Sweet Deep Grapefruit Too High in Coco Hempy

Some people will think they should have my problems but after 4-5 really successful grows in soil in a 2.5'x4.5' HydroHut Silver Addition tent using a couple of 180W Jumbo LED's at 5 & 6 plants per grow, I got the balls to try hempy’s. I started 3 hempy's,… two in 3gal and one in 2gal. I used Canna coco up top and #3 chunky perlite below with Lucas formula GH Floranova bloom only with RO water for the source. I planted Dinafem's sweet deep grapefruit in the 3gal’s and a little auto called LA Diva in the 2gal.. Myself and local friends were in utter shock at the horizontal growth in veg under T5's. Stem thickness, bushiness and inter-nodal spacing was really outperforming soil (classic hydro affect). At 4 weeks from seed the grapefruits went under the jumbo LED's 12/12 and the LA Diva stayed in the veg closet with a smaller 90W LED @24hr straight . From day 1 of 12/12 the grapefruit stuck their leaves almost straight up as if giving praise for the lights and that’s where my stretching problems began. Every day these girls were shooting 3 & 4” and getting up into the LED’s. No burns…I just raised the lights another 4” every day. At 2weeks flower with 1” bud balls everywhere they were simply too tall and had grown past the height limit of my lights despite tying branches down to weights on the floor. Even the lowest stems next to the trunk had grown as high as the other “future colas”. Inter-nodal spacing after this stretching was just too spaced out (6-7”) to ever fill in with flowers. My tent is a good 78” high but minus the 18” hanger drop of the LED and the 9” level of the bucket I’m limited to a 51” height…..this was never a problem with indica’s or hybrids thus far. I simply ran out of headroom and ideas so I chopped them after taking some clones for a future retry. All the while the little 2gal bucket with the LaDiva auto is trucking along with a 90watter and it’s so bushy and full of buds it would make your eyes pop. I put the La Diva under the big LED’s now and she is continuing to develop like past soil grows and I see a great yield coming from her in the next 2 weeks. All my soil grows in 3gal pots never saw plants more than ~38-40” high and the LED’s really provided some donkey dongs unlike rumors you’ve heard regarding LED’s (mine are Prosource). I have respect from my HPS friends… believe me.



So I have to wonder:

Things new to this grow:

1. Hempy method
2. Lucas formula (past grows were Fox farms soil and nutes)
3. New strain from seeds (used clones before)
4. I fimmed once on the main stem after 5-6 nodes during veg.
5. The leaves jutting upward dramatically once under the jumbo LEDs in flower.
6. Spring grow with temps never exceeding 77°


Looking at my own writing here, “strain” looks like the culprit but no one on any forum has complained about SDG being too tall, only too short.
· Are there certain strains bred under HPS that need that light vs. LED’s?
· Is hydro the driver of light spectrum sensitivities.
· Is a 3gal drain to waste just too much for a tent dweller?

Something tells me going back to soil would get what I want from this strain but I’m gonna try this again just to see ….using a 400W HPS and the smaller 2gal buckets in hopes of controlling the height. If the leaves don’t poke straight up on upper branches maybe I’ll go back to 3gal buckets on the next run. I hope it’s not a waste of another 6weeks.


Please share your experiences or suggestions…please don’t start a flame war over LED’s vs. conventional light systems.

hey dude! i my self soon plan on starting a perpetual sog under some t5's in 1 gallon hempys. im going to use maxibloom however. the 1 gallons seemed fine over the 2l hempys, even though the 2l hempys can yield around 15g plants(and i was seeing it a lot.). i guess it depends on your veg time but for me and 12-12 from clone 1 gallon is good. as for light comparisons, they are all efficient in their own ways and dont think once is necessarily better or needed.