24'X 48' green house

[species]

I am looking into the cost feasibility of a 24' D 48' light deprived green house for a group of investors I am associated with.In addition to depriving light, we intend to augment natural light with grow lights to create a 18/6 veg phase. We calculated 16 1000w lights with three plants under each light planted in 100 gal grow bags for a total of 54 plants and intend to have two harvests a year.
My question is what would be an expected per plant harvest weight with a grow season like this? Any other advice would also be appreciated.

 

[who dat is]

Really broad questions with answers that could range quite a bit. What kind of climate you in, how many days of sunlight a year, what kind of strains are you talking, are you going to have any supplemental heating, why not 3 harvests in a year, separate veg area to grow big plants before throwing them in greenhouse?

My suggestion would be to hunt around the site for a little while and see if you can't answer some of the questions yourself and then you'll be better poised to ask some more detailed questions here later. Welcome to ICmag

 

[species]

The location is Southern Colorado, most strains would be a Sativa dominate and not sure exactly which strains but we are looking at starting with for or five variations. We are open to suggestions as far as specific ones to use. As far as daily sunshine goes as long as it is not cloudy (which is seldom is) the site location would have direct exposure to sunrise to sunset natural light. Shortest day is just under 10 hours while the longest day is just under 15 hours. The building will be heated and cooled when needed. Our longer range plan would be to add an additional building to use as a nursery but for now we are trying to get production estimates

 

[Robrites]

I agree with who dat is. Read. Learn. Hunt down F.E.

 

[species]

Personally, I would much rather have answers that were all over the place than non-answers. I have been reading posts for a couple weeks and not having seen anything really helpful to my specific questions I posted my own question on the assumption that members of this site would be willin. To give recommendations or at least useful input. Please, if you are not going to be helpful, stay off my thread as I am trying to further my research.

 

[_tessarecting]

There are many variables. Maybe you can get a couple P's off a plant. Peace.

 

[species]

Thanks for your response. I understand fully that there are many variables. To everyone else who has responded, sorry for my outburst but it seems the no matter what message board you go to, that that is the standard answer someone gives to a question.

 

[who dat is]

Thanks for your response. I understand fully that there are many variables. To everyone else who has responded, sorry for my outburst but it seems the no matter what message board you go to, that that is the standard answer someone gives to a question.

You're getting the same answers because you are asking the same open ended, vague questions. I try to help out as much as I can regarding people learning about cannabis. Don't take this the wrong way but it's obvious you haven't spent much time here on the boards or you wouldn't even have to start this thread. Just joining here as a member is a huge leap and has granted you access to answers for so many questions you may have so long as you do due diligence and your own research. Let's start with your first sentence on your original post where you mention cost feasibility. What's your budget? If you have a million dollars then a lot of things are feasible, if you only have 20k then no, this isn't a feasible endeavor for you at all. Are you starting from seed or clones? Where are you starting to veg your plants? You are seriously shooting yourself in the foot if you can't veg offsite somewhere else or even on site where you can get these things big enough to flip into flower. Do you even know how you plan to heat and cool this place? Propane or Natural Gas? I'm assuming this is going to be an automated light deprivation greenhouse, what manufacturer are you going with? You didn't specify if you are talking single ended or double ended HID lighting either. If you can't answer any of these questions then it sounds like you have the money base covered but are completely out of touch with the actual hands on side of things. Again, I mean this with respect but you need to spend some time on here and distill your questions down to some more targeted, educated ones.

I literally spend hours a day between here and instagram learning about weed EVERYDAY. (Too much time really, I'm a big fuckin' weed nerd) If you want to learn anything about cannabis it's all here, you just have to find it. This place is an open book. Again, I'd love to help you out and point you in the right direction if I knew what questions to answer for you. If nothing else, hire me so I can have some supplemental income.

 

[who dat is]

I just saw this thread species and I thought of you. It has some good info regarding good soil mixes at a commercial scale. Check it out, especially post #4 - https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=316453

 

[species]

I just saw this thread species and I thought of you. It has some good info regarding good soil mixes at a commercial scale. Check it out, especially post #4 - https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=316453

Who dat is,
thanks for the post on soil mixes. I had already ran numbers on the costs of bringing in a basic mix, but I will eagerly read this post.
I am a general contractor and have been for the last fifteen years so estimating costs is not an issue. I have a have an estimate that we are comfortable with for start up costs and I have already ran numbers for electrical use thanks to my electrician and have established a budget for heating with propane (this is the one number that is going to be pretty fluid and we anticipate that). In short we have a budget for operational costs for the first year.
Although it has been a few years since I last grew for private use (due to marriage), I was able to successfully grow a small crop in my garden every year. I never weighted the results but would guess it was a couple ounces a plant grown in regular soil. I never had the benefit of amended soil or complete environmental control like a greenhouse would afford.
We intend to crack seeds in the garage during construction of the greenhouse under lamps in small pots. This should take about about 6 weeks. At that point we will transplant them into the 100 Gal pots which will be arranged in groups of three directly under each light giving each group approx. 65 square feet of space and 18 hours of light during the Veg stage. Doing this calculated out to 54 plants,(we would start twice that many and then transplant the healthiest). Each plant will be staked and supported, selectively cropped to promote growth and given nutes every other watering cycle, (to start with at least, we intend to use chemical fertilizers). This process would continue for four months. At four months in the green house we would take cuttings for clones, switch nutes and start a 12/12 light schedule for the next 8 to 12 weeks while monitoring each plant for maturity and harvesting accordingly. I realize strains have variable growth rates and limitations, any strain selected will be done so on it's potential to grow large in size.
My problem when studying the feasibility is, I have no way to anticipate the yield of a crop grown in such a manner, and therefore only have half the equation needed to make that determination. When looking at numbers it looks like just under 3/4 pound per plant would produce enough to be sustainable. I am just not sure that it is realistic to anticipate a crop grown in the manner I outlined would reach or exceed that amount?
I thought I had the easier problem to solve, my partner is is currently looking into retail/wholesale options in order to determine volume. It could very well be possible that I can produce quantities that would be profitable and not have a market readily available meet supply, at least at this time The property is on both sides of the New Mexico/Colorado state line so that could easily change.

 

[Corpsey]

Maybe you should start small and find out how much you can get from just 1 100 gal pot.
It doesn't sound like you have all the pieces to make this a working machine.

I do hope you read up and achieve successful grows, don't take this the wrong way.

 

[species]

Maybe you should start small and find out how much you can get from just 1 100 gal pot.
It doesn't sound like you have all the pieces to make this a working machine.

I do hope you read up and achieve successful grows, don't take this the wrong way.

That is a realistic probability, thank you.

 

[Robrites]

I am wondering about 3 100 gal pots under 1 light -what are the dimensions of those grow bags?

 

[who dat is]

I am wondering about 3 100 gal pots under 1 light -what are the dimensions of those grow bags?

This too sounded odd to me.

Are you talking traditional Single ended HPS or are you springing for the new Double ended fixtures like Gavita, etc.? As far as determining yield you could play it conservative and guess .5 grams per watt of HID lighting that is being used. That would put you right around 17-18 pounds using your earlier figure of 16 lights. Using the Cannabis Benchmarks link below you will see that the current national average of Greenhouse cannabis is around $1800, so 17 x 1800 = $30,600. I would imagine that there is a learning curve for you there so you might be able to dial in your grams per watt and produce more. Rather than fixate on that 3 plants per light though I would instead focus first on the exact number and kinds of lights that you will need to keep your light intensity high enough for proper production. After that you can figure your plant layout and count. I would still see if you couldn't start some seeds even on a small scale around your house/garage or your partner's just so you can go ahead and sex plants, find the most stable ones and your keepers out of those. That way you can run just a handful of proven strains with your choice phenotypes. Since you are starting fresh I would recommend picking up some Bodhi gear since it has a reputation for getting some big plants outdoors and there are always some really good plants out of even single pack let alone multiple packs. Then you can at least get a feel for what the plants nutrient and light requirements are and how they respond to different types of training, what their disease and pest resistance is, etc. Then you aren't flying blind only to find out that one of them is susceptible to Powdery Mildew, herm tendencies, budrot, mite issues, etc.

Regarding lighting again you could always get weird and try to have your Single ended lighting hanging vertically and focus on growing out big ass large trees. That way you could get some tall monsters and keep your plant count lower but the trade off is the additional veg time. I think with the HID lighting in addition the the sun you should be able to bump up past that .5gpw number no problem though. But again, play it conservative with numbers at first.

Also, do you have all your proper paperwork in order. Permits and licenses, etc.? The ultimate insult to injury would be to grow out a bunch of fire ass dank weed and just be sitting there with it.

Since you are growing in a greenhouse in soil though why don't you just stick with strictly organic nutrients? In my humble opinion you are shooting yourself in the foot by growing in soil with chemical nutrients. Run full organics, no cutting corners or cheating. Step up your game on your IPM program and foliar sprays in rotation until budding onset. Veg plants out to be at least 3-4 feet tall and then if you can count on the 2X stretch as a ballpark rule of thumb you can end up with 8 feet tall plants at least. Get you some fabric pots that are at least 200 gallons and commit to running them as no till containers that way you don't ever have to move soil around and recycle or reamend anything. You can just reuse the old planter as it sits right there with a new plant. Also, have these on top of a sheet of plywood on top of a pallet in case you ever have to move it around. Fuck I should be charging you for this.

Check out the below links as well as they are VERY helpful.

Cost analysis of cannabis production using LED vs. SE & DE HID lighting from Black Dog LED, highly recommend reading this https://commercialgrowlights.com/

Cannabis Benchmark that shows market trends and what cannabis is currently selling for. http://www.cannabisbenchmarks.com/basic-report.html

 

[_tessarecting]

You should be charging consult fees who dat is

 

[species]

I am wondering about 3 100 gal pots under 1 light -what are the dimensions of those grow bags?

The best I could tell, a smart pot 100 gallon soft sided container is 38" in diameter and 20" tall. based on that assumption they would fit in a circle with approx 4' radius which is basically 50 square feet.. From what I have read an overhead 1000W HID lamp would cover about 35 Square feet and I was thinking that since I was only trying to augment the natural daylight that this would still be beneficial.

Once again thank you for your input.

 

[who dat is]

The best I could tell, a smart pot 100 gallon soft sided container is 38" in diameter and 20" tall. based on that assumption they would fit in a circle with approx 4' radius which is basically 50 square feet.. From what I have read an overhead 1000W HID lamp would cover about 35 Square feet and I was thinking that since I was only trying to augment the natural daylight that this would still be beneficial.

Once again thank you for your input.

I would think they would get crowded and you also wouldn't be able to access the back sides of the plants for training, working, feeding, pruning, etc.

 

[species]

I feel like I have taken up way too much of your time, although I suspect if that was the case you would simply stop responding. I actually have considered that as a potential problem but I assumed if this was apparent that I could force flower and shorten the growth cycle. At that point, the way I see it I could then either reduce the plant count or if the yield was in the ,5 gram per watt range a third crop would certainly approach the marginally profitable range.

 

[who dat is]

I feel like I have taken up way too much of your time, although I suspect if that was the case you would simply stop responding. I actually have considered that as a potential problem but I assumed if this was apparent that I could force flower and shorten the growth cycle. At that point, the way I see it I could then either reduce the plant count or if the yield was in the ,5 gram per watt range a third crop would certainly approach the marginally profitable range.

If you get stuff dialed there's no reason you couldn't get at least 3 cycles a year, if not 4. If you were taking up too much of my time I wouldn't bother replying, you're right. We are talking a light deprivation greenhouse correct? Automated yeah?

 

[species]

Yes we are looking at a Conley Mountain Series 1300 light Deprivation greenhouse.