Ok - so I didn’t plan to do this today but I was transplanting the last 2 seedlings and putting them in the tent and I decided to try the underlighting now and see !
for myself.
This was supposed to be a 6 plant auto grow using Nectar for the Gods nutes for the first time and grew into an 8 plant auto (all different strains) in all coco and NFTG but added underlighting after seeing some pics of results from others.
After this grow I will have some better idea of what underlighting can do in my situation. I only have a 4x4 tent and because I was worried that a couple of seedlings weren’t going to make it I ended up with 8 Autos in the tent (1 ILGM Amnesia, 1 MSNL GDP, and from Mephisto Genetics all autos - Samsquanch, Chemdogging, Cosmic Queen, Double Grape, 4-assed Monkey and Sour Stomper a specialized auto breeder)
This is a less sophisticated setup but meant to test the method.
I just ordered some more 10" saucers to make it a little easier to circle the light (now there are half 12") and I have more work to do on the auto drain to waste setup (keep getting leaks in my DIY project). But overall the girls seem happy. They are 4 different ages from 30-60 days from popping so I should be able to see what happens over the time.
Exciting times!!!
What beautiful plants and a great setup - DWC?
What kind of light are you using below?
I decided to go low wattage since things were going to be tight in the tent using a 150w HPS - just to see what it can do. I too am excited…
I think led strips carefully placed would be a good idea and an improvement, less heat, less money.
If you search around (don’t want to post links to other forums, bad etiquette) you will see a lot of different ideas, before my 15 year break, my brother and I would use cfls, mounted on wood to line the sides and bottom of a cabinet, worked pertty good.
I don’t have the time, money, strength, energy to do this anymore, have a hard time what I do now
Keep us informed on this, there is a lot you can experiment with, awesome !!!
I have plans to experiment with everything - I was originally trying to get better bud coverage below the canopy without stressing the plants too much with defoliation as I am doing an all auto run and don’t have alot of time to recover. So I chose HPS to give a boost, but I would like to outfit a room as you describe with lighting on the sides, middle top and bottoms - this is to get a feel for what it might be able to do in my environment… Thank you…
Well I must tell you that my gals are LOVING the extra lighting under the canopy - I had to supercrop 5 of the 8 as they were getting too tall - being autos I didn’t want to do it, but I thought it the lesser of the evils and they look like they are recovering nicely.
I will be adjusting the lighting to 16/8 schedule as soon as the youngest turns 30 days after sprouting. now they are on 18/6 eventually going to 14/10.
I had run some autos under a 12/12 lighting last run because I was flowering some photos in the tent and they loved the shorter light cycle (lights at full strength) -
A full tent and 3 in full flower and 1 in early flower the rest still in veg. The flowering gals are putting on the frost, weight and density in the upper branches and new bud growth in the lower branches - which I attribute in some measure to the under canopy lighting. - I am really pushing the nutes with 4 x a day fertigation of 1500-2200 ppms - slurry tests are real good (350ppm 6.3 PH) -
The tallest gal is Virgin Amy in the corner - she is 45" and still stretching (12/12 started 2 weeks ago)
I am loving the Nectar line and plan to expand my use to my outdoor grow which I will start germinating the seeds for tomorrow…
