Don't think the outcome was light related, I have seen awesome results with that light in other grows
Navy, how long did you flower them before harvest?
I'm still in the experimental phase, and learning growing as I go. So by no means can I be used as a gauge to the effectiveness of this lamp, but I am trying to offer my observations of how much happier all of my indoor plants are under the CMH. There is no point showing my lettuce, tomatoes, peppers etc, because that isn't what this site is about.
I am by no means an experienced grower, but as I learn and experiment I have found one thing for certain... everything enjoys being under the cmh. My dogs love basking in it's light, my wife and I find the light extremely pleasant to be under. The best part, is when the sunlight is coming through the window the way my cabinet is setup I can compare the light to the sun and while it is clearly dimmer than the sun the color temp is very close with the CMH being slightly on the red side.
The point most of us CMH guys are trying to make is this: If you have a 400w HPS magnetic setup for the $60-$80 it is worth trying this lamp, because HPS doesn't give you a calm, I'm on the beach in some tropical place surrounded by wonderful plants feeling.
I have no experience with dual HPS/MH setups but I imagine their performance would be comparable to the CMH, but with the CMH you get a better spectrum plus only needing one of the most common HID ballasts available and one mogul socket.
This plant has been flowering for 51 days.
I had one plant that hermied pretty bad on me, and I chopped it down at 32 or 35 days, buds were about half the size of the ones shown here.
With this strain with about 65 days or more plus Co2 the buds were easily twice the size, but in that case they were under the HPS. Under the HPS they had no where near the sugar(don't remember how to spell the correct name... tricome or something?) production.
I've also had some UV burns come up on these plants as well as one cola was allowed to stay within 3cm of the lamp for a week or two, this would burn the hairs right back into the sac. There were no heat related burns on any of my plants, just reactions to the UV.
Average cabinet temp was 25-28 C, with the occasional spike to 32C for short durations if I forgot to take the blanket off, or to open the window, but that was the max operating temp of the cabinet with the ambient temp around 10-15 C.
Feeding was kind of all over the place, I went from my normal mix to quarter power and gradually worked it back up to full power over the 51 days.
So no Co2, only fresh air and pulled back feeding I would call this experiment a success. As I get more dialed in I will continue to post pictures, but I am impressed with the CMH to no end, and my next upgrade to the cabinet will be to take the 400w cmh from my veg area and put it in the flowering area. There will be 800watts of CMH light over 3'x2' with
UB's 4 cola's, with 2week gaps between each set of plants put into the flowering area for a perpetual grow. I will also add a C02 generator and continue to research on nutrition so I can feed the plants correctly.
