20,000 Watt Medical Grow Op Construction

[rosecitypapa]

Hey CG,

Have you put a meter on those digi's? Do they really put out more lumens as claimed?

We are considering expanding the bloom room into sheds in the main warehouse. I'm thinking a circle of DWC buckets around 2 - 1000 watt vertical lights. We would both veg and bloom in the little sheds. I'm thinking of using a circle of 6 x 6 x 6 wire mesh to train the plants onto.

The wire mesh could be a smaller diameter. Without the hoods also reflecting heat, the plants can grow closer to the bulbs with no ill effect. I'm using 600's right now and my plants are mostly 12" from the bulb. Some colas are as close as 6" with no bleaching yet still make me nervous.

 

[collective gardener]

Hey CG,

Have you put a meter on those digi's? Do they really put out more lumens as claimed?



The wire mesh could be a smaller diameter. Without the hoods also reflecting heat, the plants can grow closer to the bulbs with no ill effect. I'm using 600's right now and my plants are mostly 12" from the bulb. Some colas are as close as 6" with no bleaching yet still make me nervous.

I have metered the Digilux's, and they do put out every bit as much as advertised. I also metered them against a Horti 1000, both bulbs 1 week old. While I don't remember the exact FC reading, the Digi was around 12% brighter than the Horti. I am running 2 Horti's right now with 9 Digilux's. The real test will be in 6 months. It's my understanding (from Hortilux themselves) that digital ballasts cause their bulbs to degrade in brightness AND undergo considerable temperature shift. I'm willing to bet the shift is towards the orange spectrum. Anyways, I'll meter the Digi's and the Horti's after 6 months use. This is my first rum with the Digi's. I used to run Horti's for 6 months. I'm hoping to run the Digi's for a year or more. Once I lose 10% brightness, I toss em. Actually, if a 10% decrease in brightness resulted in a 10% loss of yield, it would pay to change the bulbs when they lose about 3%!

I'm also running 1 - 600watt bulb with the plant about a foot away from it. I'll probably run 1000's in the vert settup. I don't like the plants any closer than 2' to a 1000 watt bulb...and that's during veg, when we're really trying to stack the nodes close. After week 3 of budding, I prefer them around 3' away. We noticed on our last harvest that the upper buds were actually a little smaller than a few nodes down. After raising the lights, the next harvest is developing much better. We will harvest the top 1/2 of the plants, lower the light, and harvest the rest a few days later. We tried that on one plant in the first harvest and liked the results. The lower buds filled out nicely in just 3 days of intense light. They were still smaller than the top half, but the density and color was that of the upper canopy.

 

[selisko]

Not much to post today...no new fancy gear pics. I did get 8 clones from Clonville on Ventura in the Valley. Honestly, the clones look pretty bad. I'm guessing 50% wll survive even though they are rooted. I usually don't buy clones from un-tested plants, buy heard good things about this place and need a sativa or 2 to round out the stable.

OMG I thought i was the only person that thought clone ville was butt dust! I bought like 8 or 9 of their preflower clones and they are all tall like males. Then I nothiced they came with root aphids! Needless to say, never going that route again. And for it to be "cloneville" where was all the rooms of clones? I saw two rooms. I've been to dispensaries with more clones. As far as cloneville, theyre babies seem to be ok. But step away from the preflowers! Damn 20k in lighting you guys are serious! I love when people come togather to do something rewarding.

 

[selisko]

Wait a minute... your not sublbc are you??

 

[TheLastWood]

I've always thought its cool you can buy clones there but it seems like more trouble than its worth.

Like you said when you got the other clones "no ones gonna sell decent genetics for 15 bucks"

Hopefuully no bugs this time

 

[Gamberro]

It actually fills my heart with hope and happiness to see that this is being done legally in some places. Marijuana has its faults, but less fault often than, say, ice cream, and so many people need marijuana desperately for medical use. I sell discount to all people who I know to have verifiable medical need for MJ, and that's me doing what I can do. I would love to be involved in an operation like this, but for now I live as a rebel in the northeast USA. As a Christian my mission to give marijuana to those in need is a necessary part of my life.

 

[collective gardener]

We get predatory mites today...5000 of em. Fortinately. we live in a agricultural area and the mites are available evrywhere. Thge salesman convinced me that his boys could wipe out any infestation...as long as I was willing to purchase enough numbers. I've commited to 5000/week for 2 weeks, then a touchup spray for a week, then 1000 more mites for some cleanup. The cost is $20/1000 mites. Seems cheap enough. The Spinosad was having very little effect on the spider mites. I used some Pyreth on a particularily bad plant. It knocked out the bugs, but also turned the white pistils brown. I'll report back on the progress.

 

[slk]

Would you ever use Malathion for those mites? I know not to use it on the flowers, but for veging and clones?
At one time I would import orchids from Mexico and the Agg Dept at the border would make me dip all plants in Malathion before I could enter the US.

 

[collective gardener]

First...some pics of a Chem Dog we harvested today. This is just head stash...the clone slipped in with 20 cuts from Commercial J.







This plant was stunted early in flower. because it was different from the rest, it's water uptake was less. Before we realized she was different, Helper D watered it the same duration as the Bubbas. Well, she was over watered and spent 2 days with the drain holes under water. It never really recovered in size, but what we did get looks really nice. The buds trimmed out round and dense. It's not as covered in trichomes as the Bubbas. The smell is mild. Unfortunately, I took several cuts from her prior to knowing what she was. We thought it was Bubba. So, I now have about 5 of em in veg. If this smokes good enough, we'll put em through to bloom. If not, they go into the trash.

Helper D unleashed the predator mites today in the bloom room. We're keeping our fingers crossed. Commercial J doesn't like them, but after some pressing, he admitted to never actually trying them. Another commercial grower friend says she used them to wipe out a horrible infestation with wonderful results. What we're hearing is that as long as you can afford to buy enough of them, they will do the job everytime. Given the amount of buds on the line, we have no problem buying as many of these guys as we need. I'm dying to look under a microscope tomorrow to see them in action. I so want to see a spider mite get eaten alive. We have an order in for another 5000 next Tue. I'll keep reporting on the progress.

 

[collective gardener]

Would you ever use Malathion for those mites? I know not to use it on the flowers, but for veging and clones?
At one time I would import orchids from Mexico and the Agg Dept at the border would make me dip all plants in Malathion before I could enter the US.

While I'm not adverse to using chemical nutes, chemical pesticides are different. Malathion seems a little gnarly to be smoking. I just can't pass that off to our patients. If I wanted to use chems, Floramite is the one for mites. It gives knockdown results for 30 days. I have only used it to spray rooms (not plants) between harvests.

Once we get this under control, we'll implement some preventative measures. I was just hoping that we would get through a year or so before having to do so. Guess I was dreaming.

 

[SCCA]

Beautiful chem dog CG! hope it turns out to be a keeper. the predatory mites are supposed to be awesome, but pricey. iv been trying to get the guy at the local hydro store to order some in, but he thinks he wont be able sell them. I guess most people don't know about them. one thing i haven't quite figured out is if yous should continue using them regularly as a preventative, or wait for signs of more spider mites. i would think a regular application every week or two would prevent any future problems. spider mites are a horrible problem around here and spraying seems to be everyone's solution. nothing ever seems to totally get rid of them in some rooms.

 

[Sr. Verde]

Predator mites haha hell yeah

 

[TheLastWood]

I've heard predetaors work great but they take time and you gotta keep adding em cuz mites reproduce so fast and they only eat so many a day. But they should annihalate them in a couple weeks.

I can't believe you can throw away perfectly good plants like that chemdog. It just sweems wrong.

 

[collective gardener]

We are so fortunate to live in an agricultural area. We can get the predator mites right from the lab. The guys at the lab are my new best friends. They asked me right off if we were growing medicinal herbs...lol. I think they could tell that Helper D was loaded. Anyways, they told us that each pred mite will eat 5 large eggs/day. They also said that 5000 was more than enough for our room size. We will continue to add 5000/week until all mites and eggs are gone. The predator mites will also breed! The mites come in a jar full of what looks like pencil shavings. The lab gave us 100 little "french fry" bags. Helper D puts a pinch of the shavings in the bag, then wires the bag to the plant. Each plant gets a bag. The mites then march up and out of the bag and onto the plant. The lab boys also told us to move the plants close enough together for several leaves to be touching. This way the little guys can easily travel from plant to plant. They will automatically distribute themselves. We were advised to increase the RH to whatever we were comfortable with and to mist the plants with RO water twice/day. The good mites like water and the bad mites do not. I'll continue to provide live war coverage.

 

[collective gardener]

I posted this plant on another thread a while back. Figured it was time to share it with this gang. I grew her last winter totally organic outside. The plant was given to me by afriend who wanted to see what it would smoke like totally live soil organic. I had an organic head stash grow going last year. We don't know what the strain is. All we know is that it is the most purple plant any of us has ever grown or seen grown. We nick named it Purple Death. It smells like a basket of mixed ripe fruit. It smokes super smooth and leaves a pine cone aftertaste. The high is pure indica and very heavy...like being wrapped in a warm heavy blanket. We keep a pipe load in the night stand for when my wife or I can't sleep. One toke of this brings the sleep on.

 

[Tamorin]

I dont know how ive missed this tread but great job even with the mites. I love the info on the predeator mites never heard of them. I too will be rock 20 k watts but until i finish building the garage its just 8 k watts for now. Rock out ill be reading.

 

[TheLastWood]

Damn gardener, you should totally cross that purple death with the laughanis. I bet the purple would really come out. Its pretty damn purple buds already. U probably don't have a male though.

You never cease to amaze me. Nice work bud.

Where did u learn how to grow cg? Just trial n error? I know you've said you lost a few crops before.

 

[Bonzi Lighthouse]

This just in from the front
[video=youtube;sBksHaTQCbU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBksHaTQCbU[/video]

 

[MoJobud]

I have metered the Digilux's, and they do put out every bit as much as advertised. I also metered them against a Horti 1000, both bulbs 1 week old. While I don't remember the exact FC reading, the Digi was around 12% brighter than the Horti. I am running 2 Horti's right now with 9 Digilux's. The real test will be in 6 months. It's my understanding (from Hortilux themselves) that digital ballasts cause their bulbs to degrade in brightness AND undergo considerable temperature shift. I'm willing to bet the shift is towards the orange spectrum. Anyways, I'll meter the Digi's and the Horti's after 6 months use. This is my first rum with the Digi's. I used to run Horti's for 6 months. I'm hoping to run the Digi's for a year or more. Once I lose 10% brightness, I toss em. Actually, if a 10% decrease in brightness resulted in a 10% loss of yield, it would pay to change the bulbs when they lose about 3%!

I'm also running 1 - 600watt bulb with the plant about a foot away from it. I'll probably run 1000's in the vert settup. I don't like the plants any closer than 2' to a 1000 watt bulb...and that's during veg, when we're really trying to stack the nodes close. After week 3 of budding, I prefer them around 3' away. We noticed on our last harvest that the upper buds were actually a little smaller than a few nodes down. After raising the lights, the next harvest is developing much better. We will harvest the top 1/2 of the plants, lower the light, and harvest the rest a few days later. We tried that on one plant in the first harvest and liked the results. The lower buds filled out nicely in just 3 days of intense light. They were still smaller than the top half, but the density and color was that of the upper canopy.

I take it that you don't leave the plants in total darkness for the last day or two?

 

[incognegro999]

I posted this plant on another thread a while back. Figured it was time to share it with this gang. I grew her last winter totally organic outside. The plant was given to me by afriend who wanted to see what it would smoke like totally live soil organic. I had an organic head stash grow going last year. We don't know what the strain is. All we know is that it is the most purple plant any of us has ever grown or seen grown. We nick named it Purple Death. It smells like a basket of mixed ripe fruit. It smokes super smooth and leaves a pine cone aftertaste. The high is pure indica and very heavy...like being wrapped in a warm heavy blanket. We keep a pipe load in the night stand for when my wife or I can't sleep. One toke of this brings the sleep on.

View attachment 1548112

Purple rain, puurrple raain haha. That plant is awesome.