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

Hello everyone and welcome to my Grow Journal!!!


I am Icemud and have been growing now for 3+ years. I am a indoor soil grower who as of now have successfully completed 7 harvests over the past few years and as of now grown over 20-25 strains. I have used many different soil mixtures and recently have been on the quest for High Brix, as well as I have used many different types of lights from HID (CMH, MH and HPS) and recently converted over to LED to save on electricity, as well as give my plants a better quality light.


What strain is it?

Black Cherry Cola: not exactly sure what the genetics are but found this on one website "Airborne G13 X Ortega x C99 x Blackberry x Cherry AK-47 – 20% Indica/80% Sativa"

GDP: Supposedly Big Bud x Purple Eurkle, this is one of my favorite strains. I am excited to have 2 of them Definitely going to have to keep them around for a while.

Harlequin: A High CBD strain that gives about a 1:1 ratio of THC/CBD, great for the medicinal effects without a full blown high. About a 75%/25% sative/indica and typically produces 4-6% CBD or higher I couldn't find the details on the genetics but the sativa side is supposedly from a columbian gold and a strain from switzerland and the indica side from a Nepal strain.

Purple Dragon: Purple Urkle x Blue dragon (Sour Diesel x Blueberry)

Green Candy OG: Green Cr@ck x Candy Kush (OG x Trainwreck)


Is it in Veg or Flower stage?
Flowering, Day 27


Indoor or outdoor?
Indoor using a 2x4 Hydrohut Silver Edition (Actual Measurment 55" x 28" x 78"),

Soil or Hydro?
Soil

If soil... what is in your mix?

I am running the soil from my last grow, mixed with about 20% new soil that has cooked for a few months. Both were amended at the same time with the following amendments. Upon re-use, I did not add anything to the mix.


The Base Soil Mix:
Each of these equaled about 2 1/2 (2gallon) pots.
So a total of 5 pots of premixed soil was used
8 (2gallon pots) of ProMix HP
2 (2 gallon pots) of FF Ocean Forest
2 1/2 (2gal pots) of Worm Castings
1 1/2 (2gal pot) of Volcanic Pumice
2 (2gal pot) of Alaskan Forest Humus

The Amendments: Make up 15% of my total soil mix
1 1/2 Cup of Azomite (trace minerals and micronutrients)
4 Cups of Calcium Carbonate Powder 97%
3 1/2 Cups of Soft Rock Phosphate (Collidal Clay with high phosphorus and CEC value)
1 1/3 Cups of Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate)
2 Cups of Crab Meal 2-3-0 23% calcium(also a P source and source of chitin a hormone/growth regulator)
1 1/2 Cups of Fish Bone meal. (3-18-0) 24% Calcium
1 1/2 Cups of Lava Sand (adds trace minerals and supposedly adds paramagnetic value to the soil)
2 Cups of Crab Shell Meal 2-3-0 23% Calcium
2 Cups of Kelp Meal (also has growth hormones and PGR's, plus trace minerals)
1 Cup of Alfalfa Meal. (2-0-3) (contains Trichontinol which aids in plant growth and health)
1/2 Cup of Powdered Humic Acid (Adds Carbons to the soil as well as trace minerals and aids in chelation of minerals)
1/2 Cup of Humboldt Myco's Maximum (Beneficial Bacteria and Mycorrizae Fungus)
1/2 cup of Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulfate)
1/3 Cup of Greensand (0-0-3) (Trace Minerals)
1/2 Cup of Dry Molasses (1-0-3) (Energy for the Microbes)


If soil... What size pot?
3 gallon round plastic for veg, before flowering transplant into 5 gallon plastic square pots.


Size of light?
(2) Intelligent-Gro 228w LED Grow lights (IGRO-228LED)


Is it aircooled?
The tent is yes, the lights are vented and cooled with internal fans.


Temp of Room/cab?

Between 78-82F in Flowering Tent


RH of Room/cab?
Generally between 40-50%, humidifiers are available if it dips with offshore breezes here in Socal.


PH of media or res?
I don't check it, its soil.


Any Pests ?

Not any currently, I use Spinosad, SNS and other preventative measures to keep it that way


How often are you watering?
Young vegging plants about 1x every week and a half
larger Vegging plants about 1x per week
flowering plants early flowering about 1x per week
flowering late about 1x every 4 days.


Type and strength of ferts used?

Using foliar products including Bloomit, Amaze and PGR.
I also will be using Tand J enterprises tea and bio-minerals
about 1x per month I will be giving a soil drench of earthjuice

Other nutrients on hand include and may be used:
occasional additive include advanced nutrients: carboload, organic b, fulvic acid
occasional additives include general organics: bioweed, cal/mag, hydrolyzed squid, florablend tea, bioroot
bonide liquid fish 2-4-0...love this stuff!
SNS pest products for prevention
Spinosad by bonide


I welcome everyone to my journal and feel free to ask questions, chime in with advice or just enjoy the ride as we put Intelligent Gro 228w LED's to the test!

Right now currently I am on day 27 of flowering (from the 12/12 flip). I started my next watering today, which will be an Earthjuice tea which I bubble for 48 hours before feeding. I also will be giving a foliar spray to the girls today of amaze, pgr, carboload, yucca extract and organic b.

Here are yesterday's photos with the lights on,

Here are today's photo's with the lights off.

Icemud420 said:

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Looks great bro I have a question you say u don't check your runoff in soil so do it matters what ur runoff is cause i have read threads and journals watched videos an out of all that I have read they say runoff matters I thought as long as u ph ur water/nutrients that's going in your soil to 6.5 u good because i check my runoff on 1of my girl's an she was at 6.ish an my other girl wasat 5.ish so am iI ok to put both of ththem n to flowering at 5.ish soil

NyQuilkush318 said:

Looks great bro I have a question you say u don't check your runoff in soil so do it matters what ur runoff is cause i have read threads and journals watched videos an out of all that I have read they say runoff matters I thought as long as u ph ur water/nutrients that's going in your soil to 6.5 u good because i check my runoff on 1of my girl's an she was at 6.ish an my other girl wasat 5.ish so am iI ok to put both of ththem n to flowering at 5.ish soil

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Hey NyQuilkush!!! welcome to my journal and appreciate you stopping by. It feels pretty cool to be honest that you have seen all my journals and videos... cheers to that

I used to check my run off on my 1st grow, but then with organics I have learned to somewhat trust my soil, as well as having a faulty ph meter, I haven't checked it in a while. I actually think it was a great measurement to understand the soil and if it is oversaturated with salts by checking the ppm of runoff, as well as the ph going in, to ph going out, also helped in knowing more about what the soil is doing. I probably will start checking again here and there just to make sure things are going good, but need to get a better PH meter...this hanna ph check is crap that I have... doesn't stay calibrated and I think the electrode is bad.. Generally I dont check my feedings either, since I've learned that Earthjuice out the bottle and mixed usually sits around 4PH, but by bubbling it for 48 hours, usually the PH sits right around 6.4 or so.

I did a little video a while back showing how to use the custom controller with these lights.. Enjoy!

Here is a few more pics an d info on the lights.

Lookz good....is the actual power draw (total) 171 watts?

Chronikool said:

Lookz good....is the actual power draw (total) 171 watts?

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Yeah, I tested each channel, you can kind of tell by the color of the kill a watt meter which one is being tested, and at full it was reading 171 watts and 1.51A.(for each light) the other read 166w and 1.43A. (with all 3 channels at 100% intensity)

Thank you by the way for being more kind and upfront than the others on the LED forum, my intention was not to stir things up, but just didn't understand how someone can knock a product without giving reason...so I appreciate your kindness and respect!

All in all pretty ambitious but here is my issue with this type of RGB controller. You as a gardener are deciding what spectrums are most important to the plant during a particular period of plant development. Most guys simply want the intensities not the dimming aspects anyway so why spend that kind of money on the controls? If the crop suffers it's the grower who is going to blame himself for not having 'dialed in' the proper spectrums for that strain when it needed it. That being said I for one appreciate you doing the video. But even in the video you describe the panels as full spectrum. They are not. There are gaps in the spectrums that one would expect from a 200 watt panel. But I'm going to let the plants speak for themselves. If you have this dialed in than show us.

A few things you could address while we're waiting for the plants to develop...

If you could show us some PPFD uMole readings at full bright settings I'd like to see those values.
How much is this set up going to cost?
Precisely where are they built?
What is the warranty?
Are the third party certified? If so by whom and what is the file number. We have to have that for Canadian sales.

Forgive me if you covered any of these items earlier in the thread. I might have missed it.

Thanks.

chazbolin said:

All in all pretty ambitious but here is my issue with this type of RGB controller. You as a gardener are deciding what spectrums are most important to the plant during a particular period of plant development. Most guys simply want the intensities not the dimming aspects anyway so why spend that kind of money on the controls? If the crop suffers it's the grower who is going to blame himself for not having 'dialed in' the proper spectrums for that strain when it needed it. That being said I for one appreciate you doing the video. But even in the video you describe the panels as full spectrum. They are not. There are gaps in the spectrums that one would expect from a 200 watt panel. But I'm going to let the plants speak for themselves. If you have this dialed in than show us.

A few things you could address while we're waiting for the plants to develop...

If you could show us some PPFD uMole readings at full bright settings I'd like to see those values.
How much is this set up going to cost?
Precisely where are they built?
What is the warranty?
Are the third party certified? If so by whom and what is the file number. We have to have that for Canadian sales.

Forgive me if you covered any of these items earlier in the thread. I might have missed it.

Thanks.

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Hey Chazbolin, I actually saw your post in the other thread first so I actually posted there, but I will copy it here so that it will be in either place

I will see if I can get those answers for you, as well as everyone. (for prices you can go to the website at www.intelligentgro.com) I hope I don't get banned for posting links, I know how certain forums are about those things...

My setup is 2x the 228w models (each is $500) and I can get you (or anyone) a discount of 15% which makes my setup cost about $850 or so. Just for a FYI, I am using these in a 2.5'x5'x7' tent and the coverage is actually perfect for my size grow.

This is the response from Igro regarding manufacturing

"No they are not 'Made In the USA' The manufacturing process is done in china so in regards to just the manufacturing element they are made/assembled in China. We are the process of having our current manufacturer not do the assembling so that we can control that process here in the USA. So our next step as a company is to transition into USA assembled. The main reason We have selected to start here is because we have already implemented a very thorough Quality Assurance Test for every panel when it arrives in our where house. We disassemble roughly 60% of the panel to make sure EVERY Component was properly installed correctly without error or damage. We then Check each individual component to assure it is working 100%.(Drivers, electrical connections,PCB's, Circuit Board, fans, LED's, COB and Heat Sinks(Make sure connection is tight as possible for proper heat dissipation* can't just trust the Chinese..you know!) In short every component is checked over and only 60% of the pan needs to be taken apart to properly do all our checks. As part of our testing phase will be to use the PAR rental and go through and test each panel in four different positions at 3 different heights. This is to assure LED's are performing efficiently and with consistent results. This will also help us to know the same LED's chips are being used and not switched out for lower quality one;s with out our awareness. It is important that every component is the quality and meets all specifications as we have outlined to our manufacturer in the production of these lights. The second reason which is important for others is to differentiate ourselves from just re-branding someone else's product and just being a re-seller. LED companies that do this do not care like we do they are just looking to make money. Until we are able to get together the right people to create the hardware and software to create our own version of the intelligent Controller programming functions we will have to continue to get this technology from the Chinese manufacturer and in(being incorporated this time around)"

The warranty details can be found on the website at (http://www.intelligentgro.com/index.php/who-is-intelligent-gro/no-hassle-3-year-warranty)

I will see if I can get info on the other 2 questions you have...





These are the benefits I personally see from the controller:

It actually isn't a RBG controller, there is no green diodes in the light. The light does cover all spectrums between 380nm-760, with no gaps, *due to 3 different color temp white chips in the units, this covers all visible spectrums in the PAR range, so I don't see how it is not a full spectrum light, when it covers all parts of the PAR spectrum and even beyond to the McCree curve and action spectrum. The only possible "gap" that I see would be around 490nm due to this being the achilles heal of most white led emmitters in this range (including cree xlamps which dip around 490nm) The only other "gap" that I can possibly see is around 700nm but it is not completely a gap since this area does receive coverage.

I actually think you are looking at the controller option 1 way... first off, LED's are used for many other plants than cannabis, yes cannabis definitely is the market that most LED manufacturers make their money and all, but not all plants are plants that require 700umol of light to produce. By giving plants more umol than their saturation point can handle then you are actually hindering photosynthetic response. The ability to dim these panels gives flexibility to growers using them for other purposes.

These are the spectroradiometer readings on the generation 1 lights...the generation 2 lights actually feature a better blue end profile as well as the white diodes were changed on gen 2 models so in a few weeks they will be doing new tests with a spectroradimeter to get the new readings.



Also, im not sure if your aware or not, but plants go through a mid day depression where photosynthetic rates decreses and slow down at mid day, this is the plants response to the "sun" being at high noon where more UV is hitting the surface of the earths surface due to less filtering in the atmosphere. So by ramping up the intensity slowly instead of giving full intensity all day, this has the possibility of increasing photosynthetive effectiveness throughtout the day, eliminating the mid day depression plants go through.

Studies have acutally shown on young plants, the best photosynthetic response was in medium levels of irradiance, where as too low or too high of Umol readings showed plant stress responses in photosystem II hindering growth.

Another controller benefit that I see is that through manipulating the color channels you can manipulate plant growth through their photoproteins and photo morphogenesis. We all know that all strains have different growth traits....OG Kush is normally very lanky, long internodes and such, vs a bubba kush, snort stubby plant with tight internodes. So what if you are growing the bubba, and you want it to be more spread out and stretchy... with the Igro lights, you can slowly dim down the blue to induce more stretchy growth. And Vice versa, you can add more blue and limit red if your plants are stretching too much... cant do this with any other panels...your stuck with the spectral output soldered in the panels.

Plants also have been shown that in different light irradiances they produce different chemical profiles in plants, matter of fact, it is show that plants grown in shaded environments can actually show higher oil productions than ones grown in direct sunlight, and with cannabis, isn't essential oils one of the things we go for in heavy production?

Lastly, the lights do not have to be used with the controller and can be run at just 100% full intensity all the time.. so with this being said, when comparing panels in the price/wattage categories, the Igro lights are actually slightly cheaper than Advanced LED, Lush, Blackdog and many other brands, hosting same features. So if you didn't see use for the controller, then you could just use it at 100% intensity and still get a better price than buying a different panel with the same features (on/off).

I do agree with you that photosynthesis is a direct relation with light irradiance levels, CO2 availability and temperature and that typically the more light, the higher the photosynthetic rate assuming CO2 and temperature are in correlation with the plants requirements. But I also see that studies show plant fatigue in extreme high irradiance levels, I think that there is more use to a dimmable controller that we know what to do with at this time.

I know that new concepts can be uncomfortable as people get familiar with what works, but step outside your familiarities and you will see that there is many potential uses for a controllable dimming light, that other fixed intensity and spectrum lights cant do...

Hope this helped man.

question for anyone..... How the heck do you like a post or thread on rollitup??? I can't seem to find it!!! LOL

Just a quick photo update.... these were taken right before the lights went out...

Day 29 flowering from the flip.

And a few more close ups.

Hey everyone, Day 30 of flowering (from the flip) and I have to say the girls are looking great. Tons of trichome formation already, healthy leaves and good leaf posture!

I haven't given them a foliar spray in quite a while and had some TandJ tea brewing, so I loaded up my pressure sprayer, put some yucca extract with the compost tea, and soaked the girls.

Well here are some photo's for today. (before the foliar)

And a few more pics.

Hey everyone!!! Journal update, today is day 32 of flowering for my girls. So far I have to say these Intelligent Gro LED grow lights are really producing and my girls look amazing so far!!!

Here are today's photos.

And a few more bud photos...