 1lb lol


So the Black Cherry Cola's came down last night. They were ready to go and really starting to turn purple. I found it very odd that a majority of the buds that were in the direct light under the LED's, had one side that was really purple, and the underside away from the lights was bright green. My guess is that the plant built up anthocyanins to help shield from maybe the UV so the tops turned more purple, but not for certain... either way they look amazingly beautiful and smell great! The buds are also rock hard and extremely dense so I think that these 2 plant may even top the total yield of my 3 mystery kush's significantly After trimmed the BCC were washed in a 2 part wash and hung to dry. Thankfully the humidity in the area has come back to normal so these will be dry probably by next weekend and ready for jars

My Harlequin I am going to give a few more days under the lights. She is ready, but I think giving an extra 2-3 days with all 3 Intelligent Gro lights on her might even induce more trichomes and maybe a little swell on the lower buds... Probably coming down tues or wednesday.



Here are some photos of the harvest

OK everyone....Dun Dun Dun.... The moment of truth..... did he reach 1lb.... ?



So today I took the Harlequin off the branches and put it in the jars for curing, but before closing up the jar I took the measurements of yield to add to my final grow conclusion...


So....

My 1 Harlequin Plant yielded 62g......

So, my grand total for this grow for yield is 367g.... or just over 13 oz.....


So with that being said... My grow consisted of 3x 180w lights (avg draw 175w) which equals 525W total. I did not use the controller on this grow, so therefore, this grow achieved a Gram per watt of

.70 Grams per watt!!!

So far this is my highest or most efficient grow yet!

Just a recap...here are the details on my past grows...

Grow 1: 1000w HID (400w CMH + 600w HPS) Total yield 574g or .57 grams/watt
Grow 2: 1000w HID (400w CMH + 600w HPS) Total yield 547g or .55 grams/watt
Grow 3: 1000w HID (400w CMH + 600w HPS) No Yield Data (Powder Mildew took over)
Grow 4: 1000w HID (400w CMH + 600w HPS) Total yield 325g or .33 grams/watt
Grow 5: 580w (400w CMH + Mars II 400w) Total yield 245g or .42 grams/watt
Grow 6: 540w HID (3x Mars II 400w models) Total yield 308g or .57 grams/watt
Grow 7: Under 300w (2x Intelligent Gro, GEN1, 180w each on dimmer) Total yield 191g or .63 grams/watt
Grow 8: 3x Intelligent Gro, GEN2, 180w draw each, Total yield 367g or .70 grams/watt



So, unfortunately I came close, but didn't hit my 1lb goal... 3oz short... which I have only done 2x out of 8 grows....

But looking at my total yield... It is not quite as high as all of my 1000w grows but did actually beat out some of them too ... also is using much less electricity... about half to be exact...saving me 70$ a month...

So overall I am quite pleased with the yield.....

I still will follow up with a full report/review of my experience, pros and cons as well as some final dried and cured bud shots


Here are the photos of the Harlequin going into jars, and a photo of all 3 strains jarred up

So...the final thoughts and review..

Initial Impression:

Well being that this was my 2nd grow with Intelligent Gro Lights, and my first run being severly underpowered with just 300W in my tent, I was really curious if the new Generation 2 lights with a new spectrum and more intense lighting would serve my grow tent well, in addition to adding a 3rd light making my tent a total of 540W roughly. After installing all 3 of the 180w (formally known as the 270w) I quickly saw that my footprint coverage was much better and 3x of the 180w models definitely did the trick in lighting my 2.5x5'x7' tent. I was extremely impressed with the Aluminum casing on the Intelligent Gro LED's as they weigh significantly less than other LED models I have run, which gave a nice break to my tent poles and kept them from bowing like other lights. I also really liked the spectrum of the Gen 2 lights, as they are one of the few LED lights that actually have a full blue end of the spectrum including LED...(most LED's currently only have a 450nm chip) to cover the blue region, and Intelligent Gro actually uses a few different blues to fully cover this blue region. My belief is that the blue area of the spectrum causes "protective reaction" in the plant, driving terps, and oils to the max to protect the plant, and so it made me happy that Intelligent Gro addressed this in their spectrum.

Another big plus about the Intelligent Gro lights was their quiet operation. On previous LED grow lights I used, the fans were extremely loud and when you live around your grow area, this becomes a nuisence, but the Intelligent Gro lights are operating whisper quiet. Now one disadvantage or drawback to the aluminum cases and quiet fans is that in MY GROW, the Intelligent Gro LED's definitely ran warmer than other LED models I have ran, which led to my tent being slightly hotter than before with other LEDs and even over my HID setup. I was still able to keep the temperatures at a manageable range, but I would have liked the panels to run much cooler if it was my option. Possibly a better thermal design or cranking up the fans slightly would help. Either way not a huge drawback, but something notable.

As far as first receiving the lights, they were packaged nicely, very securely in a box inside a box inside a box and the exterior box had no indications as to what was inside, which was nice for privacy. So discreet shipping, check

Dealing with the company, Intelligent Gro and the owner David has been a treat. Getting to know him over my 2 sponsored grows, he is a really good guy, who cares for his customers, and his product and wants the best for both worlds. He will go above and beyond to make sure his customers are satisfied, and overall is just a fun person to speak with. He definitely supports his product, company and customers to the best of his abilities. He also has a ethical approach to how he conducts business and I see this taking him far in the industry. Kudos ! I also want to say that anytime I had a question, or needed an answer, Dave was very quick to respond, usually within 24 hours, and always did his best to give me the answers I needed.

Over the course of using my Gen 2 LED grow lights, I did encounter some issues with the controller and my panels. I am not sure why, but using the custom controller for some reason kept shorting out my COB channels on 2 of the 3 LED panels, but once removed they went back to normal. I never really got a solution to this, and it seems that my panels are the only ones out of many that have this issue, so it may be a faulty controller, not sure what the solution is. I didnt' really care thought, as for my 2nd grow I didn't use the controller, and just ran the lights on full without dimming, and they performed very well. I definitely see a good use for the controller, especially in VEG when plants are young and don't need full intensity, and the controller allows dimming which is a great money saving option. I also do like the fact that I could quickly dim the lights if I needed to do a foliar feeding, and then quickly bring the intensity back to normal with the push of a button. A very cool feature for customizing the lights, but also not needed or necessary, and the lights as just stand alone grow lights do an amazing job by themselves...without the controller. So even as a cool extra feature, know that you don't need the controller with these lights to see great results And when compared as just a "stand alone" LED grow light, for the price when compared to many other LED grow lights of the same wattage is much cheaper a nice perk.

THE VEG CYCLE
What can I say besides Intelligent Gro nailed their spectrum for veg. My plants vegged extremely fast, had great internode spacing, not too tight, but not too spaced out, perfect IMO The plants also grew much faster than I remember with my 400CMH bulbs of the past and even much faster than other LED's I have used. I definitely think Intelligent Gro's spectrum is perfect for veg I know that from here on out, unless I find something better, the Intelligent Gro's will definitely find a home in my veg tent for now, *my 3rd one, and I can almost expect that in future grows they will also be in my flowering tents



The Flowering Cycle
Well, just like the VEG cycle, Intelligent Gro hit the spectrum and intensity about right for these lights. My plants grew fast, with fat buds, and an hardy yield and out of my 10 grows I have under my belt, was the 3rd largest yield that I have ever grown out of this tent, even rivaling my HID setups and other LED setups I have run. The buds were extremely fat, and the buds were coated with trichomes. The one thing I noticed is that on my BCC strain, the flavor really came out much more deep and defined in this harvest than in my last, which I think the added UV and blue end may have had something to do with. I am extremely happy with how these lights flowered my garden, and not only was this my 3rd largest yield, but also this was my MOST Efficient grow, with the highest Gram per watt to date. I would say this thought, one thing I noticed is the light footprint/coverage charts seem to be a bit larger than actual coverage (for cannabis and high light level plants) so even though these lights are advertised as a 2'x3' coverage, I think a more true and accurate footprint for flowering cannibus wouldd be 1 1/2' x 2' as I noticed around the edges of my tent which is 2 1/2' wide, the buds were significantly smaller and lighter than the ones directly under the lights. So just as pretty much most LED grow lights I have found out, take the advertised coverage area and subtract about 1' from each side, and it is more key to "Optimal" lighting. For plants other than Cannabis, tomatos and sun loving plants, like peppers lettuce and such, then the 2'x3' footprint would be accurate as these types of plants do not require the intense PAR that tomatos and cannabis require. Being that so far all the LED's I have tried have a smaller than advertised footprint, not really a drawback, but just a mentionable.


MY Final thoughts...

So I know a lot of you have watched this grow, cheered me on, and shared the excitement of this grow... and I really enjoyed working with Intelligent Gro to display these LED's in action I know the big question for a lot of you is, would you recommend or buy these panels....

My answer to this question would be YES.

With the controller being not necessary, but more of a cool feature, just running the panels on 100% full intensity did my garden very well and saved me a ton of money over my previous 1000w setup. The yield was pretty much similar, the quality of the buds was extremely good, and for the price of these panels vs a lot of competitors, Intelligent Gro is on the more affordable side of the spectrum than many other LED grow lights for the same wattage. I also like that they actually have UV chips in their panels, which most LED companies dont, or they throw in a 410nm violet and call it UV. I also like that they use a full blue end of the spectrum vs most other LEd companies that only have a 450nm blue and thats it.

So yes, if I was going to purchase a LED grow light, Intelligent Gro would be at the top of my list right now currently and as my results show, they do grow amazing buds and anyone that purchased one I think will be happy with the results. Remember that going LED is an investment, so the inital cost is high, but over time they save you a lot of money... for example... this setup would have run me around $1300 vs a HPS system which would have run about $400, a difference of around $900.... BUT, I am saving about $70-80 a month on electricity, so with that being said, within a year I actually have already saved more than the difference between LED and HID, and from 1 year on, a positive ROI or return on investment. In that aspect, it is a very worthy investment, and on top of it all, more trichomes, better flavor and much happier plants

DISCLAIMER:

I feel the need that I should update on this thread as a word of caution to anyone considering these lights.

Even though my end results and harvest were good.... I want to notate that I did have issues with my COB's going out on 2 of the 3 LED panels I ran. I was sent a replacement driver quickly and replaced the driver on one of them and it worked fine afterwords. A 2nd of the LED panels had a COB go out but then it somehow fixed itself and ran normally for the duration of my grow. I figured it may have to do with the controller regulating the voltages but this was just a suspicion and not confirmed and after I unplugged the controller I had no problems for the rest of my grow and had a successful harvest.

with that being said...

After seeing this problem happening to many growers with this brand of lights...my opinion of reliability has changed and I can not recommend them to anyone at this time due to their inconsistent problems.

I feel bad for "vouching" for these lights and for anyone who spend their money on them because of me or my journals... . For this reason I can no longer feel good about recommending them to anyone at this time, and I really feel bad for anyone that I helped to make a purchase decision on these lights.

At the time that I finished this journal, I was unaware of any other existing issues and thought my issue was exclusive to my LED's alone...but now months later after seeing handfuls of people are having issues, I just can not feel good about recommending them due to reliability issues viewed on other threads and also forums. Therefore my sincere apology to anyone who purchased these lights because of me, and a word of caution to anyone who is considering them.

Thanks, i was about to purchase these lights until I read your last comment.
What is your favorite LED lamp now ?

Herbal kush said:

Thanks, i was about to purchase these lights until I read your last comment.
What is your favorite LED lamp now ?

Click to expand...

I have been using the Advanced LED XTE 300's, 3 of them and so far 3 cycles and having great results, and no issues. They use Cree and Osram chips (except the IR, which cree/osram don't make), run very very quiet and cool, and have 2 dimmable channels (red/white, red) in which you can control spectrum and intensity. I love them so far and definitely would recommend them.

Here is a video that I made showing the Advanced XTE which features PAR (fluency rate) measurements, IR temps, unboxing and more..

Do NOT buy Intelligent Gro LED, they are crap!

DISCLAIMER:

I feel the need that I should update on this thread as a word of caution to anyone considering these lights.

Even though my end results and harvest were good.... I want to notate that I did have issues with my COB's going out on 2 of the 3 LED panels I ran. I was sent a replacement driver quickly and replaced the driver on one of them and it worked fine afterwords. A 2nd of the LED panels had a COB go out but then it somehow fixed itself and ran normally for the duration of my grow. I figured it may have to do with the controller regulating the voltages but this was just a suspicion and not confirmed and after I unplugged the controller I had no problems for the rest of my grow and had a successful harvest.

with that being said...

After seeing this problem happening to many growers with this brand of lights...my opinion of reliability has changed and I can not recommend them to anyone at this time due to their inconsistent problems.

I feel bad for "vouching" for these lights and for anyone who spend their money on them because of me or my journals... . For this reason I can no longer feel good about recommending them to anyone at this time, and I really feel bad for anyone that I helped to make a purchase decision on these lights.

At the time that I finished this journal, I was unaware of any other existing issues and thought my issue was exclusive to my LED's alone...but now months later after seeing handfuls of people are having issues, I just can not feel good about recommending them due to reliability issues viewed on other threads and also forums. Therefore my sincere apology to anyone who purchased these lights because of me, and a word of caution to anyone who is considering them.