I've just discovered something that really is a game changer, and that is while testing my new DIY easy build SWC (not DWC). But I have an orange bud auto at 12 weeks and it looks like a typical indica compact with stiff, hard to bend without breaking, branches,
View attachment 4366183 here she is at 6 weeks
View attachment 4366174 in my new diy test with the mars tsl 2000 which so far I'm liking a lot, there's two more orange bud autos currently at about 6 weeks,
View attachment 4366179 from the same sealed packet from DP, yet they appear to be showing all the sativa growing traits of long willowing bendy branches, although the leaves are still broad here's their branch structure
View attachment 4366180 they won't look like this at 12 weeks that's for sure
View attachment 4366181 . What to make of this I'm still trying to understand. I cannot make anything of it for the moment I need to do more investigation but it does show the variation that one can get without changing anything much or anything at all. Both the older and younger grows are under very similar conditions. So I'm pretty excited to see what these plants in my DIY build look like in flower, the leaves were the biggest I've seen over 3 inches wide on the main middle leaf.
View attachment 4366186
So my aim now is to crack the puzzle as to what caused this difference when I work that out I'll have uncovered some useful information, and this is the only way to work your way through all the bullshite, you simply have to trust someone who really knows because they have demonstrated it, or you have to do it for yourself. Advice from any other source unless it's absolutely hard science done at doctorate level and published in peer reviewed science journals like Nature, not 'growers monthly magazine' or published on arXiv preprint server.
But I can say that with regard to quality of bud there's absolutely no difference at all between using what people on these boards would call a 'shit light' like a viparspectra and something like a QB96 Elite. This might sound like a shocking claim and I'm not going to defend it against idiotic trolls because I can see for myself. I prefer the QB's because I've moved away from focused 90 degree beams, prefer a diffused light souce, so far the QB96 Elites are my go to light because they are small and light if you locate the driver separately and I like to endlessly fiddle with placement and angle. The only difference is that the QB's might be a bit more efficient. Also I might have to go back yet agin and get a tiny cheap viparspectra for the first 2-3 weeks just to test a little hypothesis I want to try out. You see I'd like to grow a structure that is halfway between my two different orange bud grows.
If you're growing for personal use so you are paying dollars per zip rather than hundreds of dollars per zip then who seriously give much of a fuck about spending another 30 bucks on electricity over the course of a grow. If you're growing commercial quality then of course it a different story.
It's almost impossible to buy a genuinely shit light these days, you'd have to really work hard to find one. So yeah lights are not that important as long as you haven't spent two months searching for a second hand blurple from about 10 years ago. That doesn't mean you can grow with a 10W downlight (it does to trolls of course), but this is what I mean when I said hydro compared to soil is a bigger consideration depending on your aim. If your aim is to grow organic dope then grow in soil, if you're aim is to increase yeild and reduce the problems that plague soil growers then hydro is a no brainer, if you do it right.
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