For anyone who has been following my posts and website updates, you'll see that I've shifted my approach towards boutique DIY growers and away from big business, because I don't like how other consulting companies are charging huge amounts of money for substandard service and treating cultivation site design and implementation like some secret sauce, when lots of the best practices and equipment choices can be done on your own for a lot less money. 

So I'm setting out to share information that will make high dollar consulting companies less valuable, by showing cultivators how to bypass smooth talkers in suits and simplify the process of setting up a successful grow. Today I'm going to tell you which lights are the ones that work great and cost almost nothing for cloning. 

Cheap LED shop lights from Amazon have been around for a couple years, and the spectrum is generally ok for clones, but up until recently, they were all too bright for the typical (and ideal) distance that lights should be mounted on clone racks. 

Now we have an option that's LED, super cheap, low wattage, lightweight, easy to mount and perfectly effective at a distance of 6-8" above the clone canopy. Click on the image to go to Amazon to see them. 

When I last wrote about T5 replacement bulbs, they were still pretty expensive. Now we have an option that uses half the energy, has even better output, and only costs $25-30 a piece. I've been experimenting with these bulbs for a few months now, and my plants are super happy. Just plug them straight into a fluorescent fixture, and they are ready to go.  For the price and quality, I haven't seen a better deal. 

Active Grow has two spectrums available. They draw 24 watts a piece, generate very little heat and last a long time. Plus, no worries about cracking them and spewing mercury all over yourself. 

​Here is their spec sheet:

Here's an image of my plants under the Active Grow LEDs. It turns out that LED lights don't change the nutrient uptake patterns of plants at all. You can use the same nutrient regimen. You just need to make sure you get extra dehumidifiers since there won't be as much heat to burn off all of the moisture in the room. 

​Happy Growing! 

I don't know about you, but I've been waiting for this product for a long time. When LEDs first started hitting the scene as replacements for fluorescents, I was on my computer, trying to figure out if they'd work for plants (they didn't) and if they were affordable (they weren't). Once they started getting made for plant growth, two annoying problems remained. The first was that the light was purple colored, which has never worked for me with LEDs- I need to be able to see what I'm doing and avoid headaches. The second problem was that they weren't plug and play; you had to remove the ballast in your fluorescent fixture in order to make them work. For mechanical people, this problem might not be difficult to overcome, but for others, it was a deal breaker. In any case, it's a bit time consuming. 

Fast forward a few years, and Transcend Lighting sends me an email, wanting me to check out their new T5 LED replacements bulbs. I was skeptical for the reasons stated above. Luckily, though, I had some T5 fixtures running and was actively seeking ways to cut my wattage draw. It's because I live in Hawaii where electricity is $.39 a kWh, which is CRAZY. Plus, I wanted to add some flowering lights and was maxing out my circuits. If these new bulbs could work, they'd be the perfect solution because, for the same light output, the wattage gets cut in half. 

My order came within 3 days of placing it, and much to my pleasant surprise, the tubes are actually plastic covered, meaning no more breakable light tubes. Yay! They actually bend a little bit with no problem, and I have permanently removed all traces of toxic mercury from the room now that those pesky fluorescents are gone. 

They cost $50 each, including shipping, and considering the wattage draw reduction, pay for themselves in about a year, depending on your local cost per kWh. So the buy-in cost is a bit heavy, but the benefits are definitely there to make it totally worthwhile. 

How's the performance? Excellent! Here are some pics of my clone moms grown under them for a few weeks:

Well, you can't argue with that, can you? They work great. If only T5 fixture companies would make fixtures that fit evenly over 4x4 tables, we'd have the perfect combo. (Actually, the 16-bulb Quantum Badboy is pretty close). The only other feature I wish I had is dimmability, and I reported that back to Transcend. They've been very receptive to suggestions and responsive in all our communications. Totally positive experience. 

Update: This company is now called Thrive Agritech. 

Dialing in the nutrient profile of a marijuana fertilizer regimen is almost as complicated as optimizing the health of the human body. For that reason, the more we can understand and minimize the variables, the better we will get at growing consistently high quality cannabis.

The first major decision you will face is whether or not to use soil or some kind of circulating water system. Traditionally, this has been referred to as the choice between soil and hydroponics, but the distinction between the two is not as black and white as it might seem. Technically speaking, any grow medium that lacks decomposed plant or animal material (humus) is hydroponic, even if it appears like soil. On the flip side, compost tea can be added to inert media such as coconut fiber (aka “coir”) to create a planting mix that behaves like soil, with a thriving population of beneficial microorganisms.

Soil mixes of various kinds continue to gain popularity over the supposedly high-performance water culture systems, even as the commercial marijuana cultivation industry explodes. This is because soil is more forgiving and thus has a higher probability of achieving consistent professional results, where water culture systems can kill your plants overnight if a timer, pump, dripper or dosing system breaks down. In an era of million-dollar investors counting on growers to deliver, the risk of an equipment malfunction isn’t usually worth taking.

Even if you are just a home grower, managing a circulating water system adds layers of complexity that might not be worth the investment. You will have to maintain a nutrient reservoir within a narrow temperature range in order to keep your pH and oxygen levels stable and, under normal circumstances, the reservoir will have to be cleaned and refilled every 10 days. It’s not impossible, and it might in fact be the wave of the future, but it certainly takes more skill and practice than just watering your potted plants every few days.

As for fertilizers, we all want to be as organic as possible these days. We have seen enough evidence at this point that it’s good for humans and good for the earth. Plus, the organic label carries a premium in a competitive marketplace.

The main scientific distinction between organic and synthetic fertilizers is their solubility. Organic fertilizers rely on microbial activity in the soil to become available to the plant, where synthetic fertilizers are immediately available as mineral salts making direct contact with the roots. Think of it as being analogous to the difference between a human body absorbing food through normal digestion vs. through an IV directly into the bloodstream. Both methods have their advantages. Microbes in soil produce all kinds of helpful bio-stimulants for plants, and they have a certain kind of “intelligence” that keeps nutrient availability within reasonable parameters, just as your intestinal flora mediate the nutrients that enter your bloodstream.

With synthetic fertilizers, the plants react more immediately to being fed. There is no delay posed by the need for microbial action, and there is no concern that certain nutrients will remain unavailable due to incomplete biological activity. There is, however, a greater risk that the plants will get overdosed and suffer crippling damage, just as a human body would if high amounts of potassium or some other nutrient were pumped directly into the bloodstream. In addition, synthetic fertilizers are far more likely to leach out of the plants and pollute the environment.

Is it possible to reap the benefits from both forms of fertilizer? Yes, and you probably already do. If, for example, you buy a soil mix containing worm castings and bat guano, and then you add some kind of bottled liquid fertilizer, you are most likely working with both organic and synthetic fertilizers at the same time. It’s worth calling the fertilizer company to ask them about possible nutrient lockouts that can occur when you start combining formulas, but the most important thing to know is that too much mineral salt content is a risk to the health of your soil microbes. Keep the synthetic fertilizer quantity low in relation to the organic content. You can add certain bio-stimulants like kelp, humic acid, and amino acids to make a smaller amount of synthetic fertilizer go a long way.

Always test the pH and ppm (parts per million) of your water runoff to make sure the salts aren’t getting above 1500ppm and that the pH is staying between 5.7-6.3. This ensures happy microbes and effective nutrient availability. If your runoff is out of range, don’t waste a day fixing it. Soil is a very dynamic environment, and cannabis is a very dynamic plant. Even a few hours of extreme pH or nutrient excess can have a permanent effect on your crop, especially once you are in the flowering cycle.