GDP & Quantum Boards - smokebros style

[smokebros]

Hello ladies and gentlemen, thanks for checking out the thread. Over my 8 years on RIU I've noticed journals fizzle out and the OP bails out leaving the audience hanging. All of the build up, all of the suspense, to be let down in the end.. it's a bummer. Don't worry! I won't leave you hanging.

I took several years off, away from the hobby, as I needed to focus my attention on other tasks (that have since been completed). Earlier this year I got back into growing and I just wrapped up (what I consider) a fairly successful harvest. You can read the entire journal below (or in my signature).

https://www.rollitup.org/t/critical-kush-flower-room.949895/

I grew three plants (2 critical kush & 1 sour diesel) in a 4x4 tent under quantum boards. Yield was just over 13oz and I calculated .96 grams per watt when factoring in the late light swap. Yield wasn't my most important measurable goal, I was more or less concerned with getting acclimated again.

This go around I want to try out new genetics that I don't see a lot on the forums. Unfortunately with the way my grow area is setup, regular seeds wouldn't be ideal and I'm kind of handcuffed to using feminized seeds or clones. I was always intrigued with GDP so I was pleased when I saw they offered it in feminized form.

This grow will consist of two plants in 10 gallon coco smart pots. They'll either be in a 3x3 or 4x4 tent - I own both but I have not yet decided which one I want to use. 4 Quantum Boards with a max of 575watts for lighting.

Water supply will consist of mostly RO water coming out at 10PPM. I like to mix in tap water from time to time too. Tap comes out at 7, RO at 6 - I feel mixing the two (as needed) can help buffer PH and minimize the use of PH up/down. In the water I'll be mixing the following ingredients & nutrients throughout different intervals.

• Dyna Gro Foliage Pro, Bloom, and Protekt
• GH Calimagic
• Realgrowers Recharge
• Growmore's Jumpstart, Biocozyme, and Seaweed Extract
• Azamax (pest preventative)

I saw enough roots to feel comfortable with putting the rapid rooters in coco. Brandname is Tupur by Royal Gold. Many people don't rinse it but I still like to. I did an initial flush under plain RO water, then ran some nutrient mixed water through. 424PPM's (5ML calimagic to 1/4tsp Foliage Pro per gallon) @ 6PH. Transferred the rooters and gave them a mist of RO water.



Seedlings are sitting about 36'' under a quantum board on a heat mat. QB is dialed down to 92~ watts.

 

[smokebros]

Here are some photos from the Critical Kush Flower Room Journal...


Pheno #1 looking lovely.

Another shot of Pheno #1 - this was the only plant that wasn't topped.

Sour Diesel - Blimburn Seeds. Massive Yielder pulling in 7oz. Read the journal for info on the nute burns, I had a PH drift when I was out of town.

Close up of the Sour Diesel


Critical Kush Pheno #2 before cure.


Critical Kush Peno #1 again (before trim) - she was dry trimmed whereas #2 was wet trimmed.


All 3 ladies early in flower. Notice the chinese blurple LED?


Late Flower shot of the whole tent.


Side Angle View


Playing with AWB settings on the old Canon camera, this was around the midway point of flower, or just past.

 

[InTheValley]

Great Job Man,

 

[smokebros]

Great Job Man,

Thanks.

One thing I want to point out is the left and right side of the tent below. You'll notice a crossbar zip-tied horizontally on each side. These crossbars are intended to sit on the upper part of the tent, but I used them differently to prevent the sides of the tent from sucking/enclosing in from negative pressure. I feel a lot of square footage can be lost from the negative air pressure fans create. I've always used a passive air intake but even that won't stop the 'sucking in' unless another fan is added at equal cfm.

This little trick helped me out during the CK grow and I think I'll continue doing it. The single crossbar on top can easily hold the weight of my lights.

Anybody else tried to counteract the negative air pressure from a grow tent before?

 

[smokebros]

Good morning RIU. I woke up fairly early on this Saturday morning, made a pot of coffee, and now I'm hanging out watching the Growtube Roundtable from last night. I'm smoking on Sour Diesel topped off with kief and lovin it.

It's been 10 days since the GDP seeds sprouted and they'll remain in the party cups for another week. They'll be transplanted into #1 square pots (3 qt. size), and they'll stay in those for about three weeks before going into the 10 gallon smart pots. I haven't introduced microbes yet, but I'll water in recharge to inoculate the roots when they're transplanted into the #1's.

Yesterday I prepped the soil for the #1's, filling the containers and rinsing with RO water until the runoff was clear. I also topped off the party cups to the rim with coco.

I prefer the rapid rooter plugs to stick out slightly when they're first planted in coco/medium (see post #1 of this thread), I find it helps get oxygen to the roots as they develop into their rhizosphere.

I know this is portion of the grow journal will likely be the least exciting part, seedlings, vegetation, not too much going on. I'll try to avoid updating this thread more than once per week during vegetation so readers don't have to rummage through pages of useless updates.

Here are some photos

Pheno #1 (funky looking initial leaf)


Pheno #2


Day #9 since sprouting (both phenos)


#1 Square Pots (3 qt. actual size)

 

[nc208]

@smokebros was the critical kush you grew from barneys farm genetics?
Please excuse my ignorance but what does GDP stand for?

 

[blake9999]

Grand Daddy Purple

 

[Yodaweed]

Thanks.

One thing I want to point out is the left and right side of the tent below. You'll notice a crossbar zip-tied horizontally on each side. These crossbars are intended to sit on the upper part of the tent, but I used them differently to prevent the sides of the tent from sucking/enclosing in from negative pressure. I feel a lot of square footage can be lost from the negative air pressure fans create. I've always used a passive air intake but even that won't stop the 'sucking in' unless another fan is added at equal cfm.

This little trick helped me out during the CK grow and I think I'll continue doing it. The single crossbar on top can easily hold the weight of my lights.

Anybody else tried to counteract the negative air pressure from a grow tent before?
View attachment 4033859

Intake more air from outside your tent to counteract that negative pressure.

 

[smokebros]

@smokebros was the critical kush you grew from barneys farm genetics?
Please excuse my ignorance but what does GDP stand for?

Yes, Barneys.

 

[smokebros]

Intake more air from outside your tent to counteract that negative pressure.

I used a 4'' passive intake which helped. I'll try increasing the circumference to 8''.

 

[ohdamnthatsdank]

Are these QB304 boards? What drivers did you use? I think I'm going to get a setup just like this.

 

[questiondj42]

Why are you adding additional calcium via the CalMagic supplement? Foliage Pro has plenty of calcium.

 

[smokebros]

Why are you adding additional calcium via the CalMagic supplement? Foliage Pro has plenty of calcium.

You're not the first person I've heard say that Foliage Pro has enough Ca & Mg to avoid supplementing. I've personally tested out that theory and I've found it necessary to supplement. But I also use mainly R/O in conjunction with coco coir so I'm not getting as many trace minerals from my water supply as others may get.

(off topic) but one other slightly irrelevant tidbit about Ca - deficiencies can be caused by high humidity, even with Ca available in the root zone. If the grower doesn't have proper air movement the plants develop a vapor barrier on the bottom sides of the leaves from the stagnant air. This results in difficulties up-taking co2 called foliar respiration, the plant cant uptake Ca because of the vapor barrier. Crazy to think that environmental conditions like humidity can affect Ca uptake.

Over the years I've shifted to treating Ca as a macro element since it's such a vital element in plant growth. It creates pectin to prevent powdery mildew, regulates hormones, helps forms cell walls, and assists the plant in extracting P from the soil.

Sorry for the long answer, but in short, I've tried Foliage Pro w/o the Ca/Mg supplementation and it hasn't worked for me.

 

[smokebros]

Are these QB304 boards? What drivers did you use? I think I'm going to get a setup just like this.

They are QB 288's. The first unit was purchased as a kit. The second unit is identical to the kit, but the parts were purchased individually since the kits weren't available. I believe each unit (2 boards per unit) uses an HLG C2100-A driver. At full power (together) they pull 575 watts from the wall. I believe they dim down to about 90w/ea.

 

[vertnugs]

10 gallon pots of coco.....you must plan on growing some trees!

Why such big containers?

 

[smokebros]

10 gallon pots of coco.....you must plan on growing some trees!

Why such big containers?

Yep, if they end up being trees I'll be a happy camper. Bigger roots = bigger fruits.

 

[Budies 101]

I'll be watching!

It's so crazy to me that people are building lights better than any grow light on the market (outside of lights we are building after Mega/Timber/chilledLED/cobkits n so on). What sucks is when I talk to people that grow about these types of lights (LED) it's all fuckin magic to them lol. Most people see no difference with LED's because they don't understand that the chips are like bulbs... You use cheap crap chips/cobs and that would be like using a BS light bulb for HPS.

Imagine other industries where nobody's were making *much* better versions of that industries products at home...

Crazy times, good builds guys!

At this point for many of us it will simply be staying on top of whats the new best chips/cobs and just update them and you will always be on top and it will cost you less than buying quality HPS lights haha.

 

[smokebros]

I'll be watching!

It's so crazy to me that people are building lights better than any grow light on the market (outside of lights we are building after Mega/Timber/chilledLED/cobkits n so on). What sucks is when I talk to people that grow about these types of lights (LED) it's all fuckin magic to them lol. Most people see no difference with LED's because they don't understand that the chips are like bulbs... You use cheap crap chips/cobs and that would be like using a BS light bulb for HPS.

Imagine other industries where nobody's were making *much* better versions of that industries products at home...

Crazy times, good builds guys!

At this point for many of us it will simply be staying on top of whats the new best chips/cobs and just update them and you will always be on top and it will cost you less than buying quality HPS lights haha.

Thanks man. As technology becomes less expensive and information becomes easier to access, I think the DIY route will continue to gain steam until LED's become the standard. I took a long hiatus from growing and if you mentioned LED's as primary lighting back then, you would've been laughed out of the room. The market was dominated by 600W & 1000W HPS/MH HIDS, and to an extent (with the introduction of D/E bulbs) those lights are still widely used today. The COB/LED/QB technology (in regards to growing) is still young, I think we're witnessing the evolution of lighting before our eyes. HID lights were used for decades because nothing else could match the performance.

I compare it to cell phones 10 years ago, I was happy with a color flip phone and iphones were just being announced as the first smartphones in 2007. 10 short years later we're on 4G and our cellphones have become engrained in our lives far beyond calling and maybe a few texts like in the past. It seems the LED technology has become that first "iphone" in a world of flip phones and I'm so curious to see what the next 10 years will look like.

Eventually, with the foundation and groundwork being done by the smalltime companies, forum members, youtubers, etc, I fear larger companies swooping in and capitalizing on getting their piece of the pie. It's only a matter of time that the technology takes off "mainstream", but hopefully it's from the growth of the aforementioned "small companies" and not from a large company with deep pockets that
steals their ideas and designs.

I almost describe it as an oil/water type of reaction between HPS & LED growers before the chip technology in the LED's improved with COB's & QB's. Yes, the blurple's grew good bud but good luck convincing an HPS grower to switch when they're yielding 2LB's in a 4x4 with their 1,000W HPS. Now, it's a lot more appealing since the information index on the web for COB grows and QB grows are growing.

Ugh, long rant but just something I've been thinking about. Your comment made that pop back into my head. But yeah man, we're in the wild west days of LED's, wahooO!

 

[Budies 101]

Thanks man. As technology becomes less expensive and information becomes easier to access, I think the DIY route will continue to gain steam until LED's become the standard. I took a long hiatus from growing and if you mentioned LED's as primary lighting back then, you would've been laughed out of the room. The market was dominated by 600W & 1000W HPS/MH HIDS, and to an extent (with the introduction of D/E bulbs) those lights are still widely used today. The COB/LED/QB technology (in regards to growing) is still young, I think we're witnessing the evolution of lighting before our eyes. HID lights were used for decades because nothing else could match the performance.

I compare it to cell phones 10 years ago, I was happy with a color flip phone and iphones were just being announced as the first smartphones in 2007. 10 short years later we're on 4G and our cellphones have become engrained in our lives far beyond calling and maybe a few texts like in the past. It seems the LED technology has become that first "iphone" in a world of flip phones and I'm so curious to see what the next 10 years will look like.

Eventually, with the foundation and groundwork being done by the smalltime companies, forum members, youtubers, etc, I fear larger companies swooping in and capitalizing on getting their piece of the pie. It's only a matter of time that the technology takes off "mainstream", but hopefully it's from the growth of the aforementioned "small companies" and not from a large company with deep pockets that
steals their ideas and designs.

I almost describe it as an oil/water type of reaction between HPS & LED growers before the chip technology in the LED's improved with COB's & QB's. Yes, the blurple's grew good bud but good luck convincing an HPS grower to switch when they're yielding 2LB's in a 4x4 with their 1,000W HPS. Now, it's a lot more appealing since the information index on the web for COB grows and QB grows are growing.

Ugh, long rant but just something I've been thinking about. Your comment made that pop back into my head. But yeah man, we're in the wild west days of LED's, wahooO!

I agree, you could say in 5 years LEDs will be where it's at... But reality is LEDs were "where its at" a little over a year ago really, it's just you have to be a DIY to be there. In a couple more years we might be growing with 400watts to a DE's 1000watts, while the big companies are just adding chips and cobs we use today to their lights.

 

[Randomblame]

Wellcome back to the grow table!
Nice thread and things are very well explained.
To less air movement is a common issues with LED. With HPS it was clear to everyone because of the heat. With LED the most users thinks, it's simply not needed to run fans that high as with HPS untill they recognize, there is way to less transpiration.
In my first few runs with LED I run into the same trouble and frankly, I took a lot longer than you needed to see what it was all about, LOL! I believed in calmag deficiency, bleaching and everything possible until I came up with the idea it could be too less airmovement.
The water consumption should not be below that of HPS grown plants, more on the contrary, with higher radiation density, the water consumption should also increase, so that enough nutrients are absorbed.
Actually logical...!

BTW,
The funny lookin' of the first pairs of leaves is usually due to low humidity, because there are not enough roots.
You could take transparent party cups and put them over in the first few weeks.
But since it disappears anyway, when they get bigger, you can still do without it.