12/12 From Seed Experiment - 21 Strains

[hayrolld]

It definitely was. I started off giving them very little room and have been gradually increasing. It's been tiresome having many of the plants yield next to nothing because they get left behind. Hopefully this will be an improvement.

You have to be ruthless with pruning to run plants really close SOG style. Even knowing how they end up, it is still kinda painful to cut that much off each plant. Feels wasteful.

The new octagon looks great. I think the larger spacing will make it easier to get light to all the plants if they have some variation in growth.

 

[Budget Buds]

For sure man. My only concern with that would be possibly too small. But if you did clones and not seed you could probably get away with it.

No I run clones 99% of the time, I would think 5 day veg and then flop them into flower.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 4 Update
Day 24

Things are going pretty good everyone. Every spot in the Octagon has a plant but I am continuing to nurture the left over seedlings. In the event some of the plants in the octagon begin to look a little sub-par then I will replace them with available plants from the left over pile. The rate at which the roots grew (are growing) was pretty varied.

Currently running (1) 1000 Watt HPS and will stick with that for a few more weeks most likely and switch to (2) 600's.

 

[Alaric]

Hey HDS,

Glad you completed the octagon

What was the final weight from your last run?

If you can stand the heat-----I suggest two 1Ks instead of two 600s and here's why:

A 1K without a reflector is ~ 600 with reflector. A 600 without a reflector ~400 with reflector.

A~~~

 

[Mohican]

Looks fkn awesome HDS!

Are they all the same strain this time?

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Looks fkn awesome HDS!

Are they all the same strain this time?

Yup...All the same. Sensi Seeds Skunk #1 Feminized.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Hey HDS,

Glad you completed the octagon

What was the final weight from your last run?

If you can stand the heat-----I suggest two 1Ks instead of two 600s and here's why:

A 1K without a reflector is ~ 600 with reflector. A 600 without a reflector ~400 with reflector.

A~~~

No weights yet man...everything is in gigantic 2.5 gallon glass jars still.

 

[brimck325]

Hey HDS,

Glad you completed the octagon

What was the final weight from your last run?

If you can stand the heat-----I suggest two 1Ks instead of two 600s and here's why:

A 1K without a reflector is ~ 600 with reflector. A 600 without a reflector ~400 with reflector.

A~~~

i don't think this applies in a vertical grow.

 

[Alaric]

i don't think this applies in a vertical grow.

Hey brimck325,

Not sure what you mean by that? Care to explain?

A~~~

 

[Sativied]

Alaric is right, roughly anyway. Even though you don't lose the light in the vertical setup, you do have less light on a given side where normally the direct light and the refelective light are combined. It's also best to start under the highest intensity, since the plants are smaller they have less leaf surface area and already get less light per plant.

 

[Alaric]

Alaric is right, roughly anyway. Even though you don't lose the light in the vertical setup, you do have less light on a given side where normally the direct light and the refelective light are combined. It's also best to start under the highest intensity, since the plants are smaller they have less leaf surface area and already get less light per plant.

Hey S,

Always good to hear from you-----hope you and your garden are doing well.

You're right, those light numbers I threw out are rough taken with my light meter.

I've come to the conclusion that growing vertically or the way HDS is or the tunnel design DOES NOT increase the gram per watt yield-----only less space required.

I had delusions of grandeur (3 per 1K or even 4) by wrapping the canopy around the lights.
Oh well, live and learn (sometimes anyway).

A~~~

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Hey S,

Always good to hear from you-----hope you and your garden are doing well.

You're right, those light numbers I threw out are rough taken with my light meter.

I've come to the conclusion that growing vertically or the way HDS is or the tunnel design DOES NOT increase the gram per watt yield-----only less space required.

I had delusions of grandeur (3 per 1K or even 4) by wrapping the canopy around the lights.
Oh well, live and learn (sometimes anyway).

A~~~

Really? Damn...I've been having those same delusions...although I have not been aware they were delusions.

 

[Sativied]

New setup looks great HDS. I like the transparent tubes too, I considered adding a few pieces on purpose just to be able to take a peak.

I've come to the conclusion that growing vertically or the way HDS is or the tunnel design DOES NOT increase the gram per watt yield-----only less space required.

I agree with your point in general but a slight increase in gpw is feasible. The thing is, when you run bare bulb you don't have reflector loss, i.e. the reflector itself does not reflect 100% of the light. The led guys claim up to 20% loss, so it's probably more around half of that which is still a 10% loss. That's potentially a 10% increase in gpw, but obviously doesn't make up for using a much larger surface. A couple of dozen pages back I mentioned a few things about this too, suggesting HDS roll out the inner canopy of his octagon, convert to a flat surface to get a good idea of how much light is ideal.

I.e. if the canopy is 3 feet high and 12 feet radius you got 36 feet to cover. 2x 600w would barely work in that case, 3 would be better. If the canopy is 4 feet high and radius is 15, 60sqft in total, then 2x 1k watt could work very nicely. Get roughly 5x5 per 1k watt normally, so two are good for 50sqft, add the lack of reflector loss and it should work nicely for 60sqft in a cylinder canopy around the bulbs.

"less space required" can result in more yield from the space you have available, but yes, generally only when adding more light to make up for spreading it out over a larger canopy. That's the key issue, the spread, the resulting ppfd is what matters most in this context. By removing the reflector you instantly reduce the ppfd drastically.

 

[Alaric]

Really? Damn...I've been having those same delusions...although I have not been aware they were delusions.

Well----just think about how much fun you're having (I assume). Fun for me anyway.

If I understand correctly your space limitations (no separate veg room)? What you're doing is a good way to maximize your space. If interested, check out the link in my sig-----may give you some ideas.

I don't want to sound discouraging -------hope it turns out you prove me wrong.

I suggest focusing on yield vs space------not so much grams/watt.

A~~~

 

[Alaric]

New setup looks great HDS. I like the transparent tubes too, I considered adding a few pieces on purpose just to be able to take a peak.

I agree with your point in general but a slight increase in gpw is feasible. The thing is, when you run bare bulb you don't have reflector loss, i.e. the reflector itself does not reflect 100% of the light. The led guys claim up to 20% loss, so it's probably more around half of that which is still a 10% loss. That's potentially a 10% increase in gpw, but obviously doesn't make up for using a much larger surface. A couple of dozen pages back I mentioned a few things about this too, suggesting HDS roll out the inner canopy of his octagon, convert to a flat surface to get a good idea of how much light is ideal.

I.e. if the canopy is 3 feet high and 12 feet radius you got 36 feet to cover. 2x 600w would barely work in that case, 3 would be better. If the canopy is 4 feet high and radius is 15, 60sqft in total, then 2x 1k watt could work very nicely. Get roughly 5x5 per 1k watt normally, so two are good for 50sqft, add the lack of reflector loss and it should work nicely for 60sqft in a cylinder canopy around the bulbs.

"less space required" can result in more yield from the space you have available, but yes, generally only when adding more light to make up for spreading it out over a larger canopy. That's the key issue, the spread, the resulting ppfd is what matters most in this context. By removing the reflector you instantly reduce the ppfd drastically.

Time to expose my dumbness again----What does "ppfd" refer to?

A~~~

 

[Sativied]

It's simply put the light density on the surface being lit. The larger the surface area for a bulb the lower the resulting ppfd. For example, if you increase the surface area by raising the light (in a regular horizontal grow) you essentially spread out the light more and thereby decrease the amount of light per m2 (and per sqft...). By growing vertical (or tunnel) bare bulb you spread out the light from the bulb maximally and thus also reduce the ppfd.

Here's a good article:
http://www.gavita-holland.com/index.php/item/lumens-are-for-humans.html

The 1k watt example:
1000W c) - 1,5 x 1,5 m - 2,25 m2 at a ppfd of ~800 µmol m-2 s-1

That's roughly 25sqft. When you double the surface area by running vertically bare bulb, you get half the ppfd (and need to add another light to make up).

Ppfd should be roughly 700-1000. The thing that makes the gpw inaccurate especially without taking space into account is that running 10% higher ppfd won't give you 10% more bud. Diminishing returns occurs quickly. Essentially, to an extend, the lower the ppfd the more efficient and the higher the gpw (common trick from led fans) but less fat / more leafy buds and less yield from a given space.

So I agree, focus on yield per space. But then growing vertically is about pushing the yields from a given space and having no reflector loss and less wall reflection loss should contribute to that total yield from the space. Heath supposedly got far over 2gpw from his vertical flooded tubes setup.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 4 Update
Day 32

Things are going great. Several of the plants indicated sex and started growing pistols extremely early (Day 26)...the fastest I've ever seen. I actually had to remove some of them for fear of them starting to flower too early.

I still have the container of extra's but I'm pretty sure the final 63 plants that are in the octagon will be the ones. I've been gradually bringing up the nutrient concentration and it's currently sitting at 590 PPM or 0.84 EC.

The biggest procedural change I'm making this time is topping the plants. @Mr.Head inspired me to try this and so I am. Every single plant has been topped once. I am still shifting plants around daily. My approach is to place the plants furthest along in the bottom row. Next is the top row and then the least developed are going in the middle row.



This is a pretty typical example. All of the plants have a very nice root system already. This one that I pulled out extends about 2 feet already!



Since the rockwool cubes were establishing their roots before they were in their net pots, this is how I handled seating the cubes into the pots. A hole punch was used on all of the net pots to avoid the nightmare of trying to fish roots thru the small openings at the bottom. Just enough plastic was left to prevent any risk of the cubes falling thru.

 

[hayrolld]

Looking Great HotDiggity! Topping should help keep the heights a little more consistent / less stretch to deal with. I think having more colas and trimming more of the small lowers should help with getting light to all the plants later when the jungle reappears. The plants all look very healthy and have good internode spacing. This is going to be your best run yet!

 

[TheChemist77]

HDS, like the set up, interesting!! how far away are the plants? is that 4 inch pvc? great idea...

 

[Alaric]

Chapter 4 Update
Day 32

Things are going great. Several of the plants indicated sex and started growing pistols extremely early (Day 26)...the fastest I've ever seen. I actually had to remove some of them for fear of them starting to flower too early.

I still have the container of extra's but I'm pretty sure the final 63 plants that are in the octagon will be the ones. I've been gradually bringing up the nutrient concentration and it's currently sitting at 590 PPM or 0.84 EC.

The biggest procedural change I'm making this time is topping the plants. @Mr.Head inspired me to try this and so I am. Every single plant has been topped once. I am still shifting plants around daily. My approach is to place the plants furthest along in the bottom row. Next is the top row and then the least developed are going in the middle row.

View attachment 3517020 View attachment 3517021 View attachment 3517022 View attachment 3517023

This is a pretty typical example. All of the plants have a very nice root system already. This one that I pulled out extends about 2 feet already!
View attachment 3517024


Since the rockwool cubes were establishing their roots before they were in their net pots, this is how I handled seating the cubes into the pots. A hole punch was used on all of the net pots to avoid the nightmare of trying to fish roots thru the small openings at the bottom. Just enough plastic was left to prevent any risk of the cubes falling thru.
View attachment 3517025 View attachment 3517026

Hey HDS-----looks good.

I agree with hayrolld about removing the lower stuff.

Good idea using that reflectix behind the tubes. Are you planning on a trellis to train the plants in toward the light a ways----you know the stems will grow vertically anyway until buds fatten up.

A~~~