Growing indoors under very hot conditions

[de145]

I'm growing indoors in a grow tent in soil under LED and our new place is going to be very hot in the summer. I would expect the conditions in the grow room itself to regularly to approach 35c / 95f regularly in the 3 hottest summer months. I'm currently in winter running 4c over ambient so I don't expect much better when summer comes around.



I know in the past when I went too hot due to old light systems and general lack of knowledge the quality suffered quite a bit, lower terpenes, fluffy buds etc.


Are there any tricks or approaches to take with this much heat? I'd hate to just shut down over the summer.

 

[soil margin]

95f could be tough. Finding heat resistant genetics could help a lot. Keeping humidity low will help, as will keeping constant airflow on all the plants. Mulching your soil helps with heat a lot as well. Wrap the outside of your pots with some panda film or mylar, something reflective to keep soil temperature as low as possible.

 

[f-e]

Are you venting out of the room? If so, you need to make sure the heat leaves the tent only though your ducting. Rather then escaping through thin materials, back into the environment your likely getting your supply air from.

 

[insomniac_AU]

Hi De

I have the same challenges here in Australia. There are a few things you can do to keep temps down.
I have my lights in the flower tent coming on from about 11pm at night which is the coldest part of the day. I have no cooling in the grow room itself although the house is airconditioned. That might sound good but it's ineffective on those hot days because the grow is at the opposite end of the house so still gets hot during the day. Really the only way to cool the grow room without dedicated coolers is to draw cooler air from within the house and extract it externally. I use the roof cavity of my house.
If you have problems with low temps for the same reason in winter perhaps you could use a HPS for half the year?

 

[Ace Rothstein]

Don't bother growing in that heat without air conditioning and direct exhaust of heat.
It's not worth the effort. I run LEDs too.

Quote;
I know in the past when I went too hot due to old light systems and general lack of knowledge the quality suffered quite a bit, lower terpenes, fluffy buds etc.

Don't expect anything different.

I'm in Southern California and shut down July-September.

Or the obvious grow outdoors they can take it better outdoors at 95f.

 

[Ace Rothstein]

The good part is you can grow great bud for 9 months a year!

 

[xavier7995]

Silica products can help the plant stand up to heat a bit better.

 

[f-e]

I do a perfectly good grow at 35c ambient, using 600s. Canopy temps like Mars. Canopy temp threads tend to talk approaching 35. Which with leds, is what you can have. Higher temps are good with leds anyway, because transpiration isn't being driven by the IR from the lamps, so heat or fans must be employed to account for this.

35c... It doesn't even lower my yield. Its some hot house tropical shit that you don't want to work in, but you back off the food (because they're sucking up buckets full) and drop the lighting power on the worst days. Making it work.


Handy with the spanners? a dehumidifier can be modded to form a small aircon unit. Something like half a kilowatt of cooling. You just need to separate the radiators, so yo can keep the chilled air, and take the heat from the hot one by running your exhaust through it.

 

[brickweeder]

I'm growing indoors in a grow tent in soil under LED and our new place is going to be very hot in the summer. I would expect the conditions in the grow room itself to regularly to approach 35c / 95f regularly in the 3 hottest summer months...


Are there any tricks or approaches to take with this much heat? I'd hate to just shut down over the summer.

If you pick the right strain, you should have no problems at 95F. I grew out china yunnan this past summer in soil and the tent temps ranged mostly from 75 (night cycle) to 95 (light cycle) in Sept/Oct, and even reached as high as 104F during the friggin heat waves....the CY was in a constant state of "praying to the sun god" when the lights were on at these temps and produced nice tight chunky buds. Panama (red pheno) fared extremely well too and delivered very large buds, but stretched like a mofo. I'll be running CY hybrids this summer.

 

[St. Phatty]

I suggest keeping an eye on Root temperatures.

A black grow-pot in the sun can get over 100 F. If it's not in the ground, there's nothing to cool the roots - except when you water it.

Sometimes when I water in the summer, it's more to cool the roots, than because the plant needs water.

 

[Weird]

ive grown in heat like that before



tropical strains and biologically active teas in peat



certain bacteria help with drought resistance / soil is more temp forgiving


try to time the hottest peak of the year for veg

 

[f-e]

Is it liquid ice and liquid heat? There are two products aimed at relieving the stresses of extreme temperature. I'm told the one for hot rooms works quite well, even with fairly normal temperatures.