Is Bigger REALLY Better?

[HerBnGorE(illa)]

As a Micro Grower, one thing that I have always wondered is why medium sized growers choose larger bulbs and grow large plants.....or even larger growers for that matter. We hear a lot about grams per watt, but why is there not more of a focus on grams per cubic inch?? The limiting factor for any grow is SPACE. We make all decisions about our grow based upon the given space. How much ventilation, how much light, etc


Ill try not to get to long winded with my question, but....lets take a “typical grower.” Grower A we will call him.


….SO Grower A lives in a place where weed is illegal, so plant count and such means nothing.... He decides he wants to make some “big bucks” so he goes to the growshop and buys himself a 2x2 tent. He grabs a 400 watt hps bulb, a fan and carbon filter and all the supplies he needs to get the grow going. He goes home and grabs his 4, 2 liter buckets and slaps a plant in each.....grows them...does a DAMN good job and yields 200g dry.


(DISCLAIMER!!! as a micro grower, those are all made up numbers. I just looked at a few icmag threads to see what a few people used for light and what their yields were in the ballpark of while growing in a 2x2)


My question is....Why wouldnt that person do many, smaller plants in that space with smaller lighting??


I grow in a pc case...a small one to boot.... Sometimes I grow little branched plants to get some little tester buds, however once I have an established “keeper” I will take small clones, root them, then quickly into flowering to get the “budsicle” effect. With low wattage lights and not even dialed in I can EASILY get 2grams per plantlet...EASILY (for the sake of argument) usually more!!!!! (c'mon micro growers, back me up!!)


NOW ON TO GROWER B


….. GROWER B goes to the growshop and gets the same tent (2x2x5), only instead of grabbing the 400wHPS and big filters and fans he goes and uses SMALL pc fans, some SMALL led lighting, and rather than 4 big buckets, uses lots of 3'' x 3'' containers with budsicles, and builds shelves for multiple layers.....


now lets break down some numbers. First, I will say that I am going to DOWNPLAY the numbers, as to not create confusion......


lets say Grower B does 3, 20'' shelves (even though personally I would do 4, 15'' shelves).....we will allow 4 inches of the depth for the bulb style LED lighting (more than needed), and 4 inches of depth for the growing medium (also, more than needed). That leaves 12 inches of TRUE growspace for the theoretical 2 gram budsicles (WAY more than enough)


...and that covers the “hight” dimension....


Now...lets give each budsicle the 3''x3'' space for the width and length (once again, more than needed).... that gives us 16 plants per square foot....and there are 4 square feet in the 2x2 tent....which is 64 plants......PER SHELF (3 shelves) which leads to 192 plants. At the 2 grams per plant we are already STOMPING Grower A


to allocate wattage over the shelves would give Grower B 133 watts per shelf (comparing to Grower A's 400w HPS) and that is WAAAAY more than Grower B needs



OK!!! I think I got my point for my question across.


Ultimately, I have no desire to become a larger grower. I enjoy just growing enough for me to be able to medicate myself, and the occasional “hangin out with the friends” joint. But I have always wondered why a person would grow large plants with big lights?? Yes, they like that big cola (or multiple colas)... however.....


...don't they feel like they are wasting a lot of space???



any input would be appreciated. thanks.

 

[OG Tree Grower]

Most grows I know of are limited by electricity and plant count. I could give a big long answer to the rest of it too but there arguable

 

[stoned-trout]

sog wins..... if you don't mind running high numbers,,, no matter how ya do it......yeehaw..a 400 was putting out 14.5 oz for me last time I used em way back..could of done better but I had a shitload going... i dont use anything but 600s for hid setups anymore...I do have a few backup 1k units tho....

 

[Vanilla Phoenix]

Personally, I would much rather deal with 4 plants than 192! Hahahaha!! There are a lot of different ways to optimize your space. At the end of the day, having to cut 192 clones, root them, plant them all, on and on...yeah you might get more, but the hours you put into doing all that is not worth it, imo.

 

[stoned-trout]

yeehaw...could of done a few more but hey it worked well...1200watts 72 plants 4x4..could of prob put 16 more in there with diff trays

 

[Phaeton]

I have done it both ways. I grow commercially, now that it is legal where I live I can say that.
I cannot argue against yields per square meter, my SOG almost doubled the output under the same lights used for larger plants. Height adjusted for short tray plants.

My customers preferred the older more mature and nuanced buds so much I went back to larger plants. When the market is flooded mine sell first.

I will be sharing a warehouse with a SOG grower, we were both adopted by the same co-op.
Retail counter space has room for both of us. Licenses are issued but have a start date 90 days from now (August) for retail counter sales.

Many of the new start ups are based on the OP's figures. Pure max profit drives them.
Our co-op sees the need for a plentiful supple of OK bud selling at a reasonable price.
The demand is there for more expensive gourmet bud also.

Nothing against blended 12 year old whiskey(Pinch), or even cheap no name whiskey (R&R) for mixed drinks. But I only drink single malt's, and only a select few (Cardhu) of those. Not a beer drinker but assume it works the same.
Marijuana is no different. Same as a 12 year single malt costs more to manufacture, large dense buds with enough citrus to clear the lungs costs more to grow.

Neither is "better", personal or commercial, taste versus costs varies with every smoker.
At times I smoke out of my shake box because I am slowly passing out watching 'Archer' on netflix.
I smoke the good stuff when doing chores, wide awake and confused. Have to go slow and carefully.

Smoking out of the good box while posting, I think I may be getting off topic.
My Pineapple Express #2 did not stink up the budroom until passing three feet tall. Now I stick my head way inside the canopy when plucking yellowing fan leaves. I swear it makes me high while refreshing my lungs.

 

[HerBnGorE(illa)]

Most grows I know of are limited by electricity and plant count. I could give a big long answer to the rest of it too but there arguable

i understand plant count limitations. My thoughts are only theoretical, and on overall productivity in a given room size.

as far as electricity, I would figure wattage wise the smaller plant/smaller wattage grow would be much more efficient on the wallet. Maybe more to set up and more planning at the beginning, but it would pay for itself in bud per square inch very quickly.

 

[FireIn.TheSky]

I have run all sizes of lights, 250, 600, 1K.

I think yield wise 4 250's could yield the same if not more than 1 1K, but it would be more work to get it. To get the best yield and buds from 250 I always had to keep them short, LST and keep the light really close. With 1k I can just let them rip, if I dont get the chance to LST them they will still do fine, it's much less work to get the yield. You would also need more plants rather than just a few big ones for the smaller light.

That being said, I never had more fun than I did with that small 250w in a mills pride cab.

 

[HerBnGorE(illa)]

Personally, I would much rather deal with 4 plants than 192! Hahahaha!! There are a lot of different ways to optimize your space. At the end of the day, having to cut 192 clones, root them, plant them all, on and on...yeah you might get more, but the hours you put into doing all that is not worth it, imo.

48 plants = 1 plant once u put it into some sort of tray

I do agree about it being more work cutting clones and such, however i could stick a lot of clones into rockwool in a few minutes one i "got in the groove"

 

[HerBnGorE(illa)]

https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=56595&pictureid=1465117View Image yeehaw...could of done a few more but hey it worked well...1200watts 72 plants 4x4..could of prob put 16 more in there with diff trays

thats a nice looking setup trout!

 

[HerBnGorE(illa)]

Thanks for the comments everyone! hopefully we get a lot more with even more perspectives!

 

[bigbadbiddy]

It's a very interesting question you pose.

But there are other factors at work, always

For me personally, growing large numbers of plants was high on my priority list because my main goal to begin with is selection and for selection, as high numbers as possible is a must.

So I started designing my grow space with this and that idea and these and those pot sizes etc. etc.
I could have flowered about 30 or even up to 50 plants at a time if I went small enough.

When I learned that plants reach maturity at a certain point in veg and veging them longer/larger beyond that will only affect yield, not potency/terpenes and other expressions of the plant, I was set on going with a soilless system with very small pots (maybe a gallon or 2 max for flower).

Then I learned about Monsanto having bought a controlling stake in General Hydroponics...
I wanted to use the KISS system as I wasn't willing to delve so deep into bottled nutes and felt that whole market was a scam. I really didn't want to uncover all the shit and research it all ...

Long story short, I ended up in the organic soil section of the forum and was quickly convinced that growing organically is the right way to go.

Quality is very high on my priority list, quantity is very low on that list. Smoking some organic bud in the Netherlands further cemented my decision.

Problem with going organic is, if you want to go no-till (which is advisable as the soil gets better over time) you need a certain pot size.

I was told that 3 gallon pots could work but for best results 5 gallons should be the minimum.

I first thought about flowering 2 plants per 5 gallon pot or simply make a huge bed out of the whole area. But culling the males would worry me because I would imagine that roots get intertwined in the soil and while removing a male from the bed, I might damage roots of a prized female in the process...
Just cutting off the males at the stem and leaving the rootball in the soil bed until the ladies finished flowering seemed like a waste of space to me as well...


So I went with 5 gallon smart pots and that severely limited the number of plants I can flower simultaneously.

I am now limited to an absolute maximum of 26 plants in flower which I reduced to 21 in order to have some space to move around and reach everything.


It was a compromise but one that had to be made.

So while yeah, I do want to make my own crosses, dabble a little in some amateur "breeding" and have set selection of keeper parent stock as my main goal for the coming years, I still didn't maximize the number of plants I could flower because product quality is a very close second to the selection goal.

Or said differently:
To me it made no sense to go hydro or soilless in smaller pots because I am convinced that organic results in superior overall quality of the product and gives me the best shot of "properly" selecting.

While in hydro or soilless I could select from larger sample sizes but my selection would be of lower quality because I select from a sample that has been grown under less than optimal conditions (imho).
I just feel my basis would be wrong if I go with anything but organic so I bit the bullet and lessened plant number.

 

[HerBnGorE(illa)]

Biddy

Thanks for the input! And you bringing up breeding.....

Imaging doing an open pollination of a group of 192 plantlets in a 2x2!

 

[Dropped Cat]

Interesting about the yield per unit, watts/area/cost, etc.

I don't have a horse in this race, if anyone has seen my
plants, I have no pride, or claim to expertise, lol.

Many would argue the case of large plant numbers vs a few, or one,
longer vegged bigger plants in a micro/small grow.

For me, I can squeeze 18 in veg and twelve in flower.

My largest single yield was just over 4 ounces. Too much
weed is never a bad thing, but my typical yield is closer to
7 grams/plant, usually a couple plants per month.

My head spins imagining keeping 40 or 50 cuttings and
vegging, etc. If I grew commercial I would lose too much
sleep over anxiety and all the what if's...

So high now, must stop typing.

 

[bigbadbiddy]

The legal situation is also obviously what speaks against large plant numbers, along with the added workload.

But that didn't make me personally shy away from it.
For me it was the quality thing and seeing the plants as their "natural self" rather than a heavily influenced thing.

But others surely will see that differently.

I bet the workload alone will make many shy way...

I mean imagine these 2 scenarios (for simplicity let's just imagine they are all female):
1) pop 20 beans
2) pop 50 beans

You veg them, you take cuts:
1) 20 cuts
2) 50 cuts

All labeled and everything...

Then you flower them:
1) 20 flowering plants and 20 backup clones --> 40 plants total
2) 50 flowering plants, 50 backup clones --> 100 plants total

Now say you finished flowering the plants and started processing them. Let's leave out the grams and such and go straight to popping the next beans:

1) pop another 20
2) pop another 50

Veg, take clones...

At this point you have:
1) 20 backup clones awaiting judgement from the cured material analysis, 20 new backup clones, 20 plants in flowering --> 60 total
2) 50 backups awaiting judgement, 50 new backups, 50 in flower --> 150 total

I can see how 60 plants can be taxing but manageable to many while 150 not only blows past the 100 plant number (a household number in law enforcement... in many places no matter what the circumstances >100 plants makes you commercial, even if you have no scales or packaging materials), it also becomes a staggering number to manage...
I mean you would have 100 clones at some point, that's a lot to handle on a "small scale" ...

Even if you eliminate the males and don't care for them at all, the numbers just stagger...

Now if we consider males in the whole equation because you also want to breed, you want to select males, make beans........
Boy we just added a whole nother level of confusion and necessary management.


Compare that to simply popping 5 feminized beans and possibly keeping a single cut as a mother and you see how many just don't wanna handle all that headache of large plant numbers, selecting and breeding...

I also think that many get into the whole home growing thing more as a means to have "a sufficient bud supply" than making connoisseur level bud.

I believe for many quantity of bud is one of if not the main goal(s). For them, running the 5 femmed beans, veg them for long, flower, select the best as a mum and pop the next 5 femmed beans could yield just as much if not more than the guy popping 20 regulars and keeping backup cuts of everything, every go around.
So these folks must think "why would I go through all that trouble?" and they might be right.

You gotta have the right reasons, motivations, goals, for it to make sense to take on such a large/complex venture.
If you don't have those, you could have what you want way easier and simpler and that's another reason I believe very few people grow large numbers.

Also don't forget the sometimes ridiculous seed prices ...