No energy year round tunnel GH In the Sierras

[MountZionCollec]

So this is an idea only designed for the southern Sierra Nevadas as this technique is very microclimate dependent. Ideally for grows between 1000-10,000 square feet

All plants veg in 5 gallon air pots in GH just enough light to keep from flowering. Plants transplanted into 200 gallon, 4' wide 2' deep smart pots with tunnel greenhouse system setup to cover them during bad weather. Mediterranean climate 75% of days are 60s or warmer and sunny, basically never gets below freezing but crop 3/4 will still need to be cold resistant.

Crop 1: June 1st plant pure/ish indicas for September harvest.

Crop 2: pure sativas transplanted mid September to the first week of October. Harvested December-early January.

Crop 3: CBD crop for oil I plan on growing thousands looking for a hardy cold resistant CBD pheno. Healthiest CBD strain I've found so far is harle tsu, maybe I'll breed that to a cold hardy early flowering indica? Looking for fast flowering harvest March 1stish

Crop 4: planted early March, another hardy cold resistant oil/hash crop with harvest in May. Something like an ace erdpurt which is basically auto flowering under 45th latitude, I'm at 38.

June 1st do it again. No energy used during the flowering process, the energy used during veg ALL provided by solar.

The soil never changes, just amended in between runs allowing 2 weeks to settle then plant. I think this is great for a small farmer, you can really get the most out of your space if you are limited by square footage.

 

[who dat is]

Subbed for sure

 

[Bradley_Danks]

Sounds good

 

[MountZionCollec]

I will have 99 200 gallon pots. A full 99 plants for Crop 1 & 2 will be taking place this next year and I will have the tunnel greenhouses installed.

I will not do a crop 3 next year because I am going to be too busy and I won't have the cold hardy CBD strain. I will run the crop 4 but that will be in spring 2017.

I will be installing a gale force greenhouse this winter, I'm thinking ~1600 square feet. After I transplant crop number 2 into the 200 gallon pots I will transplant seedlings 5 gallon pots. I can fit 200 of these pots in my 300 square foot greenhouse so figure I can comfortably fit 1000 in a 1600 square foot gale force, then take that down to 600-700 for flowering. I'm HOPING to get a tissue culture lab setup so I can just take a leaf at harvest time and save it until I can whittle down 600-900 plants to like 50.

With the water board regulations we will be allowed 10,800 square feet. I will only use 6000-7000 For the big grow to leave me square footage for searching mothers and fathers in greenhouses. Next winter I will add another gale force designed more for growing out males.

 

[_tessarecting]

Sounds like a solid plan I am also subbing this thread. Can you elaborate at all on the water board regulations; is that specific to your county or is it a statewide thing?

 

[MountZionCollec]

The water board regulations are being voted on in a couple weeks for the "Central Valley region", which includes the Sierra Nevadas. It will go into effect immediately. The other laws that passed (not signed by gov yet) would not take effect until January 2018 but even under them I would apply for 10,000 square feet and a nursury permit.

This whole strategy is sparked by the desire to commercially grow the finest late flowering pure sativas, In addition to ensuring one can get the most sustainable $$ out of the land as I believe the prices will continue to drop. This strategy allows me to do that while still running an efficient farm.

 

[MountZionCollec]

I'm thinking to just cut it down to 3 harvests so it's not so crammed and rushed. I found real seed company sells 2 himilayan strains, Malana cream and Parvati, that love cold wet weather and have high number of high CBD phenos. I have a 300 square foot greenhouse that drips from humidity and is not very insulated so gets very cold. Next winter I will pop 200 or so seeds of each of those two strains to find 99 total to flower out. I will put some cfls in the GH to keep them from flowering then once all of the pure sativa strains are harvested, I can replace them with one of those two himilayan strains. I'm guessing I would get a late March harvest

 

[konopenko]

Hey MountZion sounds very efficient do you have any economic calculation, where curve line of margin costs meets retail price? It would be nice to monitor all prices from legalization on, so you can make a model for future, or do you think this is nonsense..
We want pics of greenhouse too
Regards!

 

[MountZionCollec]

Hey Kono I design all my strategies based off of lowest future price possible in next 5 years.

for example this strategy is very effective to $300 a pound. The "costs", except for trimming, are really so low that it is always cost effective to grow more as long as your infrastructure can handle it. I invest heavy in infrastructure as it is the long term strategy.



From 99 plants I could yield about 1000 pounds, that's on 6000-7000 square feet. Which isn't crazy impressive in the "yield" department for that space but the quality of the 300 pounds I create in harvest 2 will top ANY sativa in ANY dispensary in America And I can do it for a FRACTION of the cost of everyone else. While I plan for $300, I hope for a few extra hundred dollars a pound for as long as possible because anything over 300 is where the money for investments would come from.

Harvest 1: single plant: yield per=4. 400*$300
Harvest 2: double plant: yield per pot=3....300*$400
Harvest 3: double plant: yield per pot=3...300*$200


Total Cost ~200k
Profit from flowers/trim ~115k

3k to amend soil
3k for foliar/fertigation
1k soil microbes
1k organic pest prevention
$750 for support maintenance
2k tunnel greenhouse maintenance
$400 trimming scissors
2k boveda storage packs
1k vacuum seal rolls
1k irrigation maintenance
1k mother plant room maintenance

105k....$120 per pound trim harvest 1/2, $60 harvest 3 for concentrates
40k: 2 part time employees during year who also trim
3k maintenance drying rooms

10k miscellaneous
15k government fees

I will be putting greenhouse together this winter I will be posting pics here!! It'll be on my hillside, gonna get interesting lol!!

I will keep posting the sativa strain info on the ace sativa forum I started. The strategy just got too big for that thread.

 

[MountZionCollec]

I didn't add any infrastructure to that cost layout because I will already have that all set up within 2 years, the budget above is my 3 year out budget and it's more of a bare bones operations budget so the Collective can survive a price crash.

 

[who dat is]

What's up on some pics or schematics? I'm a visual person

 

[redlaser]

I was curious what your December, January and Feb temps are in an un heated greenhouse. Double poly is a good insulator but cold temps seem like a limiting factor for growth.

 

[MountZionCollec]

Of the tunnel greenhouse setup? I don't have that designed yet that is for this winter. My neighbor is an engineer, my dad and bro are mechanical engineers, and I will also consult a local contractor who does lots of ganja jobs.

http://thesoilking.com/wp-content/u...se-Solutions-Catalog_2014-2015-Click-Here.pdf

Page 9 are some coverings I'm looking at. Length will be ~100', not sure in width yet. It'll be on a windy hillside, though the whole garden will have a wind blocker to help some, I will only cover the plants if it is really bad weather though so it will only cover the plants about 7-10 days a month in the winter.

 

[MountZionCollec]

The gale force greenhouse on the same link in the last post I am looking to get one this winter, and one next winter both at about 1600 square feet for searching for mothers and fathers...and the best beefsteak tomato (dester)..

 

[konopenko]

Thanks a lot bro, Im sure I can make some models from that just basic ones...
Harvest 1: single plant: yield per=4. 400*$300
Harvest 2: double plant: yield per pot=3....300*$400
Harvest 3: double plant: yield per pot=3...300*$200
can you explain that calculation in words and what is double plant
so you say total costs are 200k$ those are quite fixed right. Thats great cos fix costs tends to drop in years...if I understand you right you only pay 15k for fees, is there another tax on your income/profit?
Slovenian farmers can only dream about ganja they can produce up to 30euros of corn on comparable soil...

 

[MountZionCollec]

Harvest one is single planted in the pots at the beginning of June, since they have such a long veg time I will only put one plant. I expect to yield 4 pounds per plant. I put price at $300 a pound.

Harvest two will be double planted with pure sativas that are 1' tall and wide. They will immediately go into flowering and I really just don't know what to expect as far as how much they'll stretch during flowering. Pure sativas get good light penetration though and I'm not worried about mold from close planting. I expect to yield 1.5 pounds per plant. So 3 pounds per pot. I put price at $400 per pound

Harvest 3 same thing double planted, expected 1.5 pounds flowers per plant at $200 per pound.

Government fees are just estimated, but they will be the same for all farmers so I'm not worried to have it dead on accurate. I don't pay sales tax, dispensaries pay that. I am taxed on my end salary, I do my taxes as a farmer with an accountant.

200k are my variable or costs I need to pay each year.

Fixed costs for me
Home, land
Soil/pots
2 climate controlled drying rooms.
A few thousand half gallon mason jars for small batch curing of every bud.
Greenhouses

Slovenian farmers hopefully will be able to do the same within a few years. When that happens I wish you guys luck and will help u in any way for free!

 

[PetFlora]

Leaving such high income potential to the chance that mother nature will cooperate fully is a crap shoot

I am doing an indoor grow using a Transcendent Lighting LED, which was designed for supplemental greenhouse lighting.

If you check them out, please tell them I referred you. I can use the Brownie points

 

[stoned-trout]

winter crops suck and are best used for extracts...fluffy buds..i used to grow year round in so cal and new England in heated greenhouses there...yeehaw..if you get cheap firewood get a hydronic heating system...well worth it...I could burn stumps and other undesireable wood...also heated my house and floors and water with it..

 

[redlaser]

Of the tunnel greenhouse setup? I don't have that designed yet that is for this winter. My neighbor is an engineer, my dad and bro are mechanical engineers, and I will also consult a local contractor who does lots of ganja jobs.

http://thesoilking.com/wp-content/u...se-Solutions-Catalog_2014-2015-Click-Here.pdf

Page 9 are some coverings I'm looking at. Length will be ~100', not sure in width yet. It'll be on a windy hillside, though the whole garden will have a wind blocker to help some, I will only cover the plants if it is really bad weather though so it will only cover the plants about 7-10 days a month in the winter.[/QUOTE


It will be interesting to see what the minimum needs will be for heat in the winter months. The sierras Nevadas have that great climate but like you mention get close to freezing in winter months.
With some sort of heat sink in the greenhouse it seems possible but cold seems to be the limiting factor.

 

[MountZionCollec]

Leaving such high income potential to the chance that mother nature will cooperate fully is a crap shoot

I am doing an indoor grow using a Transcendent Lighting LED, which was designed for supplemental greenhouse lighting.

If you check them out, please tell them I referred you. I can use the Brownie points

Mother Nature is very forgiving in my location, and that is the point of the tunnel greenhouse to protect them when Mother Nature is not in a forgiving mood. If I had to grow locked in a cage, I wouldn't grow.