Colorado Growers Thread

[aceofspades]

I bought 20 gal smart pots cause my first round will be with 2k only, lights are expensive and I have only 6 plants ready to go into flower. I was thinking of doing 2x isles 4x8 but it is not going to work out that way.. So the first round will be with 6 plants in 20g smarts. 2nd round I was thinking about smaller pots but running 8 plants that is 2x a 1k lights if I can veg them full enough. I might have to veg for a couple weeks to fill them out. I would love to do 4x8 scrog screens using garden trellis, only because I have been scrogging for a year or so now and it is what I am used to and I know how my strains react to scroggingl
This is what I am working with, strain = blue hawaiin and 1x dj short blue berry.

figure first run with 2k watts should show me what these girls can do.

Ace

 

[aceofspades]

Weight goal IS 1gpw, but this will be the first run with this room...I think you are right, an aisle up the middle is the way to go, maybe I should return my 20g. I am vegging in 4g plastic square containers right now. I usually flower in these pots......I am doing soil,duh, and I add about 50% soil 20% EWC, and 30% chunky perlite, I feed a tea every other h2o and fox farm the rest. Plan to have a 55 gal drum outside the room with a float valve to top off the drum with a supply through the wall to fill a watering can where nutes and ph up or down will be added, that way the 55 gal drum gets topped off without me have go screw with it. I am a firm beleiver in hand watering, gives love to the plants, and you can inspect them thoroughly and make sure there are no problems. I am a DIY'er from heart and I believe it really pays off in the end.

Ace

 

[aceofspades]

SELF how do you get 2k with 3 bulbs??
Vert is def the way to go when this beomes legal, or I grow bigger co hones ( no spannish in my vocabulary.....sorry) When I was younger I would have treid vert, but I also growing in MAINE, and my GFS room was the jungle! TOOOsketchy for me. I would prefer to stay legal!

ACE

 

[SELFHEMPLOYED]

SELF how do you get 2k with 3 bulbs??
Vert is def the way to go when this beomes legal, or I grow bigger co hones ( no spannish in my vocabulary.....sorry) When I was younger I would have treid vert, but I also growing in MAINE, and my GFS room was the jungle! TOOOsketchy for me. I would prefer to stay legal!

ACE

I had three bulbs for about 1 week of flower. It got too hot for my liking so I re-spaced the two bulbs and rocked it with 2 bulbs. I figured hey I use 1k for about 4 feet of canopy horizontally so why wouldn't it be enough. Just doubled my canopy by having 4ft of canopy on both sides of the bulb.

You can do vert legally, it is absolutely complementary to low plant number.

 

[SELFHEMPLOYED]

I'd say aisles, scrog and 15 gallon pots veg plants to 3feet tall and equally as wide and you'll hit 2 per light pretty easy. Key is vegging long enough and making sure enough branches are gonna reach through the net.

 

[greenmatter]

look at the weed doughnut guys ..... low plant numbers with amazing yields. whatever you do don't buy hoods! vert works better!

 

[SELFHEMPLOYED]

fwiw I switched away from a successful vert system because quality wasn't quite as good. I'm ultra picky though.

 

[greenmatter]

fwiw I switched away from a successful vert system because quality wasn't quite as good. I'm ultra picky though.

you lost me someplace boss .......... those pics are vert right? so what did you change to? and what makes you say the quality in a vert set up is lower? and why?

i'm asking not arguing

 

[SELFHEMPLOYED]

you lost me someplace boss .......... those pics are vert right? so what did you change to? and what makes you say the quality in a vert set up is lower? and why?

i'm asking not arguing

Hey no problem. Yes those pictures are of a vertical room. I redesigned the room for a flat garden after I didn't 100% love the vert setup. Now I scrog with 4-5ft by 4-5ft footprints and magnum hoods. 4 per light. Yield per 4x8 hovers between 3.5 - 4.25 lbs.

Yes the yield per watt is lower for sure, but it is still big, average is about .9gpw.


The reason I don't think the quality was as good is honestly mostly because of lighting issues. I think the room could have handled another 600w-1k light. The herb was great but for lack of a better word, it just wasn't quite as dank as usual. There was a definite difference.

Also the sheer amount of herb pumping in that vert room was causing major humidity issues and was a pain in the ass to trim all by myself. The new system just works better for me. Harvest one 4x8 at a time of ultra dank buds.

So really, the difference should be blamed on slightly low watts/sqft and not the vertical lighting. However I do think that the reflectiveness of hoods makes for a brighter footprint.

To each his own, I may fiddle with it again, and I do understand that it is fact that vert is a superior way to grow for total efficiency.

 

[Dorje113]

I'd stick with the 20 gal smart pots. I've been using them, and they aren't as good as soil beds but are much better than regular pots.

Right now I have 3 plants per light and the 20g s-pots need to be watered every 3rd day or so.

I also run 4-5' squares per light, Magnum hoods are good, I have 2, but the Agrotech Magnum is much cheaper, lighter and more efficient than the vented Magnum hoods. Sunlight Supply also has blockbuster hoods without vents, these also look really good and are square instead of rectangular.

As far as yields, vert might be more efficient but I've gotten the same yields (about 3 lbs/kW) growing regular horizontal gardens. For a 4x8 space I agree with Selfhemp's numbers, that's as good as it gets.... you can do better with a 5x10 area and the same 2kW though. It depends on the strain too, some varieties will never top 2 lbs/kW while others will produce 2.5+ easily. There aren't many varieties that'll produce 3 and still be dank. For example, the OG variety I'm growing (Skywalker) averages 1.5 lbs, up to 2 might be possible if everything is perfect. Snowcap will pretty easily produce 2.5, the best I've seen it do was 3.2.

 

[BagseedSamurai]

I am working on the kinks in my plan. I'm thinking 4k - 8k in a smallish area (probably 10x 15-20). I've seriously considered doing organic and, for nutes I was thinking either the General Organics or Root Organics line. I would love it if y'all had a better organic idea for nutrients! I was also debating using Oregonism or possibly the Fox Farm TriPack.

How much light are y'all running for what kind of area? I noticed one person said 4kw for about 10 x 10 area. Is that about right for the numbers you are throwing out there?

 

[SELFHEMPLOYED]

I am working on the kinks in my plan. I'm thinking 4k - 8k in a smallish area (probably 10x 15-20). I've seriously considered doing organic and, for nutes I was thinking either the General Organics or Root Organics line. I would love it if y'all had a better organic idea for nutrients! I was also debating using Oregonism or possibly the Fox Farm TriPack.

How much light are y'all running for what kind of area? I noticed one person said 4kw for about 10 x 10 area. Is that about right for the numbers you are throwing out there?

Yeah you've got the right idea. 4-5 foot squares are about it per 1k.

 

[BagseedSamurai]

So about 10 x 10 would mean about 4kw without being too much or too little light?

There is a light mover I saw in High Times that is basically a ceiling fan with the ballasts and light fixtures on the ends of the arms but I can't find it anywhere. 4kw ceiling fan light mover for a 10 x 10 sounds ideal!

 

[SELFHEMPLOYED]

Yeah those are pretty cool but imo overkill.. 4 big hoods would be perfect for 10x10 but you're gonna have a hard time moving around. The ideal hoods, if heat wasn't an issue, would be the umbrella style vertizontal hoods.

 

[BagseedSamurai]

Heat is always an issue, especially in the summer! I was thinking about four 1,000w over a 10ft x 10ft area and using those parabolic hoods; the ones that look like umbrellas. The heat is bad with those?

lol, vertizontal.

 

[gardenlover]

Oh and I totally 110% agree with the overfeeding issue, This is a point that should be stressed more often.

 

[SELFHEMPLOYED]

Heat is always an issue, especially in the summer! I was thinking about four 1,000w over a 10ft x 10ft area and using those parabolic hoods; the ones that look like umbrellas. The heat is bad with those?

lol, vertizontal.

Those are the ones I'm talking about. They are great but not air cooled. Better be movin a lot of air to run 4k in non aircooled hoods in a 10x10.

 

[Dorje113]

Aircooled hoods... lose 20% of your light* to remove 25% of the heat...

Sure you get less heat, but you'd get less heat from running less light too. In order to run a 4 light system with aircooled hoods you really need 5 lights to get the same amount of light.






*glass by itsself only blocks 5%, but I've never seen clean glass, even running a filter there's always this white haze on the glass.

 

[YosemiteSam]

The heat from that setup would get pretty intense.

When you go vert you can put a little fan under each bulb to blow the heat up...then you put exhaust up high and pull that heat out. With the cones over the bulbs you trap some of the heat...a fan would cause more of a recirculating effect.

We have an area about that size with 2 vert 600 watt HPS bulbs and 1 1000 watt metal halide that we run without ac except during the hottest times of summer. With the right strains we can pull 5 lbs out of that room.

I will get a pic tomorrow night and post it here.

 

[Space Case]

There is a light mover I saw in High Times that is basically a ceiling fan with the ballasts and light fixtures on the ends of the arms but I can't find it anywhere. 4kw ceiling fan light mover for a 10 x 10 sounds ideal!

Those things suck...Be glad if it makes it with the motor still turning after 2 crops!

Look at what the big GPW guys rock....very few, if any, run movers of any type. Yield is all about knowing your strain, vegging it sufficiently, and canopy control!