What's new
  • ICMag and The Vault are running a NEW contest! You can check it here. Prizes are seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!

The Organic Think Tank

Tom Hill

Well-known member
Veteran
1000wts, in a vertical situation without 50% bouncing before home, in the 1970's 4ft cone covering 64sf+, produces more than anything ime. Most are too pre-programmed to try it though. Ime, go out till you can't mix larf, then back-up a row. -T
 

cannaboy

Member
Unfortunately, it's more about the distribution then it is the growing anymore. Just like Verizon and ATT are becoming dumb pipes for VOIP calls and the pc makers are subservient to the operations system (microsoft & apple OS's), the grower is subject to the distributor, unless you distribute your own. The product you grow is just a commodity.

Small fry learning LOL ,,they will go big school soon

The product is fucked when no matter how cheap or how many or how fast you do them they want it when its good or not it has a shelf life and a season as thats when its good and thats it.There is a post somewhere that says its good to have but usless unless its sold..) you can always make a big pile of documented rotted compost and sell it to CANNA or feed pigs BEWARE OF PEOPLE THAT KEEP PIGS!! I would sell the seeds and not harvest till it was in profit there are many a tax doging scheme with 6 or more money making sides and a few good outs,, In the fruit and veg game and open oppertunity to have a massive grow space is always overlooked!!!. All monoplys will buy in bulk but you will get middled and lose out take a pound off every 1 not a few million dollars of a handfull,, the key to future sucsess if your in it long term no risks.. is to be kind to man and not hurt anyone,,


The blue ribbon gardner is on a next level from the avarage joe...

Its so funny!!
 

Tom Hill

Well-known member
Veteran
No matter, no matter at all. The flag I'm waiving is that horizontally mounted lights are a waste of energy, period, and everybody should consider jumping outside of what they're sure of, then quadruple their footprint per watt. I know how bizarre this sounds, but there it is. -T
 

toohighmf

Well-known member
Veteran
makes perfect sense to me, boss. I see people SOG under Parabolics all the time.
thanks for responding!
 
R

RNDZL

I love pot heads :)

umm sog or trees its really a matter of even lumen distribution along in cubic terms not linear ones

Tom is discussing the tenants of light dispersement

and he is right. We calculate wattage for grows based on linear feet, yet we grow in cubic spaces. Light attenuates and most light in most grows is not distributed by the time it leaves the source to the time it exposes it self to the whole of the plant

for example tight mono crop canopies block light shade lowers, we use over powered lights to try to drive though and its very inefficient.

when I stared the old school parabolic were the "best" but no one used em anymore, 430 agro suns on movers were the hot shit out at the time.

personally, My favorite space to date however was a 2.5 x 2.5 with a 175 hps above and 4 t8 dual 4' t8 in each corner for 320 watts of alternating cool and warm bulbs. My aim was to have a consistent amount of lumens in every square foot of the grow in cubic not linear terms

to this day nothing i pull is even close to the same size as far as 1 huge large running cola and the one long term friend i let see my girls once in a while still is unimpressed

bro it ain't nothing like when you had that place, blah blah blah


very curious to what tom's practical insight is regarding organics indoors and perhaps the hydroponic component

thank you either way for stopping by and sharing tom :)
 

toohighmf

Well-known member
Veteran
sog would be optimal for light dispersion, no? seems to me, vegging indoors under these HID dinosaurs is a huge waste of power.
 
R

RNDZL

There is dispersion of light, and there is light efficiency

by dispersion, I mean getting light from the source to the rest of the room, and getting light evenly throughout the grow does not imply you are getting most grow for your light

Tom's message is that traditional lighting systems give you half direct light and half reflected light

huge loss of efficiency

however distributing light evenly and efficiency are not the same

to get all the light from a bulb to hit plants directly most people hang them vertical and line plants around the whole of the bulb

I have done stadium but not true vertical and because of that I cannot say what the rule of thumb is there BUT the parabolic seems to offer the benefit of bare bulb vertical with the added benefit of light driven down also

i envision tall plants outside the 4 foot reflector area and shorter ones underneath so all dimensions of the bulbs facing has life around it utilizing the light

reading in between the lines, I think perhaps we can assume, and please correct e if I am wrong, that the biggest failure of the indoor gardener has nothing to do with nutrition and everything to do with how we use light

in regards to organic hydro i see the organic as adding health benefits and hydro helping yield, but the benefits of those factors still are small in relation to the benefits of getting more total weight per watt because of a simple lighting strategy, far more benefit than a nutritional or indoor cultivation tech
 
V

vonforne

No matter, no matter at all. The flag I'm waiving is that horizontally mounted lights are a waste of energy, period, and everybody should consider jumping outside of what they're sure of, then quadruple their footprint per watt. I know how bizarre this sounds, but there it is. -T

I seen proof of what you say at another site concerning a vertical hanging light. A guys character name was Heath Robinson and with a vertical hanging light pulled a couple lbs from 1 Viking plant. The watts per m² were increased. He had the vertical set up and also used multiple vertical hanging lights.

Due to space here were I live I have lately considered them.

V
 

250wscrogger

Active member
Organics will not yield as well as refined nutes. I ran the biobizz line and guanos for 2 years to see what I could do with organics and the results were pretty good but final product was lacking some weight/density compared to buds grown with floranova...not to mention that biobizz is very diluted so you need to use a lot and spend more money on nutrients. Switching to AN sensi 2 part because I want to get the most out of my grows from now on. :dance013:
 
R

RNDZL

Organics will not yield as well as refined nutes. I ran the biobizz line and guanos for 2 years to see what I could do with organics and the results were pretty good but final product was lacking some weight/density compared to buds grown with floranova...not to mention that biobizz is very diluted so you need to use a lot and spend more money on nutrients. Switching to AN sensi 2 part because I want to get the most out of my grows from now on. :dance013:


Just curious, why do you see your experience as defining the organic experience as a whole?

My very simple illustration to lazy man who said that we had out engineered mother nature with artificial light and nutrients, I pointed to Tom Hills outdoor organic grows

I believe he has most bio-mass for the given rootspace.nutrient load

That and other organic gardens I have been influenced by tells me its the improper application of organics that is limiting plant growth

AN, for example, has not re-invented plant science

they simple made a fix ratio synth nute, and took some common mechanisms that have been discovered in the natural.organic world and re-engineered them to fit in a bottle

the vodoo juice, sensizym type products are organic in their initial discovery although I don't know what in th process of making it a sell able product they may have compromised the integrity organically

or maybe they dont seek organic registration cause then it would be easy to reverse engineer their products and find out your using the same solution that you could manufacture on your own or get it made for the general agriculture market for a fraction of the price

did AN do a better job than nature or did they niche market and tailor an array of existing hort techs products and solutions and make it readily usable for the ease of use of neophyte cannabis growers to get the benefits of applied horticultural science without having any idea whatsoever how it actually works?
 
wow learning a lot here, ran out of "yes" points.

Rndzl You are right on about "biggest failure of the indoor gardener has nothing to do with nutrition and everything to do with how we use light" every time I have made substantial increases in growth, yield, health etc... its had to do with light.

Grapeman Your point about the show being more about distribution now than actual growing hits close to home. I felt this pain a while back. 10+ years ago it started, now it is way out hand. Clubs, or whatever you wanna call them buy what they can for cheap and sell at standard prices. This leads me to a whole other rant I don't want to get into at this point. Your right though vendors are at the mercy of people with clean finger nails, wearing their "i'm not a cop suit", screwing you on price because Cannaboy dropped off a couple kilos of beasters.

I forgot who said it but I agree that our plants do have a soul, or more character, give off a different vibe if you will, when they are in soil. I even feel as though it is torturing them to be restricted by containers, and I don't think anyone would disagree Outdoor grows done right puts Indoor grows done right to shame.
I don't usually quote people for reasons that don't matter here because I am about to quote someone most of us are fimilar with. DJ Short has said "Simply put, there is no real substitute for the complex relationship of plants and organic soil"
That being said I had a thought earlier in this thread I could not put to the right words. I'm going to try again.

Growing in soil provides a plant that has to work for itself to get nutes creating a stronger plant. Using nutes in the soil helps the weaker (relatively speaking) plant be more like the plant that has the genes to do it for themselves. A plant fed on only nutes becomes mutant (a good one, (turn off those flame throwers)). She just basks in the light all day having her food brought to her and develops little character. I know, I know, and yes your AN grown plants do taste yummy but that is only because you've been doing this for years and don't over fed that particular strain. More often than not though, as soon as your cure is done your hydro meds taste and/or smell like the nutes you put in, or taste just like the strain right next to it grown the same way. Where as properly cured organics have developed what their genes/nature/biochemistry had in mind and are unique to each seed grown plant.

Of course plants grown w/ salts only are bigger and weigh more. No discussion there, so long as we stay indoors. Just like with the foods, it just means you have more that is probably better suited for eating than smoking. No offense to all you sensitive types just my opinion.

I will also concede the following, there are a few growers out there that can do "salts" and have a strain that works well with them, that is the exception to my previous opinion. So if you don't like what I have stated above, put yourself into that category and smile, few will know the difference. I also concede that I have not seen/tasted/experienced it all, just a lot of it. I am open to any and all methods to enjoy my cannabis more and have an easier time growing it. I am open to sampling and re-sampling buds grown different ways, and do not reserve the "top shelf" for organics only. It is just my current belief based on the evidence I have that organics produce a more natural and flavorful experience and that the high of a given strain is the pretty much the same despite how it is grown. (crazy enough, even that can be strain dependent. ime some strains medicate like absolute crap grown in salts, others wouldn't have it any other way). Of course marijuana being a psychotropic, set and setting have a part to play in the experience, and bad tasting weed leads to a bad experience in my book.

Thought train derailed, must have been (no joke) the trainwreck spliff I just smoked. Can I get a time out?
---Spliff
 
Last edited:

xmobotx

ecks moe baw teeks
ICMag Donor
Veteran
am i off topic here - or no one wants to consider how dumb old organic soil might compare w/ hydro - or just lame?

this being a think tank and all -and for the sake of conjecture:

lets say someone does some "earth sculpting"

as permaculture, you scoop out some lower area for a "pond/reservoir" -then, build up higher area (like "mini mountains") adjacent to your "pond/reservoir"

now, i like the idea of placing rocks w/ fungi into the higher regions of the "mini mountain" features, than maybe a layer w/ some charcoal and ash amended (like a fire belt) below these highest regions then, fertilize and amend growing regions (basically right adjacent to the 'pond/res')

a pump is placed in the 'pond/res' which gurgles out at the top of the 'mini mountain'

the system would be expanded by utilizing more pumps to more 'mini mountains'

i would eschew pond liner and such as might impede the subterranean circulation of the system - but, the system (pond & mount.) could be built on top of a barrier keeping loss from leaching to a min if necessary

is this a hydro system?

does it really seem like a rube goldberg contraption?
 
R

RNDZL

am i joff topic here - or no one wants to consider how dumb old organic soil might compare w/ hydro - or just lame?

lol no no tat all

IN FACT as part of the biotope society i was witness to natural "wet/dry" filter design using natural landscaping techniques


collect your untreated water into the environment via a long natural aqueduct into a deep deep pool and then bring the resulting overflow over rocks into a slow moving shallow pool

can get much deeper into it but I was hoping to save it for when the topics where reeled in a bit
 

xmobotx

ecks moe baw teeks
ICMag Donor
Veteran
i wonder then, are there systems like this in place? where can we go to see what results?

it occurred to me that in soil (w/this type of setup) you're simply growing in soil (and therefor not hydro) -so supplant a coco insert in the grow region wicking from below

or do drain to res

or to waste

sub other hydro mediums (rockwool, hydroton)

of course, this gets close to just having a cistern and pumping from it to irrigate

wait, aren't a lot of hydro setups basically miniature pump to sprinkler setups?

i m thinking that there is an extremely fine line between what's hydro and what is not? much like the fine line between organic and (so called) conventional
 

cannaboy

Member
So It really is all about organics.

Nothing beats running through your whole grow like Tom Hill can where it takes 5 minutes or more at full walking pace to get to the fringes of the grow plot!!!,, I didn't mean to say 1000 single light users are dickheads I ment the people that are uneducated and can't do the math to work out the best options,,The new age childeren that are tought to pass tests and not have a free open mind.. are Doomed!!!
 

Lazyman

Overkill is under-rated.
Veteran
Good lord Cannaboy, can you just go away? You have nothing of value to contribute to this thread, and as far as my grow being a BIG waste of electricity, you clearly haven't even read the thread, have never done a large op in your life, and know nothing of growing, so f#&k off.
 

xmobotx

ecks moe baw teeks
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Good lord Cannaboy, can you just go away? You have nothing of value to contribute to this thread, and as far as my grow being a BIG waste of electricity, you clearly haven't even read the thread, have never done a large op in your life, and know nothing of growing, so f#&k off.

funny i was thinking the same thing about you

to be fair, your grows look like huge success. but it's not just about yield. and, it doesn't mean you are now the end all be all of chem hydro

you've made a lot of assumptions, presented a lot of biased studies as "facts," and shown overall that your point of view is very limited. and, you're not very open-minded.

the gist of this thread had been intended to focus on hydro - but w/ an assault on the organic concept of course there will be organic enthusiasts defending organics in whatever form.

your comments to the effect that there isn't enough arable land (laughable) served to further the derailment along w/ citing that piece of crap norm borlaug's words (really a very limited scope)

actually too - as has been pointed out - borlaug's work has resulted in a modern day clusterfuck - to the delight of the dupont superpower and the chem industry. they profit from it - to our demise

further, you refuse to consider the implications of the production of the materials involved and packaging/transpo to the storefronts and from the stores to home in your energy considerations.

the thing is, something doesn't come from nothing - if anyone is experiencing higher yields, it must be from higher energy inputs.

w/ one major exception; organics.

the reason: it's nature at work. if we were gone, it would happen by itself. something doesn't come from nothing (of course) but, the energy is there from the solar system to it's effects on this floating rock. a grand majesty of science far exceeding anyone's petty dope grow.

pile on to that the FACT that all your chem hydro growth happens due to nature as well (that's the chem grower's favorite argument, "there's no difference, an ion is an ion is an ion!")

and it's inescapable that you are wrong.

sure, hydro can outyield soil 400% they say right? funny, they also say that terra preta soil outyields conventional soils by 800%

you can skew papers and statistics and ignore the subtle details if you like but when energy input comes into the equation, the field starts to level off.

then, when you factor in damages to the environment (which organics would actually fix after we are gone) we start finding that we're filling an empty bucket trying to outdo nature - when there's no reason - nature does just fine all by itself.
 

xmobotx

ecks moe baw teeks
ICMag Donor
Veteran
my point is more like: when you read material endorsing a certain method it always portrays that method as being the best.

the #s are essentially irrelevant unless a person finds for themself that it matches up - it's marketing.

it's tough to defend our stance as organic advocates because our methods always involve time - you can run side by sides and organic may seem to yield less/perform worse than "conventional." but, the organic program will improve over time.

for me it's not the latest craze or a popularity/boom thing - been living/growing organic for the better part of my 40+ years. So, i know - but i don't have the tons of experience w/ the hydro that many here do. That doesn't mean that i dont look at the system and see a lot of energy and a lot of input - compared to my throwing seeds out mulching and watering.

to be fair though, i am working w/ a new plot that seemed unsuitable to me at first. so, my results won't be the evidence to sway the argument for 2 or 3 years. but, it's become very promising since last season.
 
Top