Led Mainlined: Join this quest!

[IlovePlants]

I'm questing, good sir knights of RIU!
Looking for an even plant, with large leaves, mighty stems, and wonderful harvest potential.
Will you join my quest?

^Above is Agent Orange X Cheddarwurst. Heavy indica, large leaved pheno. This thing is just picking up the pace. 2 days till week 2 in the 10 gallon.
Spectras may blow for flowering, but this 130watt light can cover a 2'x4' area and grow monsters. Too much blue for proper flowering with my height requirements. It was a huge let down of a light, but much has been learned.
I'm not honestly expecting much from this plant, as it grows at about 1/4 the pace of her sister. She just has such beautiful leaves, and quite squarish stems until they are trained. Looking for some lilac/berry/lemon head stash.


^ Caramel Ice via Positronic Seeds: Nice plant, wants to be a tumble weed. Medium/light yielder. Mainlined clone in 5 gallons. Pretty heavy stone, very drunken like. She has a unique skunky, jerky, lemon grass incense aroma and taste. Savory and sweet.


This thread is for anyone, and everyone who has started a mainlined plant under leds. My mainline isn't perfect, it has a four branch hub rather than a "true mainlined" hub, but it will have to do for a few weeks until I have more room in my flowering room.
If you post on this thread remember:"Pictures or it isn't real!"
Sincerely,
ILovePlants

 

[Amaximus]

I'm questing, good sir knights of RIU!
Looking for an even plant, with large leaves, mighty stems, and wonderful harvest potential.
Will you join my quest?
View attachment 2325339View attachment 2325340View attachment 2325341
^Above is Agent Orange X Cheddarwurst. Heavy indica, large leaved pheno. This thing is just picking up the pace. 2 days till week 2 in the 10 gallon.
Spectras may blow for flowering, but this 130watt light can cover a 2'x4' area and grow monsters. Too much blue for proper flowering with my height requirements. It was a huge let down of a light, but much has been learned.
I'm not honestly expecting much from this plant, as it grows at about 1/4 the pace of her sister. She just has such beautiful leaves, and quite squarish stems until they are trained. Looking for some lilac/berry/lemon head stash.

View attachment 2325342View attachment 2325343View attachment 2325344View attachment 2325345View attachment 2325378
^ Caramel Ice via Positronic Seeds: Nice plant, wants to be a tumble weed. Medium/light yielder. Mainlined clone in 5 gallons. Pretty heavy stone, very drunken like. She has a unique skunky, jerky, lemon grass incense aroma and taste. Savory and sweet.


This thread is for anyone, and everyone who has started a mainlined plant under leds. My mainline isn't perfect, it has a four branch hub rather than a "true mainlined" hub, but it will have to do for a few weeks until I have more room in my flowering room.
If you post on this thread remember:"Pictures or it isn't real!"
Sincerely,
ILovePlants

Those are some delicious looking Caramel Ice buds you have there, IlovePlants...

Regarding the AOxCheddar...
With the two stalks coming below the other two can that even be considered a main line? I was under the impression that every stalk had to come off a main manifold? Like my bagseed #2 in the party cup competition... She has six cola's but only four of them I consider to be "mainlined", The two others grow from below that point and are much smaller. It's all about energy distribution.

Anyway, Beautiful plants.

I have a few I'm mainlining right now but I believe I started way too early. My theory was to prune/bond as much as possible, as soon as possible, to get almost all the stress over with in the beginning. Not sure how well that is working. I think I should have let them beef up more before starting.

I have no led photos to share... Growing under hps right now... But here is one of mine fresh after an x-plant to a 2G smart pot.


PS - RIU needs to fix this shit with uploading photos. This default to "manage attachments" sucks!

 

[IlovePlants]

Regarding the AO X CW: I wouldn't consider it a "true mainline" but I wanted my plant to be a certain size, and she just wasn't cooperating. Honestly I plan on the two upper branches taking the 4 beams of support, for 4 of the colas. Then I'm making an internal tipi type setup for the 4 lower branches. With two more support struts left before the cage is out, I figured I would train the lowers to fill in the center, and have the uppers surround the exterior. In any event, I did my best with the time I'm given. I'm sure many growers understand the feeling. After watching Nugbucket's video on the core of mainlining, I also think I stick to the spirit of the idea, although I'm not sure if every one agrees. It doesn't matter to me because in general I just want to push the concept.

Here is the thing about Mainlining.....it is a concept first and foremost...it is not and exact process that has to be done exactly like the way i do it.....a grower does not need to take it to the OCA(obsessive/cumpulsive advantage) level that i do to reap the benifits Mainlining can offer.......it is also something that takes time to get good at, like anything else, one can't expect to become an expert at something the very first time around.......but the most important thing to realize, is that it is a "front-loaded" process, that when applied to a "perpetual" scene, only has to be invested in at the front end of the cycle as a whole once....once it becomes part of the cycle, it does not change the yield schedule at the back end of the grow, dig?....it is a one time investment of time in the beginning of the perpetual......growers can also use the concept of Mainlining at varying degrees, like Subcool and Dioxide, using the knowledge and customizing it to fit their individual scenes...(something all top-tier growers do).....constant engineering.........remember, all Mainlining is, is building a plant off of a single node, and giving some attention to building thick diameter stems with a high VCSA (vascular cambium surface area) it matters little how a grower achieves that.......in my mind, canopy management is so very important if one strives for a bountiful harvest....as far as Mainlining in small spaces....that is where it really shines......much love, nugs
View attachment 2326057

Lovely little plant Amaximus! Keep us updated! If I may ask, are you planning on doing HID all the way?

Sincerely,
ILovePlants

 

[Amaximus]

Regarding the AO X CW: I wouldn't consider it a "true mainline" but I wanted my plant to be a certain size, and she just wasn't cooperating. Honestly I plan on the two upper branches taking the 4 beams of support, for 4 of the colas. Then I'm making an internal tipi type setup for the 4 lower branches. With two more support struts left before the cage is out, I figured I would train the lowers to fill in the center, and have the uppers surround the exterior. In any event, I did my best with the time I'm given. I'm sure many growers understand the feeling. After watching Nugbucket's video on the core of mainlining, I also think I stick to the spirit of the idea, although I'm not sure if every one agrees. It doesn't matter to me because in general I just want to push the concept.




Lovely little plant Amaximus! Keep us updated! If I may ask, are you planning on doing HID all the way?

Sincerely,
ILovePlants

Aye, She is a fine plant and you're right there as far as mainlining goes. I just wanted to touch on the subject a little bit because I didn't realize how important the main manifold was concerning energy distribution until I started to see how my little bagseed was progressing.

I'll tell you one thing, I'm very interested in seeing how this one progresses as far as what you have planned for training. I never seem to start off with any type of plan as far as canopy control goes. I procrastinate too much I guess. I start out all gun-ho and then when they bush up I get flustered and just do the best i can. heh.

Regarding my little plants... Yeah it looks like it will be under HID the entire way. The party Cup competition has my led tied up right now. That and I'm in the market for a larger panel to flower with. Until i find what I like I'll be vegging with led and flowering with HID.

 

[IlovePlants]

So I've been away from the thread for a while do to unforeseen finance issues forcing me to leave the state for work purposes. In about 5 to 6 days I should be back at it though. I have been informed that the Caramel Ice I have in has some nice cola action going, [dark] compared them to 40's which sounds great, and also that enough room has been made in the flowering space to add the Hi(CW x AO) that you see pictured in the start of the thread. She is a lot bigger now, and we should be able to get a good estimate of what this strain is capable of.

I wanted to clarify something with the whole RIU community that a lot of people don't may not assume: 10 gallon hard sided containers aren't the best. I didn't have the money to buy all the pots I needed, so I borrowed 10 gallon containers from B@1z1! because he had a surplus. When I return I plan on drilling 3/4" holes all around and lining them with landscape fabric, if he doesn't mind the modification. I had been thinking but never seriously considering this until I saw BadKittySmiles' main grow thread about his "Crop Circle of Bud" style, I believe he made an ebook of it so you'll have to look at his stickied cooking thread to try and find the link. It made me realize that it was a great idea, and I would be very happy to employ this technique. Although I hope that I can keep the spirit of using every part of the buffalo alive.

After growing for a few years I learned a thing or two about controlling aeration of larger containers. It may seem like overkill, but I do several things that allow for maximum root space, but probably aren't the best for overall yield. Why would someone do that? Well it's mostly because I'm a stingy bastard who has grown up around people constantly harping on never wasting anything. The whole point of these next steps is about conservation.

1. I never use the top 10% of the container, this allows me space to make strain dependent adjustments to the top soil during flowering. In my humble opinion, most people are idiots who are more than happy to use more nutrients that needed in an organic situation because they just don't give a single fuck about how much they ruin our water supply. It all get's cleaned out by the sewage companies right? Yeah to a point, but it all ends up somewhere, and ultimately you are just wasting because the sewage plant has to run on something. The less crazy murky water you send down the drain, the less additives they have to use to clean it. And less energy is spent transporting hazardous materials.

2. The bottom 20% of the pot is dedicated to pure aeration: The holes are covered by crushed granite, then the remaining 1.5" are dedicated to pumice stone. Next all rocks are covered in about 1/2" of wood chips, which are gently raked by hand to ensure that they fill all the gaps in between the rocks, finally I put on another 1/2" of peat moss/coco/used soil and rap the sides of the container until it falls into all of the cracks in between the wood chips.

After this my bottom 2 gallons are used up by nothing of nutrient value, why? Well as anyone would notice, growing in soil is messy. For the first few watering periods you usually have a fairly murky run off that slowly clarifies until nothing but water comes out. Well my method conserves additional nutrients by giving them nooks and crannies to fill in. My run off is substantially cleaner than before I started doing this, and I use less nutes through out the grow.

Also the top 1 gallon is not in use most of the grow. Because roots will never form here, and the soil is pretty washed up by the end of the grow, I get to knock off all the top dressing, add rounded Nitrogen heavy nutes, a tiny bit of dolomite lime and azomite, and call it regular soil. It's a good time, and I never let anything leave my house. No leaves, stems, or roots every leave ILovePlants domicile, unless they are on the way to being processed in a fire pit some where. If anything my neighbors think of me as extremely responsible for all the recycling that I do, and maybe he smokes ganja from time to time, but what kind of young man doesn't in Boulder county? A communist that's who!

So in reality most of my grows are using much less true soil than I used to use. About 4-5.5 gallons of regular soil, and 1.5 to 3 gallons of super soil. About 7 gallons total for most of the flowering period. With this increased aeration at the bottom I notice that my feeder roots are larger, and more easily removed from the pot following the plant's execution. I want everything to be modular, I want every resource to move seamlessly from one room to the other and back again. It ends up being less work and money, I just have to use more space in my containers for useless crap, which most growers would frown upon, but I'm not most growers. In the end I use everything that I produce. It feels good and right in my bones, so I go with it.

Agony is not being able to spend time with the girls, as I have little else in the world that makes me happy, but I assure you that this thread will move forward! My Quest Continues!

Soon the photo shoot will be upon us. I plan on slaying some high yielding led buds!!!
Best wishes in your growing endeavors,
ILovePlants

 

[johnnymcpotts]

So you are using spectra LEDs for veg or veg and flower?

I had better luck with my spectra LEDs in flower when I switched to 10 hours on/14 hours off. I have always used T5s for veg but would be interested in hearing how well the spectral do.

ill be following, keep up the great work

 

[IlovePlants]

I'm using them for both. In Veg they are running 24/7 with ~3' of space between the leds and the plants, zero supplemental light is necessary all though 6500k lighting helps to extend the effective range. In Flowering it's about 3' at first, but usually they are within 1' by the time flowering is finished. I supplement with warm white light which has helped to reduce burning although there are still symptoms in the plants left directly under the Spectras, it's about 3/4 spectra 1/4 warm white. In my experience they are capable of immense Vegging as long as there is plenty of wind to encourage the branches to swing. In nature a plant is never allowed to be exposed to single NM specific areas, except at the end of the day. I try to limit exposure by making sure the photocells can't be bombarded by red or blue for too long, wind helps by making sure that the leaves are moving. In my opinion we ignore how much wind plants can endure, outdoors it's the main training they receive, and living in Colorado has made me realize just how much wind these girls can take. I should have some updates by Monday or Tuesday, I'm getting back early Monday morning, probably around 2AM , although once I'm home I may just sleep all day.

Sincerely,
ILovePlants

 

[johnnymcpotts]

I picked up 5 spectra lights, 500 watt, 2- 180 and 2- 300 watt. I think I'm a bit off, can't remember actual watts. I had great luck with short plants but not as good results with taller ones. I have low ceilings so I can't do 3' above anything but smaller girls.

the 500 would rock if I had more ceiling space! Since I don't ill probably be looking to eBay it soon.

i just switched to using a few of them in veg yesterday and couldn't believe the growth today! They killed my T5 Badboy setup! I'm sticking with LED for veg

 

[IlovePlants]

The sleeper awakens.


She's doing great. Been in 12.5/11.5 for about 11 days. Looks like she'll have some great flowering potential.
Good luck out there,
ILovePlants

 

[Chronikool]

She looks Beautiful! Guess she has forgiven you for breaking her limbs earlier huh?

 

[IlovePlants]

Her main branches are still being trained down, in a week or so I'm going to remove the supports I just added in and resupport them. Training the plant up from every point, the cage is big enough. I should have 8 stellar mains, and a mean 16 cola lower deck, but it looks like my absence took one toll, the plant wasn't rotated, so shes a bit taller on one side, oh well, she'll be in the middle eventually getting light primarily at her sides. Recently I've gone crazy buying support for plants, and it has been rewarding. If you have decent genetics your plant will flop at some point from bud weight. Support and advanced training have easily doubled my yields. With CO2 and mainlining under these conditions, I would be producing much more. Which is why I'm doing this plant. I have two competing ideas about training. One is mainlining where you cut off what you don't need early one and create a hub V.S. my "lean to" style of growing which is about snapping the stems to make it turn over and having a prime number of colas with a visually fractal personality and no trimming of main stem. Like the prototype plant, and I'm making custom cages soon that will have my yields pushing their limits. Should be an interesting month for me.
Sincerely,
ILovePlants

 

[Endur0xX]

Her main branches are still being trained down, in a week or so I'm going to remove the supports I just added in and resupport them. Training the plant up from every point, the cage is big enough. I should have 8 stellar mains, and a mean 16 cola lower deck, but it looks like my absence took one toll, the plant wasn't rotated, so shes a bit taller on one side, oh well, she'll be in the middle eventually getting light primarily at her sides. Recently I've gone crazy buying support for plants, and it has been rewarding. If you have decent genetics your plant will flop at some point from bud weight. Support and advanced training have easily doubled my yields. With CO2 and mainlining under these conditions, I would be producing much more. Which is why I'm doing this plant. I have two competing ideas about training. One is mainlining where you cut off what you don't need early one and create a hub V.S. my "lean to" style of growing which is about snapping the stems to make it turn over and having a prime number of colas with a visually fractal personality and no trimming of main stem. Like the prototype plant, and I'm making custom cages soon that will have my yields pushing their limits. Should be an interesting month for me.
Sincerely,
ILovePlants

I found if there is enough air flow the plants will hold their weight, rarely do I have to tie my branches for weight, I usually tie them to prevent them from getting too close to the light or to help them getting more light. I dont think it has anything to do with decent genetic or not, genetic yes, but like I said for the most part, if you keep them dancing, you won't need to tie them for weight.

 

[IlovePlants]

I used to do that, but to be honest, as soon as I started incorporating cages I started getting much better results. I will try it again in the future, as the first time I run any strain I do it without supports, but if she starts to sag in the last 2 weeks I intervene and add in supports. Maybe it's because of all the 660 nm diodes. Oh well, but I have to do it to get the yield I want from these strains. I usually have about 120 watts of air flow blowing up the plants from all direction, it's probably more strain specific in my case, just an observation I thought I would put out. There is almost always a time in a flower's life that it wants to be supported, not that it needs to be, more that it just helps.

 

[IlovePlants]

Ok, at three weeks the stretch is still in effect, I expect another 4 to 5 days of about 1" per day. Filling in quite nicely.
I swear she looks like the hulk under those lights, the red stems are from the red diodes. In natural lighting she's all green with small red veins on the leaf stem.

She's quite perky with 8 main colas and 12 large secondaries. She's fun to look at. Unfortunately she's at the back of the room for the next few weeks so I'll do my best to get good shots. It's hard to show the whole plant. Awesome how much you can get from one, and soon I'll be moving back to a airsmart type growing apparatus, also known as plastic crates with custom smart pots inside.


And here's a shot of another main. VVV ( It's covered in the bottom right corner of the center picture above.)


Well I'm off to do work for a while now that the first flowered new generation is near complete. I have my hands full staring at it and making minor adjustments for almost no practical reason.
Below is the sativa dominant version of the plant being mainlined: She's at about 55 days. VVV


I know the pictures aren't ideal, but in a couple weeks she may get to move to the front so I can keep a closer eye on her. To be totally honest this has been a lazy mainline, I didn't trim almost anything from the under canopy, but I plan on adjusting branches and leaves in the coming weeks to allow solid growth through out the plant. It is, however, convincing me of the benefits of, rigorous training and proper attention I now pay during veg. It doesn't take much time to train a plant this way, I'm just super busy so saying I spent 5 minutes on something is a lot of time
Peace out,
ILovePlants

 

[IlovePlants]

So Agent Orange X Cheddarwurst is finished with week four. I watered her yesterday with a small hint of mexican bat guano and some molasses. Less than 900 ppm, just a little boost because my last super soil batch was missing earthworm castings. That small feed has shown to be just what the doctor ordered.


Looking forward to the final results. She just started to put on resin. My prediction is about 5 more weeks. I recently added 42 watts of 2700k to the room, and I switched back to 12/12 because of it. Now I'm only running 622 watts for 11 hours, and 440 watts for 1/2 hour at the beginning and end of the day. I'm averaging 606.83watts of light for my 4x6 room. Not bad

It's really great to see that the center of the mainliner is starting to fill in with fan leaves scrambling for energy. Again this plant wasn't rigorously trained to perfection. It has four branches from the main stem, and there is plenty of small nugs that are going to be produced, but this is a test. We'll see how my shitty mainlining works out. Considering I wasn't here to keep her trained properly, I think that this plant is going to surprise me.

Recently, I added reflectex insulation to the first foot under each light. It looked as though I added 20% luminosity to the room. My plan is to completely rework the room so that it has an area for the grower to fit. I'm sick of disturbing all the plants so that I can check on one.

The stretchy pheno is finishing up, she has about 5% amber trichomes, going to wait until 10% for harvest. The test bud knocked you into a strange daydream land, with a case of the munchies. Excellent smell coming off of her as well, a sort of tropical fruit/lilac cheese smell. Very nice. I'll update this with some harvesting pictures in between the mainline update, she's a bit green because she wasn't vegged long enough, but her trichome heads are starting to indicate the big axe.

Does no one in RIU's LED community join my quest? Knights of the LED realm, where is your valour! I bid thee, take heed, and join my quest, the journey is better than the destination.

I may quest alone but,
ILovePlants

 

[IlovePlants]

So I had an update all planned out for day 42 aka week 6. I wanted to get some shots for myself to study her structure a bit, I didn't realize that the battery would crap out on me.

She's looking phenominal, but the only pictures I took where with the LEDs on full blast, so all of the photos are a little bleached. It appears I need a new camera battery, so I'm going to have to wait for it to get sent before she comes down. The only pictures I have look scary.

^Even at 440 watts my 4x6 is still quite luminous, I have a 200w array of neutral white lighting that comes on for 11 hours of the day.

After seeing the type of penetration that I've been able to get by surrounding my garden in light, I've been considering a change in my technique and lighting choices. I have been safely running plants a bit close to the spectras for two reasons; 1. I've been breeding under these lights and only the best have won out, at this point I have the phenotypes that "do well" in led lighting, in the sense that they are getting within 9" of the Spectras at times, 2. I have enough warm white light to round out the hotspots created by the Spectras. It has been blowing my mind watching how they have no fear of these lights, the sativa dom. Cheese Dreams keeps creeping up into the light.

I won't be mainlining exactly but it will look similar. Recently I've been scouring through my old grow notes and re-examining some of the information that first inspired me to grow. I think I have found a way to reduce my warm white lighting consumption while simultaneously growing more cannabis in my space. Prop 64 passed, this country is about to change, I know I have to change to keep up. I'm getting that Biowave sometime this year after I feel I have done all I can to ensure maximum growth. My new set up was inspired by my first grow and will be as follows.

Basically I'm going to be using cfls to grow mainlined type plants into miniature vertical grows within my flowering space. The spectras are going to be mounted at an angle above to cast down light onto the leading foliage, this will be a majority of the wattage and will encourage vertical growth, then cfls will be mounted with mini cooltubes into the center of each heavily trained plant. I'm going to buy those goose neck lamp extensions so that I can alter the angle and height of the cfl as the plants grow. This will allow me to shed light on lower foliage, encourage lower growth to bulk up, and it is a bit of a trick on my part in order to save on warm white watt consumption.

With the warm white light source considerably closer, the plant will be basked in a nonabrasive neutral white light. This should do what I need to protect against the harshness of the Spectras while allowing me to better alter the light intensity for each individual phenotype. I could skim off another 50 watts of warm white, right now I'm at about .75g/w and I want to get it to ~.85g/w before I seal my room, add Co2, and get environmental controls. The next few months I'm going to be extremely busy for the holidays, but I will be making a new thread after this plant is done. It wont be updated as frequently, but the updates will be huge multi-post extravaganzas of delicious information nuggets.

When I switch to this new phase of growing I'm going to completely cover every inch, including the tops of the pots, with reflective material. I'm going to try to emulate a lot of different techniques and blend them into one cohesive grow style that does well with resinous mid yielding plants, which I primarily deal with. I've never been a fan of the huge yielding phenos, I've found them, but their smoke just sucks compared to the mid yielding hybrids from my experience.

Trying to push what my genetics are capable of, while simultaneously breeding genetics that are superior to the previous generation is what I'm all about. You have to know every allele you are dealing with if you want results to match expectations. They have beaten expectations; they yield slightly more, more resinous, stronger flavors, and more explosive growth. Easily I could have ended up with plants that were no different than their parents, but these plants are more than that. I'm looking forward to finding the master phenos and breeding to make some solid F2's with more predictable growth patterns.

At the end of the month I will post on this again with my final results, I should have the plant finished before December. If I manage to get a new battery set I will update sooner.

Keep on Rollin,
ILovePlants

P.S. Sorry for the wall of text, but it's my hopes that for better, or worse, this information exposes thoughts that normally wouldn't be present.

 

[foreverflyhi]

mainlining truly is a art form

 

[PSUAGRO.]

Are you really going to buy a BIOWAVE????? Love everything else your doing ILP...................

 

[IlovePlants]

I need to get this battery situation fixed, you guys are going to love how my room is set up!

So I completely rearranged my room, and discontinued having sunrise and sunset because I felt it wasn't helping considering how stretched the lighting was. The spectras are just O.K. models for that type of light anyway. These 640 watts are going to be enough to keep my girls very happy. The room averages 35w/sqft, that is only lighting wattage, there is obviously fans running, and next month there will the occasional burst of AC going on and an average of 42w/sqft of wondrous light

All the plants are a little closer to the lights, and I have the Spectras finally doing my bidding. AO X CW is doing wonderfully, but it has been determined that this will not be our keeper unless she shocks me when I smoke her. I don't like her growth for mainlining anyway, so I kept a clone to try a Mini-Vert. I don't just throw out what looks to be some of the most potent smoke I have ever seen, and she had too much lower shit on her for me to make a fair guess as to the yield. Her bud structure looks to be a pain in the ass as far as trimming goes, and that makes me hate a strain more than anything.

If succesful my next thread will be about Mini-Vert growing. Right now the Mini-Vert beta tester is about 2 weeks into flowering. She was a mainlined plant that I accidentally broke a stem off of. At first I was bummed, but I decided to continue and just train it so that it had three main colas and not worry about cleaning up as much. The plant had an amazing time, and for some reason the way I had the plant facing me I saw how I could use every bit of growth she had. I cleaned up the shaded material and saw this kind of wall of little buds. Earlier I had been working with my mainline and I saw how if I built her low enough to the ground I could make some real use out of the scrog type "wall of green" looking growth.

So I built a triangular cage around her out of garden fencing (Home depot, in the fencing area by the lumber), that was able to have her limbs crawl in and around it. She's crept up nearly a foot since switching her to bud! Promising sativa dom. vert scroggy thing. Really low gallons though, about 4.5. Once she stops stretching, I'm going to add a 8watt high efficiency corncob style led into the middle. Probably a cool white/neutral white because I have enough warm lighting in the room already.

When I have a proof of concept, I'm going to yet again redesign my room from the ground up. Led corn cob style will get intense safe points of light exposed to leaves deep in the canopy and directly below it that are normally shaded. If this helps to develop lower foliage I will think about changing up my whole system. I need a cup of proof pudding before I ask for the recipe

Where the plant is right now it has a 50w 3000k Led floodlight aimed down at a 45'angle, it's also getting some light coming in from the side from the 130w Spectra, and a 20w Cool white Led floodlight. It has three large colas, and an army of lowers that are growing in every direction. I'm starting to get closer to my desired goal of 1g/w before adding CO2. Without CO2 I'm at about .77g/w, with it was right at 1g/w. Some strains do better, but I'm going to be growing those more often now, the new genetics can actually somewhat tolerate the Spectras at close range. I can't even imagine how pleased I will be with a sealed room.

Damn it all, the next update is going to have a shit ton of pictures!


ILovePlants

P.S. PSUAGRO, I will buy a biowave later next year if I'm able to eye witness some real results! I read through all of the brix studies and they seemed more plausible then most of the medical journals that I read over I'm planning on getting some of my grower friends and family together to start a co-opted grow house situation. If I could invest $2200, which is the price of the 1 acre 30w model, for a 1 time investment at 12-24% increased yield FOREVER, would I do it? Yes I would, but I want proof. Because the reward would be epic in a house with 4 to 6 legal grows going on. Actually the only major thing that just puts me off is that they never come out and say exactly what the subharmonic frequency it is emitting. That would reassure me, a bit, and first hand witnessing it's abilities.

I saw a study done by Chinese botanists on tomatoes and corn. They played different music to the plants, at first it was a bust, nothing seemed to do anything except classical/ambient music in the key of C-major had like a 3-6% increase in yield. If it would have been groundbreaking, than the Chinese govt would've made giant speakers to blast their plantations with. Those people don't fuck around, you have to respect a nation that 45 to 50 years ago was considered by some to be a third world country. Now they are a world power, with just as many issues as we have in all reality. Probably because the U.S. is on loan from the Chinese gov't

I suppose I'm just wondering if there was anything to that study. Also I have this crazy idea in my head that our earth is producing this song, like the whole of the earth if you were to take every noise and then bring that down to it's lowest roots, what would you have? The song of life? One of the very few crazy spiritual things I feel because I do like the idea that all life is connected.

Honestly I highly doubt this spiritual feeling, because deep down I'm a highly logical person. Evidence is my religion.

 

[IlovePlants]

She's going to be a 65-70 day girl alright. Day 58 currently, looking like a week to ten days. I had her 10" from the Spectras and she burned, I have already learned that valuable lesson, and I didn't let the burns fuck her up. Only the leaves that were showing fade were affected. Looking pretty solid yield wise, but she's just racing to the finish. So, she's a little floppy at this point, and some of her leaves are ugly, but her yield will be solid. Since it will be a week before I have anything to send in, I'm going to be able to let the lowers finish. Main chop should be fun, the lowers are a solid week behind, so it will be nice seeing the added yield.

The sun burn didn't harm the buds at all, in fact it made all the big fan leaves droop down, and expose the lowers. I swear the calyxes are doing this weird thing where they split in two, so you have this little false calyx below each true calyx, which in turn has that little leaf below it that almost looks like a calyx, and that all has a sugar leaf of some sort under it. That male made some crazy funky children, I dig it. Not a single nanner or seed of any kind. Real nice kinda cheesecake fruit smoothy hash smell coming off of her.

I'm looking into a new camera. My current one is so old that it doesn't have the GPS indicators embedded in each file, and it's a 4mp. Some moldy old cannon that is as powerful as a modern cell phone. Looking at a 16mp currently. 4X's the nug porn?!? Maybe...

Anyway, I'm going to picture update at the end of the month and then introduce my new alternating branch theory to you guys. It's not an out there idea, it's just about how if you twist the stems correctly you can get, even solid growth, on even the most stubborn of sativa hybrids. I don't top anymore because if I let them go out about 6 nodes high I have 13 active growth points when I bend the stem horizontally. I then train down, and trim up the leaders, that way the lower growth can be allowed to dominate. After a few weeks there is no top, every branch acts on it's own, and you just take out anything that you don't need or want for awesome clones.

It's fun, easy to maintain, highly modular, and you get vigorous plants. I haven't finished up a single plant trained this way all the way through, but so far they all appear to have massive bud load potential and extensive vigor. It will be the focus of my next thread because it is the underlying technique that, I feel, has been allowing me to exceed my original bud load potential.

Probably 2 to 3 posts remain in my personal journey into mainlining. I didn't give this the true test that I had originally intended, but it raised so many questions for me that I've found it worthwhile. I'll post some pictures next week before first chop, after she gets spruced up a bit.

Keep it real,
ILovePlants