In order to keep track of events, at the request of some online friends, and in order to share the love with the rest of the cannabis community, I'm starting my first grow log using the Martian Method, which I learned about from a very helpful Salmayo, here:
http://www..com/vbulletin/showthread...hlight=Martian
and it has also been discussed in another thread on this board, starting at post 1438:
The perfect LED grow light

BE IT KNOWN: I am experimenting with information that I've gleaned from Salmayo's posts, and I am NOT working with all the information that s/he has accumulated with his/her team. I am not associated with them in any way, so if I screw things up, blame me personally and not anyone or anything else, Salmayo and the MM included. :-) All credit for inventing the Martian Method goes to Salmayo and crew, I'm merely too curious for my own good.

The general idea of the Martian Method is to have Red and Far Red lights on 24 hours a day, with the blues and any other colors below about 520 nm on for only 12 hours a day, like a normal flowering grow. if you want some details as to how and why this works, read the above links please. :-)

My setup:
A 21" by 22" space that can hold up to four plants in which I currently have three:
1. Heavy Duty Fruity, flowering for 5 weeks
2. Bubba Kush, flowering for 4 weeks
3. Cheese, flowering for 3 weeks

These plants are cast-offs from the mother-creation process, which is why they're flowering at different times and they are also different varieties. Up to this point, I've used different types of lights at differing intensities, but the current setup using 24-hour light started today. Also, they've been abused in just about every way one can abuse a plant without killing it, so I'm posting this log for experimental purposes, NOT for instructions on how to perform a successful grow. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.


My lighting:

For 24 hours a day, I'm using:
4x 13w Red LED "bulbs", 652 nm, 5 mm LEDs, 168 LEDs per bulb
2x 25w Red incandescent "party bulbs" from GE (for Far Red light)

For the 12 hour "day" period, I'm using:
4x 13w Red/blue LED "bulbs", same as above only 83% red, 17% blue LEDs
2x 42w 2700k CFLs. (I may switch these with 6500k CFLs if I feel more blue light is necessary)

There are no pictures yet because I lent my camera out, but when I get it back, or when I can get a hold of another camera, I'll supply photos.

sounds exciting. Subscribed!

Hmmm... sounds interesting.
I'll pull up a chair for this!

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Legalize it!

Thanks y'all, much appreciated!

BTW, put treatingQyourself (without the capital Q) in the broken url above that says www..com

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Grow log: First MM attempt
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I'm in.
Yeah, we figured that out from your other posts.
Messing around a bit as well.
Still reading, though.
This will help a lot.
Mahalo Mom.

Weeze

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Plants do things for a reason.....they don't just decide one day to get root rot or act funny..... - Weedhound
"Gotta keep in mind that people and pot plants are very much alike, how well and when you finish is based on genetics. - O. M.


"http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/"
The articles in the link above have provided me a broader skepticism of a lot of megabud 'snake-oils' being pimped to the cannabis world." Rusty Trichome

sounds interesting to say the least. i'll be following along and reading up on the subject as well. good luck.

-shake

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"happy trees"

troubleshooting form

"some of my sweets be tight and some of my sweets be fucked up, but all of my sweets gon' blow so killa smoke gets sucked up..." -Bun B

"But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." -Deceleration of Independence

I'm in for sure

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Hi Mom, I think the red incandescent bulbs are more in the red spectrum for sure. The Red cfl's are more red orange IMO. I would recommend red incandescent over red cfl's for the best red spectrum IMO.

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I love this role playing shit
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Thanks Dog... I'm using the red incandescents for Far Red light instead of for Red light, so even if they are better for Red light, that's more coincidence than anything. :-) They're red instead of white so I can use them at "night" as well as during the day, though regular clear incandescents would be better for daytime-only Far Red.

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Grow log: First MM attempt
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Sounds like an interesting grow.

Here are some pictures from my setup.

There is one of the "Martian night" of the red and far red light sources and one of the daytime, which is all of the night lamps on plus all of the day lamps on. If you can't tell, the red incandescents are right in the middle, between the pairs of solid red LED lamps.

There is also a picture of each of the plants individually. The first is HDF, the second is Cheese and the third is Bubba Kush.

The cheese has some root problems (it tends to lean over when unsupported) and the BK was flowered to determine sex, re-vegged (with all the flowers cut off), and then flowered again, which probably explains the slow/sparse flower development. Both were also tending toward re-vegging after an earlier "night light" experiment and the cheese is super stretchy because of some daylight experiments. If they start flowering fully, I will take that as a sign that my light timing and quality are at least reasonable. If not, I'll go from there. :-)

As a note, I am fully compliant with all my state laws in this matter. There are plenty of criminals out there to catch, but I am not one of them.

Attached Images

	Martian night.JPG (100.8 KB, 185 views)
	Daytime.JPG (98.5 KB, 158 views)
	HDF.JPG (144.1 KB, 137 views)
	Cheese.JPG (106.3 KB, 66 views)
	BK.JPG (153.0 KB, 63 views)

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Grow log: First MM attempt
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Nice mother... My plants r under a 400w HPS 12/0 and 200W of red incandescent 0/12 for a total of 24 hours light schedule now and they are coming along nice. This Martin Night lighting is awesome I must say.

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I love this role playing shit
I didn't make up the rules I just follow them - Dogznova

Mother, NICE! Very theatical. The extremeness scares some people, but you're obviously not one of them.

DOG, mothers results showed vegging indications from the same type Artificial Darkness (AD) spectrum and schedule (as I sadly expected, luckily she's twisted like me and she appears to enjoy it as much as I).

So, from what you have provided for yourselves (MOTHER!), 12HPS/12RedInc would be expected to act fairly similar to MOTHER's (WILD) 24/12RedInc run, given that they have (nearly) the identical AD spectrum and schedule.

I hate the moral burden of watching you wonderful Techies pushing this envelope, but you are already producing significant data, and every piece of it takes you (and EVERYONE along with you) closer to the Grand Prize, which is the optimum synergy of EVERYTHING working together (Maximized results).

Incredible efforts, excellent work!

Way to go MOTHER. And you to DOG!

Way to attack that puzzle!

Gotta go.

Take care, Sal.

Dog: yes, definitely keep an eye on re-vegging as I saw it after about 5-6 days (2-3 days of 24h, 25W RedInc light, bumped up to 50W after 2-3 days), but only on the two plants that were not as far along with flowering. They sprouted flowers after the first 2 days, but then began to re-veg. It seems they were sensing nighttime, but not a long enough night to stay in flowering. The plant that was further along seemed to benefit from the extra Far Red (seemingly faster bulking), but I'm not sure how that would have played out indefinitely or if it was really faster than normal, as I have no way to measure that.

You have been doing Red and Yellow nightbreak experiments, yes? What are the details of what you've found? (Of course I read the other thread, but putting it all here and in greater detail I think will help us both along)

Specifically (and of course, if you don't mind):
- What colors did you use?
- How long were your night breaks?
- What morphological effects did you see? Less stretch, correct? Faster/slower/same rate flowering? More/less/same amount of flowers? How about the leaves? Any changes in size/number/color/etc.? Anything else?
- How about general, qualitative "growth rate"? Did your plants seem to show anything there?
- What are your guesses about what your experiments did to your plants' night clock?

I've read, re-read, and re-re-read all of Sal's clues and comments, and I think I'm understanding the process much better now, even with the little data that I have.

Sal: yes, I'm definitely a comfortable risk-taker as long as I'm risking something I'm willing to lose, and some small crops are definitely something I'm willing to lose if it gets me further along in being able to grow better in the future. So definitely don't feel any sort of guilt if you see me walking right into a pitfall that you've already overcome, because I fully expect to mangle some plants in the process, and that's fine by me. As long as I get to understand what my mangling is doing, and how to get around it, I find it rather fun. :-) I always have been and always will be an experimenter at heart. At this point, progress is far, far more important than any particular results from these particular plants.

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Grow log: First MM attempt
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Hi mother and sal. I just got back from my uncles house were he is doing the experiments. He was at first was using 2 red cfl's 15w each and 1 yellow cfl 15w for 15 min's during the dark period of flowering. Just to see if it worked and it did so off and running he went. Then he went to 1 hour then 6 hours... lol then 12 hours of martin nights. He started the first 15 min night break test about 3 days after switching to 12/12. As far as what days he added more light to the martin nights I'm not sure. The plants continued to flower as normal from what I could tell but the stretching was about half of what it normally is in the first 2 weeks (my uncle liked). About 3 or 4 days ago my uncle took out the yellow light because he wanted to add more red. The yellow light IMO did not take the plants out of flowering but it's his house lol. So the yellow test is not accurate IMO. AS far as the red goes he seems to think these plants can't get enough red. So he switched to 25w red INC and put 200w in there and from the results I am seeing I agree with him 100%. I am not sure if it matters much but I was slightly off on the light schedule. It's as follows. The 400 HPS is on 11 hours and off 13 and he says he's running the 200w of red INC 12 hours on and 12 hours off so the plants are actuly getting one hour of natural darkness. This much I can tell. These plants are definitely not coming out of flowering. OMG I have not seen this much improvement since we change from dirt to hydro. As far as SIZE goes and resin production again I've not seen this many poppin heads since I flowered under the Procyon led light. I will check every other day but unless I'm missing something all I see every time I go there is a lot more buds . These plants are going to be through 3 full weeks on fri and I think they will be the fattest I've seen at 3 full weeks with this verity in many years indoors..

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I love this role playing shit
I didn't make up the rules I just follow them - Dogznova

I will take some pic on fri and show you.

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I love this role playing shit
I didn't make up the rules I just follow them - Dogznova

Dog:
Your uncle sounds like and adventurous fellow... Do you think he'd be willing to try the nightbreak experiments again? I think you would get a lot of mileage out of re-introducing the Red fluoros back into the night cycle, while keeping the 200W of incandescents in place. It would help you to understand the interaction of Red and Far Red during the night cycle.
The main thing you'd have to keep in mind is that (from what Sal says) the Red:Far Red ratio tends to decrease over the flowering cycle (less Red and more Far Red as the plants mature), so if you re-introduce Red fluoros you'd be working the opposite direction. Meaning, if you can convince him to do it, take it nice and easy. The RedInc lights have both Red and Far Red, but more Far Red overall, so you wouldn't need much Red fluoro light to shift the balance to a Red dominant one. Sal said that he uses a final ratio around 1:1.

I guess that's one advantage to my having plants from three different stages of flowering in one space, I get to see the effects of different ratios on the different stages. In fact, I think I might keep that going while I'm experimenting. :-)

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Hi mom, The red cfl's are more red orange and some seem to be more red then others if you can imagine that. It looks to me that the red cfl party lights are very inconsistent.
Some look really red some look red orange (not sure why). The red to far red ratio in the red INC's is what? Based on what my eyes can see it looks like red INC's have more 660nm in them then red cfl's do. Basically next time he is going to run red cfl's the first two weeks of flowering (just because they have a little less far red light for the stretching issue) Then gradually switch over to red INC's witch have a lot more 660nm and far red then red cfl's have. We are still trying to figure out how much light and time to give the plants during the flowering martin night. My uncle has been working with the same strain for the past 8 years now so he went all in because if it's not going to work all in then he will be able to spot it quickly. So far so good. I'm sure there is going to be a happy medium. How many watts how long the martin nights etc. Because at some point I'm sure there is overkill like too many watts or too long of martin night light. Unfortunately their is not enough room to re-introduce red cfl's at this point unless he takes out some of the red INC and right now I'm sure he's not going too... Sorry. He say's the plants like it better under the red INC more 660nm. Time will tell.

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I love this role playing shit
I didn't make up the rules I just follow them - Dogznova

Glad to see you decided to do a grow log. I'm excited to see what comes from it. Sounds like salmayo's ideas are pretty groundbreaking and I'm sure the more the merrier when it comes to trying new ideas! I'm subcribing to this grow log with pleasure.

Dog, no worries if your uncle is happy with the results he's getting, he should stick with it! Experimentation can only go so far if you are on a schedule. :-)


I made a few modifications to my setup. First, I swapped the LED bulbs that were combo red/blue with solid red ones, so all eight LED bulbs are solid red now, and to counterbalance the loss of blue, I swapped the 2700K CFLs with 6500K, so during the daylight hours it still looks like high noon in there. :-)

The cheese and the BK are still vegging, so I took out one of the incandescent bulbs. I think (hope?) this will help encourage the plants to flower. If not, I might reduce Far Red to nothing and/or introduce some complete darkness at the just before the start of the day cycle...

So right now, I have:
12h:
2x 42w 6500K CFLs
4x 13w Red LED bulbs

24h:
4x 13w Red LED bulbs
1x 25w Red incandescent

Sometime in the future I intend to rewire (again) to have all eight LED bulbs on 24h and have only the CFLs go on and off for daytime, but before I work on intensity I will have to figure out how the balance works. :-)

Pondering...
(Same as Dog) I wonder if running 4 Red LED bulbs and 1 red incandescent would affect the plants differently than 8 Red LED bulbs and 2 red incandescents. Of course the ratio is exactly the same, but how would the doubled intensity affect the time clock of the plants?

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Hi mother and Sal. I took a pic yesterday but I had to use my vid camera and then come home and pull the pic off the vid so the quality is just ok IMO. The plants have been flowering 4 weeks under a 400 hps 11 hours on 13 off and using martin nights for 3 weeks. During the martin night (light) they were under 4 red cfl's and 1 yellow cfl for the first two weeks of martin nights. First it started with a 15 min night break test then quickly moved to 1 hour then 6 hours then yes of course all 12 hours of what normally would be the plants dark period lol. Then he switched to 8 25w red incandescent party bulbs, 200w. The 25w red INC's party bulbs were also on the full 12 hours of the martin night for the last 5 days.

Yes mother and sal something is happening to the tops of some of the buds. It's not really shown in this pic sorry. I couldn't get good pics this time. I NEED to work on that. Next time

What is exactly happing to the tops of some of those buds? You ask ..

It looks to me like some of the buds are starting to crown over or what some might say (wipin up into cotton candy) lol. It could be re-vegging... but I don't know. This crowning usually only starts to happen at week 6 in flowering not week 4. IMO I think he put the gas pedal down too hard and too fast with all the red INC's at week 3 1/2. He defiantly needs to put more red cfl,s back in there (today he is going to). At some point during flowering it might be a good idea to put the ratio of red INC's to red CFL's higher but not at week 31/2. I think you and sal are right. I'm just not sure it's re-vegging. It might be ripening them tooooo fast and some of the hairs on those buds are also starting to turn amber. Not good at week 4 IMO. If it's starting to ripen at week 4 then he is going to lose out on a lot of yield. A higher ratio of red inc's to red cfl's might be worth looking into for the end of the flowering stage but I don't think it's a good idea to remove all of the red cfl's from the mix and go all red inc's like he did. Unfortunately with red cfl's party bulbs some are red and some are red-orange (you get what you get). Led's will be the way to go for martin nights for sure. Full control over the red 630,660 and far red. With party bulbs i'm sure we need to use both red cfl's and red inc's together to find the right martin night spectrum blend. More pics next week for sure.

Attached Images

Martin pic 4.JPG (169.7 KB, 62 views)

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On a side note. I've been reading on some other forums that UV-B is mostly responsible for the high amounts of trichomes on a flowering plant. With a standard 2K HPS and red martin nights added to the mix I think the trichomes are at least double IMO compared to natural darkness.

Sal or Mother what's you thoughts on martin RED nights and trich production compared to UV-B being responsible for the high amount?

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I love this role playing shit
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Ok here is a another question for Mom or Sal...or both ...
Red 630, 660, and far red should not make the plant come out of flowering correct?
I would think red incandescent party bulbs would only have 630nm, 660nm, and fr in them.

Today I just got my new 3-D glasses in the mail and went over to my uncles house and had me a look see.

When taking a closer look at the filament inside the red inc party bulb at different angels using the blue filter I made. I noticed the filament looks a bluish-purple and at other angles it looks pinkish-purple. I think using a lot of red inc's having filaments inside is why the plant might try to come out of flowering. For me all the more reason to use separate LED's to control the
(630nm 660nm f r and UV-B) individually.

There was some good data IMO that we got out of the full 12 hour martin nights of 200w red inc's. I think it's the red 660nm spectrum that's so strong in the red inc party bulbs that's causing some of the buds to start ripening at 4 weeks. When looking at the tops of the buds real close it might be they are doing two different things at once. Slightly coming out of flowering and ripening at the same time. But the ripening seem to be more dominant for sure because I think there is only just a little (bluish light coming from the red inc party bulb filaments) and a lot more 660nm... Just my thoughts...

Sal... have you looked at any RED Incandescent party bulbs through your blue filter and seen what I'm seeing GE or Sylvana?

What about the red 660nm spectrum having a lot to do with bud ripening?

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I love this role playing shit
I didn't make up the rules I just follow them - Dogznova

Hey Mother, and Dogznova and salmayo etal;

First, Mother thankyou for taking the plunge into this and trying to document what you have going on. You too, Dogznova, it's not the norm to go down this road.
Thanks also to Salmayo for sparking this interest in Martian Nights. I must admit when I first read this on the other thread I was amazed. I had to re-read it a second time, just to believe what I was reading was what I was reading. If you know what I mean.

I'm an old man and thought I had seen or at least heard it all.....guess not.

This whole process could make great use of LED technology...just like our friends in the aquarium hobby who have LED "moon light" modules, growers might be able to get LED "martian light nite light" modules to add to thier grows lights.

Continued good luck and keep us posted, I'm looking for a "Eureka" moment here.

Hey Dog,

In terms of UV B, I've read only one study on it regarding the cannabis plant and the results were equivocal. There seem to be a number of studies on it that I haven't had time to read, but you can get at quite a few of them if you go to scholar.google.com and type in UV-B cannabis. Some of the studies seems to say yes, higher UV-B is correlated with higher levels of THC, so there might be something to it.

I'm not sure what you mean by crowning or whippin' into cotton candy, but the buds on my HDF plant seem to be doing something odd, and that might be it. I can't describe it exactly, but there's something odd about them. Whatever it is, it definitely seems more vegetative than flowering. I'll see if I can get a picture tonight.

As for what is causing it, I'm not sure exactly. I have a hunch that the reason is that the night clock is moving too fast and the plant doesn't sense enough night time, so it's vegging, but as to what the exact cause of that may be, I'm not sure. I have a feeling it's too much Far Red light, and probably not in an absolute sense, just the ratio is probably off.

Keep in mind that I know basically the same amount about these effects as you do, so as much as I want to be able to tell you exactly what's wrong, I really don't know. :-) If I were your uncle and I wanted to optimize my current crop, I'd cut back the far red to probably 50W, throw in all the red CFL you've got (it sounds like it's 50W or less?), keep the HPS at 11on/13off and give the plants one hour of full and complete darkness at the end of the night cycle, before the daylights come on. Again, I really only know as much as you through experimentation, but that's my best guess.

As for the ratio of Far Red:Red in the RedInc bulbs, I think it's about 1.15:1, give or take. I just estimate that from spectral graphs, so your guess is as good as mine. It also depends on what is considered Red and what is considered Far Red (to the plant), because shifting those ranges can change the ratio considerably on the same spectral graph. As for your CFLs being more or less red or orange, I think they're fine. You were using yellow before without any trouble, right?

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Grow log: First MM attempt
Second MM attempt