Team Gojo 2008! (with LEDs and sexual differentiation!)

Team Gojo '08

Season's Roster

I just getting ready for this year's season and I see a few others are too...nice! I going with a few varieties this year...

-Timebomb (Texeda TimeWarp X Blueberry) - 30 of them

-Willie Nelson (Vietnamese Black x Highland Nepalese) - 4 of them thanks to a VERY kind member!

-RGD {aka "Real Good Dope"} (Northen Lights x Haze) - 5 of them

-Agent Orange (Local Orange Skunk x Jacks Cleaner X Space Queen) - 10 of them

The team!




Floro and control samples




more floro:




180 diode, 10watt, blue LED @ 490nm and test samples:




Gotta love the blue!




Small and powerful:



My shiny toy!









LETS GROW!

***NOte:
I will rant a bit in the following diatribe, but it's pretty interesting. This is just a quick intro to help explain the pics and why I'm doing what I'm doing...I'll make real threads for LEDs and sexual differentiation...errr...soon . I am growing outside but sprouting inside, which is why there's pics of lights in the outdoor forum!

LED:
A really quick and dirty intro:

I'm doing a little experiment with a custom made LED. The problem with most LED is they are too weak, especially the blue ones. You want at least 10watts per LED and you NEED to light from above and below to maximize LED light usage and depth penetration for flowering.

I've been in discussion with a person who makes custom LED's for plants and he's been helping me with the math that will provide a REAL guideline for how much watts/diodes of LED you'll need to replace an HID. The math is really heavy and it's still not right, but after more thought and work I think I should be able to post a guide based on REAL data, not some half-baked, commercial advertised "UFO" bullshi*!

My Experiment:

Background:
Sexual expression of Cannabis L. Sativa is not fixed until the point of sexual differentiation[2]. Sexual differentiation happens a few weeks after sprouting[3]. Cannabis L. Sativa can be guided to one sex or the other during that time period through manipulation of the environment[4]. In general, to encourage female sexual expression you want to reduce stress and discourage high intensity growth environments.

Theory:
I believe it's possible to reduce plant stress through light wavelength manipulation. I am going to use a blue LED which creates little stress and emits the perfect level of blue wavelength for plant growth (PPF) at 490nm.

-->Problem with red photons:
Red photons (670-700nm) operate at a much higher fluctuation rate, that is, they move more quickly and are more "energetic" then blue photons. Because red photons are more energetic and more readily absorbed they increase the plants metabolism to a higher rate which increases stress overall. Red photons will heat up the leaf's inner fluid more quickly than blue photons and red photons are more "intense" on the leaf then blue photons.

Hypothesis:
By using blue LEDs with the PPF "sweet spot" of 480-490nm from sprouting until sexual differentiation (about 0-4 weeks) the sexual expression of Cannabis L. Sativa will show a greater proportion of females to males (when all other environmental factors are met).

Materials:
-(1)180 diode, 10watt blue LED @ 490nm
-(1)4' floro with (2)4' "cool white" 40watt bulbs

Procedure:
1. Environment must meet rules[5] for both test sample and control sample. Both test and control samples are grown in same room next to each other and they both get the same exact treatment to insure fewer extraneous variables.

2. Test Sample: (3) Timebomb seeds are sprouted under a new 180 diode, 10watt blue LED at 490nm.

3. Control Sample: (3) Timebomb seeds are sprouted under a new 4' floro hood with (2)4' "cool white" 40watt bulbs

4. The experiment will continue until the 5th node leaf set begins to appear...until sexual differentiation has definitely been fixed.

Sexual determination and differentiation:
A really quick and dirty intro

I'm sprouting (3) Timebombs under the LED to see if blue light has an effect on a seeds sexual expression at the time of sexual differentiation. I've found info on nearly all aspects of environmental effects on sexual determination except for data on wavelength and PPF/D. So I'm doing an ad-hock experiment with a custom 180 diode, 10watt blue LED (490nm). Blue LED's don't come in this size, only red's come this large, but you can get custom blue ones built for you.

An important scientific fact is that Cannabis L. Sativa (hemp) does not become female or male (expression) until the point when the 4th node's leaf set begins to appear (differentiation). I've been doing a TON of research on sexual determination, differentiation and expression of Cannabis L. Sativa. I've found a lot of scientific fact that disputes many of the long held beliefs in regard to cannabis and a seeds sex...namely that a seed is male or female before it sprouts...hog wash!

Please note that I am not copying the info posted by Henk from Dutch Passion, though he got most of his data from the same place I did. Except I've got more accurate and recent data, especially regarding non-usage of cytokinins. But, due to a crashed USB drive I lost a lot of the links to journals, my notes, etc,

There are many factors which effect sexual determination in Cannabis L. Sativa but the most important one to remember is that sex is fixed when the 4th node's leaf set is appearing. Here's a good set of easy rules:

From when you sprout until when the 5th node's leaf set starts to appear:
Low stress, lower level of nutrients, lower heat, higher humidity, less hours of light, NO CYTOKININS! (no seaweed), lower light intensity, soil/media on the moist side.

[1] Sexual Determination:
The biological system that determines the development of sexual characteristics.

[2] Sexual Differentiation:
The process of development of the differences between males and females from an undifferentiated zygote (fertilized egg).

[3] http://www.springerlink.com/content/t491042240h422v8
(NOTE: This is only one study but I have found two others which came to the same exact conclusion)

Quote:

Microscopic analysis of male and female apices revealed that their reproductive commitment may occur as soon as the leaves of the fourth node emerge; the genetic expression of male and female apices at this stage has been compared by cDNA-AFLP. A rapid method for the early sex discrimination has been developed, based on the PCR amplification of a male-specific SCAR marker directly from a tissue fragment.

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabi..._determination

[5] Basic Rules: Low stress, lower level of nutrients, lower heat, higher humidity, less hours of light, NO CYTOKININS! (no seaweed), lower light intensity, soil/media on the moist side.

just curious...anyone else using LEDs here? Not the UFO crap but real LEDs?

[islandgrow]

Hey gojo man super cool stuff Ive never used LED"s but its great that we are gonna be able to watch all this unfold. I'm really excited to see how the time bomb works out for you!, I may try them next summer. When do they finish?

IG,

The LEDs are a very interesting topic and I'm looking forward to working with them...I've got a large array in mind with red and blue 180 diode, 10watters from above and below. A hint for ya: 60/40 red/blue above and 60/40 blue/red below, this takes advantage of the leafs that utilize blue vs. red photons. I'm gonna make a thread in cutting edge later today just to keep the threads easier to manage and read.

The Timebomb sounds great and I'm super stoked to grow it too! Not only is it supposed to have a great high, bag appeal and growth chararistics but its supposed to be a HUGE yielder too All I had to read was when GS told me it will be my outdoor holy grail! If GS says it I tend to believe it (as I do with a few others on this site too )

Quote:

TimeBomb from Legends:
The Texeda Timewarp is a infamous West Coast lady. Every fall the West Coast is blessed with this spicy outdoor monster that has been cultivated for over 20 years. The particular clone that was used in this cross is one that an old bushman has been using for 15+ years. She will easily take over any garden as she has an explosive growth rate that makes her more of a hedge than a plant. We decided to hit her with the DJ Short selected Blueberry male in order to shorten her flowering time down, so that it might be possible to bring in earlier than mid October. Expect a lot of variation-keep in mind the shorter squat selections might be the one to look for! These are strictly for outdoor, as the buds on this girl need a lot of light to tighten up. These are untested, so you let us know what you think!

Yield-potentially huge
Flowering Time-mid to late September

[Bram]

sounds interesting dude. Looking forward to seeing your willie and timebombs grow out. I think you will like the willie she is special.

yup, I'm looking forward to them too!

I've got a good deal more Willie, I just did a few to get a fell for them this summer. I was told they should flower into mid-October where I live. I haven't read much about Willie, the high, growth, etc. Can you wet my appetite a bit? What is she like?

[Bram]

the willie I have smoked is very heady, high is clear as crystal, the best sample I smoked made me feel like I had electricity flowing through my body. It always energizes me nd makes me get up and do something tho with any will-e I have smoked. What lat. are you at? I noticed willie starts tripping around aug 5th or so at 50*n

Quote:

What lat. are you at? I noticed willie starts tripping around aug 5th or so at 50*n

I'm actually very near 50*n
You are making think I should start a dozen more Willies! maybe I just do 6 more to make it an even 10...

[Bram]

hmm you might want to force flower it then man. otherwise your looking at a early nov harvest me thinks.

[dpn]

good luck gojo i had a small willie plant outdoors in the uk that was definately worth doing, it was harvesting mid-late oct with no mold and good tastey smoke.

Hey,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bram

hmm you might want to force flower it then man. otherwise your looking at a early nov harvest me thinks.

My bad, [i][b]I am actually at 36

[Bram]

enjoy

[outdoordreams]

Great thread. Best of luck this summer. Im looking forward to learning from your results. Peace outdoordreams

Quote:

Originally Posted by outdoordreams

Great thread. Best of luck this summer. Im looking forward to learning from your results. Peace outdoordreams

Thanks. And thank you for your help with my outdoor grow, you opinion was very useful! I'm looking forward to trying the wick system out!


...on the topic of water:
I made 9 rain-catchers (short but large surface area, easy to hide) that I use to fill a rain barrel I made. So far I've collected about 30-40 gallons...IN ONE STORM!!! I'm gonna make more rain-catcher and barrels, hopefully I'll have enough rain water to soak my soil (approx. 65cu ft). I made the rain-catcher/barrel and camouflaged them and covered them with door screening (hot glue gun). I'm gonna make some fresh AEM this week and add .25 or .5 cup to the rain barrel. I got all parts for about $90.00. The key to catching rain is surface area, someone posted a great link about how inches of rainfall equate to surface area and gallons of H2O collected...something like 1" of rain over 100sq ft gives 60gallons of rain water. I've got about 40sq ft of surface area with my rain-catchers and I was AMAZED with how much rain was collected, it didn't even rain for very long, maybe a day or so. I have the rain-catchers/barrell well hidden and they blend with the environment. The screen over the top helps to hide the sun's glare off of the H2O from helicopters.


An update (05-02-08):

-It's been 7 days since I buried/germinated the seeds and out of 49 seeds I got 49 sprouts all within 72 hours.

-I do not help the seeds break the soil besides misting them a few times a day (no dome). When a seed is slow to split it's shell after it has sprouted (when compared to the majority) I mark it as "slow" and help it by removing the shell. I watch the slow seedlings and cull them if they are undesirable.

-Out of 49 seeds I found 9 slow seedlings and one Timebomb was a mutant (I think a polygot, I need to check some pics)

-Out of 9 slow seedlins I have culled 6 due to inadequate growth: 3 Timebomb, 1 Agent Oragne, 1 Willie Nelson.

-Im a VERY impressed with the TB thus far. It's is full of energy and is just waiting to grow...I actually had trouble keeping up with the sprouting TB. A few of the TB have a really nice and deep blue/purple on the true leaf edges, pretty! This blue/purple is present in the polygot and that makes it even prettier, wish I had a good camera...damn 4 pixles!

-I am also very impressed with the WN thus far. It's the slowest to crack it's shell in H2O soak and slowest to break soil but once it sprouts it grows very well. I assume the slowness is due to it's heritage and because of that I don't consider them slow. But when compared to the rest of my seedlings they were the "slowest".

-The RGD is growing well and is vibrant.

-The AO is so-so. Out of 10 three were slow and one of those was culled. But it grows vigorously and is the tallest of the seedling strains. It's true leaf structure is neat, long leafs!

-Because I culled 6 seedlings I started 4 more TB and 1 more WN, back up to 48 seedlings.

[purplehaze2]

nice thread gojo.I know you hate the ufo,but I have 2 of them,so now the damage is done.will this help with persuading the sex?and why are those leds so much better than the ufo?because the have a 1 colored spectrum,rather than a bunch of different spectrum.

[islandgrow]

nice thread gojo! Puts my effort to shame haha. But I posted that link for the rain calculator . I cant wait to see the timebombs! Best of luck! How many hours of direct sunlight do you think your spot is gonna get??

Quote:

Originally Posted by purplehaze2

will this help with persuading the sex?

I can not say definitivly. I was testing with only using blue. If you use the UFO for seeds I don't think they will have an effect on the % of females. Though they may because LED may cause less stress.

I described what happened to my experiment in this post. Cannabis seedlings did not grow well under just blue, they need red too, that post goes into detail.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PH2

and why are those leds so much better than the ufo?

Well the blue i have specially is better than the most LEDs and the UFO in terms of blue because of the strength (watts) and density/quanity (diodes) of my LED. Most LEDs and the UFO (I believe) has more red diodes than blue and on some LEDs the diodes are not packed close together. How many diodes is the UFO?

Another reason I like the approach of single, large wattage and high diode LEDs vs. 'systems' (like the UFO) is single LEDs are much more versatile in a 3D sense. IMVHO good cannabis can not be grown with a system like a UFO because of the depth penetration problems of LEDs. And if your growing different pheno's or strains you'll have different plant heights, shorter ones will suffer as there further from the LED. Try not to think in terms of 2D HID, think of the canopy as a sphere that can be lit from any angle, within or without the canopy and middle-canopy.

Quote:

because the have a 1 colored spectrum,rather than a bunch of different spectrum.

Ah! You have a single spectrum? That's really too bad, please read the post I linked to above. The results are the same for blue and red I'm afraid...cannabis needs a mix of both or you'll get weird growth.

You have 2 UFO's right? Do you have one red and one blue? If so your good, just rotate the positions of the UFO's once a day. One day the red is over position X and the blue is over position Y. The next day red is over Y and blue is over X...and so on.

If you only have one color then I would use them as adjunct to your HID lighting. So you'll have your HID hanging from above. You can hang the UFO's sideways so the light the sides of the canopy or you can point them upward and light the bottom of the caonpy...personlly I would rotoate the positions. Maybe a week on the side and a week on the bottom, back and forth. This will increase your yield by helping lower, less well lit popcorn buds develop due to the extra photons. Not to mention that the plant in general will benefit, more light helps the whole plant too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by islandgrow

nice thread gojo!

thanks!

Quote:

Puts my effort to shame haha.

I doubt that!

Quote:

But I posted that link for the rain calculator .

Nice! I've giving that to a TON of ppl! It was really useful when I was figuring out how much surface area I wanted to have when I made much rain-catchers, thanks!

Quote:

I cant wait to see the timebombs! Best of luck! How many hours of direct sunlight do you think your spot is gonna get??

Me too! They will get unfiltered, direct light from dawn to dusk, maybe 13-14 hours of intense daylight as my real time daylight is about 17 hours

[purplehaze2]

it has blue light in the middle and red light on the outside of the blue.I gues to mimic the hps and mh.thanks gojo.

yea thats what I thought. But the problem is LEDs are very directional, so plants under the blue will get nearly all blue. You can still use your UFO for seeds just rotate it around so the seedlings get a good mix.

personally I would sprout seedligns under T5 or 4' floro with 4', 40watt "cool white" tubes.

I would use your LEDs as adjunct lighting for your HID the way I described. It is definitely worth doing, esp the side lighting cuz you can get the UFO close to the plant matter. No doubt it will have a positive effect, just try to rotate the postions to spread the red and blue photons around.

how many diodes is the UFO? Diodes are the little light bulbs in the LED.

later

An update...(05-07-08)

Strains:

-Willie Nelson: They are doing great and are developing faster then the other strains, except for AO. The WN have over taken Timebomb in growth as the 2nd set of true leafs are developing well.

-TimeBomb: They are doing great too and have a bit of varied growth (as is expected). I culled the polygot because I've never grown one out that was good...and it's a mutant after all. I really like the timebomb cuz' even on the 2nd set of true leaf that are just appearing you can see a nice deep purple/blue color on the leaf's edge...not on all of them but a fair amount.

-AgentOrange: These one surprised me as they are the most robust and vigorous of all the strains. Some are starting to develop their 3rd leaf set, nice and stout.

-RGD: These are the slowest and least vigorous...not much to report here.



Sexual Differentiation:

All the seedlings are developing their 2nd leaf set and the AO are developing their third...sexual differentitaion is set right around the time when the 4th leaf set begins to appear so the AO should be female or male within about 2-3 days...what color should I paint the seedling room...blue or pink? ...I vote for pink!!!


Watering:

They just got their first full watering (just misting till this point) and I gave the microoganisms a bit of food in the water. For the first few waterings I dont' like to add any ferts with a full % or greater NPK. Heck, I don't usually add any ferts for the first 3 weeks or so.

Today they got:

1 gal H20
1 tbl liquid humic acid (fossile fuel)
.25 tsp Thermx70 liquid yucca extract

I don't add any kelp until they have reached sexual differentiation, I'm trying to limit the use of cytokinins as they promote males.

- Humic acid: Chleates (sp?) the e.castings in the soil and feeds the beneficial microorganisms (BMO)

- Yucca: Increases soil permeability and helps moisten dry spots (hydrophobic soil). Yucaa also increases H20 adhesion to soil/container and absorption by the peat in the soil mix...yucca is also a great source of food for BMO.

Next watering they'll get the above plus blk strap molassis, ACT and AEM.

Hey all,

Just a few pics I took when I put um under the 400 MH...gonna start with some Sonic Bloom Cd 30 minutes prior to the light turning on, I've used this before and think I've noticed positive growth. I remember when GrowGreen did a grow test and she found it didn't do much except increase H20 uptake and create a sharp increase in RH in the room...at the time it was thought the RH increase was due to leaf transpiration.

So for the strains I'm growing...there all doing great but I'm seeing a bit of mutation in the TimeBomb (leaf crinkle and bleaching) but I'm also seeing some real nice blues and purples in a few TB.

I getting real stoked to put um' outside...this week I'm gonna take some pics of my spot to share with everyone

[Green Supreme]

Go Team Gojo. Mutants are common in Blueberry and Timewarp. No surprise for Timebomb then. They'll grow out of it. Keep up the good work man. Peace GS

Hey all!!!


Well the team just got there first taste of real NPK food and they loved it...here's what they got...


A.) Ingredients:
-4 gal h20
-4 tbl Earth Juice Grow
-1/2 tsp yucca extract (ThermX70) -food for micros and surficant
-8 tsp kelp liquid or soluble powder -food for the microoragnisms
-4 tsp liquid humic acid (Fossil Fuel) -food for micros
-2 oz black strap molasses
-4 tbl A/EM -contains few aerobic micros so I add it b4 and after brewing
-1 lb earthworm castings
-2 oz pond water w/muck, leaf, etc (from bottom of pond) -provides Protozoa, bacteria [use a turkey baster to get h20 from bottom of pond, deep in muck...that's where the protozoa live )

B.) Method:
-put liquid ingredients into 5 gal pale (not Earth Juice)
-put e.castings in paint strainer bag
-pour pond water and muck trough paint strainer bag to catch muck
-tie off paint bag and hang, turn on air machine
-After 6-8 hours, when you REMOVE the bag ADD the Earth Juice
-brew for anther 18-24 hours
-when done brewing add another 4 tbl of A/EM before you use the ACT
-adjust PH, you should use EJ ph adjuster for PH down as it's ascorbic acid

When adding the ferts add it as you normally would. We are not diluting this ACT further, it will be used "as is" when it's done brewing.

If you build it they will come...


A few quick pics of my spot...it runs East to West and is Southernly facing with no obstructions...it's over 1000sq ft

(the second one is a natural deer fence)

nice clearing...it looks similar to what we've been using, only yours is quite a bit larger. Do you have problems with deer because they're all over the place out here and so far they havent been a problem, but im worried one day i'll go to check on the young ones and they'll all have been chomped.