16000+ watts medigrow: og kush+ 13 x 1kw hps + 3 x t5 badboys + grotek = *HAPPY JOY*

it's more of a yield thing, really.

this top is from the beginning of the last round of og's.




this one is from the current round we just flipped.


see how this round has more nodes in the same length of stalk?

growth in height without adding more nodes is, for our purposes, only "stretch."
what we're going for is more nodes in the same given height, and the quickest way to that, ime, is to have as strong a light as they can stand reasonably close (within a couple feet, say). t5's are great for this because the plants can go from close to kissing the bulbs without too much damage.

mellokitty said:

^^i tend to agree, the thing about using a light that's stronger than you need is precisely that you have to have it high enough that it doesn't burn the plants/babies.... i find there's a psychic trade-off between "height" and "growth"... sure a 400w 4 feet away is going to grow faster, but if it doesn't result in more nodes, isn't that height just wasted space? <-- i have DONE this, btw. indica crosses up to my shoulders that only had real nuggage in the top foot and a half or so.... quel effing staking nightmare.

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I guess it depends on what you'd be willing to sacrifice as a grower. Do you want the plants where only about 80% of the plant is growing bud or one that has more buds, but take twice as long to veg?
Also, you'd only need to put the light 4ft. away at the beginning when the plants are small and tender You can put an air cooled 400w light 3 ft. about seedling and 2 ft. away from freshly rooted clones and they love it. They grow like little champions. If the plants are stretching badly it's because the lamp is too far more than likely.

mellokitty said:

it's more of a yield thing, really.

this top is from the beginning of the last round of og's.

this one is from the current round we just flipped.

see how this round has more nodes in the same length of stalk?

growth in height without adding more nodes is, for our purposes, only "stretch."
what we're going for is more nodes in the same given height, and the quickest way to that, ime, is to have as strong a light as they can stand reasonably close (within a couple feet, say). t5's are great for this because the plants can go from close to kissing the bulbs without too much damage.

Click to expand...

But didn't you grow both of those plants the exact same way (baverb)?

yes, but no 2 grows are exactly alike, even in the same room. (not to mention these are rescues that were vegged by the mellokitty-equivalent of cg's "commercial j" - whose room is.... excuse me while i get a wetwipe.)

but let's pretend, for discussion's sake, that i DID veg them both from clone. because our lights (all of them - t5's and HID's alike) are fully adjustable in height, it comes down to the kitties to control the lamp height vs. node growth thingy. maybe last time they spent a week in veg where the light could have been an inch or 2 closer than they could have been, maybe this time they spent more of their veg time with the lights just a c***hair closer than last time --- waaaaaay lots of variables. so in theory, we could have vegged both groups in our same room and gotten those 2 varying results. in veg, our t5s are the primary light source and the baverbs are supporting actors.

as long as i've been growing, i've seen a gazillion different guidelines on when to flip the babies - from "as soon as they show roots" sog to "not until the plant itself (minus the pot) is 3ft tall" (<--which results in some 7-10ft monsters). the 3ft tall folks knew it was to their advantage to spend a month achieving that 3 feet; but it's not hard, once vegetative growth kicks in, to "stretch" a plant to 3 feet in a couple of weeks. again, yield.

fruit-setting nutrient additives are started before flowering, why? --> because the more bud sites they grow before flower, the more flowers there are, and more flowers = more fruit.

Beansly said:

Is the tight internodes thing about having shorter plants or tighter buds?

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Both I suppose, but really it just fits my needs and helps mitigate some of the flowering stretch phase.

Beansly said:

I guess it depends on what you'd be willing to sacrifice as a grower. Do you want the plants where only about 80% of the plant is growing bud or one that has more buds, but take twice as long to veg?
Also, you'd only need to put the light 4ft. away at the beginning when the plants are small and tender You can put an air cooled 400w light 3 ft. about seedling and 2 ft. away from freshly rooted clones and they love it. They grow like little champions. If the plants are stretching badly it's because the lamp is too far more than likely.

Click to expand...

It doesn't take twice as long, not even close. Maybe, and that's a big maybe, it adds a week to a five-six week veg time. But as kitty said above, you'll have more nodes for the given length of stalk.

mellokitty said:

ok, so right around here is the point in the discussion where i start wanting to hide my head in the the sand and just stfu and grow my little plants, because the politics involved are way too ugly and make me peer over the abyss of despair. i'm not entirely certain the local activist community has really recovered from the Great Prop 19 Divide.

we can't even agree HOW we want it legalised, imagine a bunch of stoners trying to come up with cohesive, inclusive, guidelines? we'd need to kill off the "i gots mine, screw the rest of you" mentality first. the Divide and Conquer is far too healthy in this community; it's one of our biggest hindrances, imo.

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I agree 100%. Divide and Conquer is alive and well here too. I just like to imagine a day when we, the "Nice Growers" have a voice and are seen for who we are. Divide and Conquer gets its fair share of news coverage....the Feds get the rest. These same feds will never help organize this thing. They could fuck up a wet dream. When and if this thing goes semi-mainstream, the "Nice Growers" should be ready to weigh in on our vision of how things should be regulated. Make no mistake...legalization with extreme regulation is coming. It would be nice if we at least had our ducks lined up.

lamabile85 said:

When I first started researching lights, I told a friend, the key with lights to me is having versatility. I'd imagine my grow op having the options of having T5's, Metal Halide, HPS, at our disposal and using them in conjunction with one another. That's been my attitude from the beginning, and I'm sticking with it. I'll always be open-minded and flexible to try something new out, but for now, this is what works for me.

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somehow i didn't see this before.
i totally agree, i think that combinations of lights is the easiest way to optimize the spectrum/lumosity continuum.

!!

maybe i'll ask SANTA for some t5 actinics and 75.25s.... helll yeeah.

Funny I am starting a composting thread in organics tomarrow morning... The basics I use are two separate piles one just for cow dung and three just for green matter !We are starting vermiculture but it is slow going compared to regular active composting as I don't have Enough worms yet.... We raise a red angus cross I will posts sum pics as it is a beautiful animal... We do about ten on our fourty acres each year . It was started long before we bought this place... We aim to see it continue as they add so much by cycling vegitation and I love composted dung!! Anywho I have been aginst ranching in favor of vegitarian regime but my cows do less damage than 99 plants an 2 hippies on my property in Cali !! It looked o
Like a war zone last month when I visted I had to put the smack down... Renting your land to growers blows.... Biodynamic preps are hard cuz it is hard to compost a batch of just horsetail or just Mullen or valerian .. Even the oakbark pile get contaminated alot!! Soooo to hedge my bets it cheat on my biodynamic greenhouse and use a product called BDThunder it has three biodynamic preparations in it! It not bad but the tea dont bubble till the compost is in!!!

mellokitty said:

soooooo jellllyyyyyyy i want one of your cows!! i keep trying to get a couple other families together to buy a cow and split it every year, but nobody ever has enough freezer space.....

i've been reading up on bio-dynamic as well (i keep butting up on it whilst researching composting) -- i'm very curious about the different "compost preparations" and they remind me of 420God's massive envy-inducing compost pile that devours carcasses whole... (the friggin pile dwarfs his tractor)....

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yay! someone who knows wtf i'm talking aboot!
what is all this jazz about filling a bovine skull with ___ (<--i forget which herb... yarrow?) and burying it for a year, and then you dig it back up and put that, what, in your green pile?

invite to the compost thread pleez. although i'm still at "tea" and mr kitty won't let me build a dung heap.... bastage.

hey mellokitty is there a reason why you run your lights vertical ???

DrFever said:

hey mellokitty is there a reason why you run your lights vertical ???

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because it's easier to get better light coverage on big plants.

joedank recently made the switch, what are your thoughts on the bare vert bulbs, joe?

wouldn;t you think running the bulb with a decent reflctor would shoot more lumens to the plant rather then light up the hole area if you run your hand on bottom of that bulb lets say 6" then move it to the side @ 6" you would notice the lights energy is really going west and east rather then south to the plants

i'm glad you brought that up, actually. i'd forgotten i'd only gone over this in a PM and hadn't really explained it in this here thread.

herewith:

mellokitty said:

here's a pic of a light. see the red arrows? that's the general direction HID's emit light from their core -- outwards. so to let the plants maximise that light, we hang them a bit lower within the canopy and surround them with plants at a radius of about 2 feet for 1000ws.

here's what happens when you hang that same light horizontally (try to ignore the sideways plants ):

in order to not 'waste' the light that goes upwards, you need a reflector/hood of some sort (represented by the black lines) to reflect that light back downwards to your plants (the green and purple arrows).

so vert actually has less of a need for a reflector than horizontal. hardly any energy at all is sent downwards (ie. out of the tip of the bulb) - i can put my hand an inch below my bare bulbs and it's barely heater-warm.

this is our first time supplementing with the t5's from overhead; so far i'm impressed.

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mellokitty said:

yay! someone who knows wtf i'm talking aboot!
what is all this jazz about filling a bovine skull with ___ (<--i forget which herb... yarrow?) and burying it for a year, and then you dig it back up and put that, what, in your green pile?

invite to the compost thread pleez. although i'm still at "tea" and mr kitty won't let me build a dung heap.... bastage.

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I thought it was a horn you fill and bury for the year.

edit: and I can't remember what I read you fill it with, I'm gonna have to go digging through my reading material now...

^^^^ yes it is a horn manure prep 500 and I believe it is green manure inside witch is bd prep 502 I think... I have a " biodynamic greenhouse management " by Heinz Grotzke a disciple of steiners... It is great ...

Kitty I LOVE bare vert bulbs! I harvested a ten oz bluberry and only seven grams were waste LARF !!!! It was chunks all the way down! I do like my top lit room for sea of green but only cuz we can do unlimited at our site at the dispersery . My yeild per watt is up 30% per 1000 watts that's alot I was able to bring a 6 light room to 4 with a bigger measured canopy by 9 sq feet .. Having a cola at ankle level is weird member gastanker put this up saying "in case anyone wonders why go vert!!!"..
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_biKk6NUCUvw/TbyxFrLvCzI/AAAAAAAADxI/Em2rPTXOE8M/s800/Fullscreen capture 4302011 60201 PM.jpg

Joedank said:

^^^^ yes it is a horn manure prep 500 and I believe it is green manure inside witch is bd prep 502 I think... I have a " biodynamic greenhouse management " by Heinz Grotzke a disciple of steiners... It is great ...

Kitty I LOVE bare vert bulbs! I harvested a ten oz bluberry and only seven grams were waste LARF !!!! It was chunks all the way down! I do like my top lit room for sea of green but only cuz we can do unlimited at our site at the dispersery . My yeild per watt is up 30% per 1000 watts that's alot I was able to bring a 6 light room to 4 with a bigger measured canopy by 9 sq feet .. Having a cola at ankle level is weird member gastanker put this up saying "in case anyone wonders why go vert!!!"..

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_biKk6NUCUvw/TbyxFrLvCzI/AAAAAAAADxI/Em2rPTXOE8M/s800/Fullscreen capture 4302011 60201 PM.jpg

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oo, oo, what program did you use to do that drawring? love it!

i'm so happy it's working out for you..... you make it look easy to make the switch!

wiki:

502: Yarrow blossoms (Achillea millefolium) are stuffed into urinary bladders from Red Deer (Cervus elaphus), placed in the sun during summer, buried in earth during winter and retrieved in the spring.
503: Chamomile blossoms (Matricaria recutita) are stuffed into small intestines from cattle buried in humus-rich earth in the autumn and retrieved in the spring.
504: Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) plants in full bloom are stuffed together underground surrounded on all sides by peat for a year.
505: Oak bark (Quercus robur) is chopped in small pieces, placed inside the skull of a domesticated animal, surrounded by peat and buried in earth in a place where lots of rain water runs past.
506: Dandelion flowers (Taraxacum officinale) is stuffed into the peritoneum of cattle and buried in earth during winter and retrieved in the spring.
507: Valerian flowers (Valeriana officinalis) are extracted into water.
508: Horsetail (Equisetum)

i guess i was talking aboot 505....

[valley girl] so, like, each different mix is supposed to add a unique mojo? [/valley]

* Preparation 500 - Cow Horn Manure*************************************************************

Known as cow horn manure, preparation 500 is basically fermented cow dung. It is the basis for soil fertility, and the renewal of degraded soils. It is usually the first preparation used during the change over to the organic/biodynamic system.

Preparation 500 is made by filling a cow's horn with cow dung, and burying it in the soil during the cooler months - November**through February.

The cow horns usually come from a slaughter house where the buyer has to compete with the artisans who use cow horns for various crafts. The price has risen since the horns are known to have a value in agriculture.

Only cow horns are used, not bull horns. The cow horn differs from a bull horn in that it has a series of calving rings at the base and has a solid tip.

The dung should be from a lactating cow which will bring in the calcium processes to the preparation. The cow should be fed with good quality fodder two days before filling the horns to ensure the dung is of good quality.
From biodynamic.com

Ohhhhh kitty we are one mind today!!! Like sentence finishing and shit!!
Gastanker made that not me ....

Edit; I only just now know the real use of co2 once I went vert my plants get so many more lumens not having glass in the way and they get much vcloser to the light making bigger and more plentiful budsites and larger stems!!