Why do my flowers look black

1 Like

Welcome @Pothead1 to the community…we are all here to help one another…
As to the question…you got me stumped…
Bur i know peeps will chime in…

That’s not necessarily abnormal. It’s likely that the cultivar (strain) you’re growing has a tendency to produce purple pigmentation under specific conditions. What are you growing, and how are you growing it (light type, light distance, growth medium, light cycle, lights on temp v lights off temp)?

If you’re concerned it’s mould, you can get a cheap microscope off Amazon for $30 or less.

2 Likes

Welcome to the community I agree with @KeystoneCops. (Genetics) keep taking care of her nothing to worry about.

3 Likes

@Pothead1, Welcome to the community/forum. I am set to watching, I wanna know too

Hey @Pothead1, welcome to a great forum.
Is there anyway you could upload a couple better photos?
There is little definition in this one. I agree it looks like dark purple/black leaves which some plants do.
But better pics are needed to really see what is going on. When we click this one and enlarge it all the detail is gone. Brighter light usually helps get sharper photos.
Thanks

1 Like

The strain is gold leaf auto flowering. I bought 5 mars hydro 1000 l.e.d. lights and put them in a 10X10 room with good ventilation in and out. I feed them with Bergman fertilizers once a week. I have the lights 12-18 inches away (the plants differ in height)
I have the lights on a timer. On for 18 hours/ off for 6 hours.
The temperatures fluctuate from 78 degrees while on and 74 degrees when off. I have several growing. They are all doing great, this one just has a different color compared to the rest.

2 Likes

5 Likes

You probably found a purple-pigment chemovar in the Gold Leaf cultivar. If you poke around the grow journals you might get some assurance that this is totally normal.

This is an aside, and qualified that I’m inexperienced, but those lights sound close for LEDs. That’s also a lot of light. If they’re the TS1000, Shane from Migro has some really detailed performance reviews up on YouTube. Not sure if I’m allowed to link.

2 Likes

The TS1000 pulls 150w at the wall. That’s 750w for 5 of them, which is enough light for 15sq ft of flowering, well short of the 100sq ft of the room.

The “black” does appear to be just natural coloring of that phenotype. Although, from the leaves, it looks like she may not be completely happy.

2 Likes

Then do you think I have the lights to close, according to the leafs?

Looks fine.

I recommend boosting the short plants up on a platform and getting that light at 18" for all, or as close as possible to even. You can then start lowering it again, if you want, but 12" is quite close.

2 Likes

I’m not a lighting expert, but watts are not how we measure quantity and quality of light. The manufacturer of the TS 1000 will tell you it is a replacement for a 1000w HPS bulb. I highly recommend listening to the recent GrowCast episode with Shane.

I have not been able to find a physics explanation about light to canopy distance. Moving the light farther away to get better light defies the logic of the inverse square law. With a light that runs hotter (HID for example) you need to keep enough spacing to prevent heat damage to plants. But LED manufacturers are recommending more than 24” of space light to canopy.

I’ll dig into it later when I have the chance, but watts only measure input, and help determine efficiency. PAR is what we’re after.

It looks like Mars is actually recommending 12”-18” canopy to light in bloom, so never mind my previous concern.

How are you liking those lights? Are you using them start to finish? I’m thinking about picking some up.

I could put up 50 or so links to other manufacturers who say the same thing.

Actually it is one way; not the best for sure but when you refer to the above statement you can make a generalized statement that 50 watts of wall draw per square foot is a fairly accurate gauge. Especially for growers unfamiliar with PPFD, DLI, PAR, 80 cri vs 90 cri, 3,000K better than 4,000K, µmols/joule, lumens per watt------get my point?

The bottom line is you don’t have anywhere near enough light to properly flower out that large a space.

This is because the fixtures are so small that you have to be that high for horizontal coverage.

Actually we are after PPFD which is a much better measure. That has to be coupled with DLI. So using that my diy lights only consume 25 watts/square foot and I have on my last strictly indoor grow, 1.25 grams of flower per watt of electricity. This is after replacing 1,400 watts of blurple with 720 watts of high efficacy LED’s.

4 Likes

This is my first time growing inside, I do like these. They each came with a “yo-yo” pulley system. And yes I used these from start to finish (well almost finished)

Actually watts is a big deal, (at the wall) especially with leds, most manufacturers lie about this (blurples and anything on amazon).

QB’s are the best bang for your buck

This light (TS 1000) is only equal to maybe a 250w hps.

PAR (Photosynthetic Active Radiation) is a measurement of the quantity of light but not the quality. The higher intensity of the PPFD rating of your grow area means a more efficient growth rate for your plants

3 Likes

…and that’s what I do. Repeatedly. It’s much easier for people to understand this method of comparison, (faults and all).

Impressive. You’ve got me beat.

It’s a toss up. Hlg v2 boards vs bridgelux strip builds. Both will give a lot of photons for your money.

2 Likes

What they all said.

2 Likes

I prefer Niemi over HLG and a better deal for the money :wink: ( Samsung LM301B, LM301H, they also have redspec, osram)