DLI?

Every grow I’ve always experimented with something. Got into LED over 2 years ago honestly because of electricity costs. After I bleached a whole group of seedlings as white as ivory I hit the internet. Discovered Bugbee and in short order bought a quantum PAR meter. Not one of his but I checked it against one of his and the differences are negligible. Love LED.

This time I went to some DLI calculators and discover I’m not giving anywhere near enough light. So adjusted the light to the settings that the calculator said is proper. “You’re providing 38.9 u/mol and optimum is 40”

The plants were about half a foot tall and leaves were thick and rough. Branches were nice and thick but node spacing was so jammed it was amazing. Again leaf texture was rough as hell. Had to defoliate. I mean I had to.
Here’s a Putang at 6 weeks. Yesterday I gave it up and dialed it back to around 450 from 600 (DLI calculator gave me the 600). These things mos def need to open up and stretch. Couple of Greenpoint strains look just about the same.

Is this the results anyone else has gotten using DLI?

The above plant has been defoliated. You should have seen it before.

Yep. First time for me with LEDs so ran about the same DLI. Plus I ran out of headspace early so they got 6-700 pretty young. Rough leaves as you say but stacked like a head of lettuce

bubblescrogs said:

Yep. First time for me with LEDs so ran about the same DLI. Plus I ran out of headspace early so they got 6-700 pretty young. Rough leaves as you say but stacked like a head of lettuce

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Exactly! Looked like a healthy plant someone squashed down by stepping on it. Yours is pretty much the same as these. Beats stretching too early but damn.

DLI is how I work too. I've not had any trouble with burning or damaging, and really like that you can keep your nodes pretty tight. So I use the calculator on the Photone site to calculate based on my Photobio Phantom at canopy top. It's helped keep my plants healthy but also fairly compact for growing inside in a tent.

LeastExpectedGrower said:

DLI is how I work too. I've not had any trouble with burning or damaging, and really like that you can keep your nodes pretty tight. So I use the calculator on the Photone site to calculate based on my Photobio Phantom at canopy top. It's helped keep my plants healthy but also fairly compact for growing inside in a tent.

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Compact is the word. Now when you flip do they stretch out?

hotrodharley said:

Compact is the word. Now when you flip do they stretch out?

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They still stretch, but not super lanky. They do it in relation to the height you had in veg. I really aim for plants that are only about 16-18" at flip and I usually end up around 30-total maybe a bit more.

Though if you find that your plants are too tight in terms of spacing, you can lay back on the brightness a little and get them to stretch a bit.

The nice thing about the Photone DLI calculator is that they tell you that you can dial it back a little bit, save some electricity and get full growth potential and you can have a pretty good idea of how much, etc.

Here mine in veg ….kinda same deal …. I turn the light down a little and raised it up a little …

Mine stretched a lot. This was 2 weeks later



And another 2 weeks after that

LeastExpectedGrower said:

They still stretch, but not super lanky. They do it in relation to the height you had in veg. I really aim for plants that are only about 16-18" at flip and I usually end up around 30-total maybe a bit more.

Though if you find that your plants are too tight in terms of spacing, you can lay back on the brightness a little and get them to stretch a bit.

The nice thing about the Photone DLI calculator is that they tell you that you can dial it back a little bit, save some electricity and get full growth potential and you can have a pretty good idea of how much, etc.

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The Photone online is what I used. Last night I dialed it back because I’d like to flip around 1 December. These stems are damned sure industrial strength.

Thanks, guys. I had to wonder with the rough tough fan leaves.

bubblescrogs said:

Mine stretched a lot. This was 2 weeks later

View attachment 5228781

And another 2 weeks after that

View attachment 5228784

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Nice plants!

I flipped about a week ago. This is what they looked like week of flip.