20,000 Watt Medical Grow Op Construction

collective gardener said:

There's no law keeping you from growing "1 super fat huge tree". In fact, with a simple rec, you could grow 6 super huge fat trees. From a legal standpoint, huge plants, and fewer of them, is the safest way to go. What's the problem?

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hellraizer30 said:

hey cg you like the bushmaster that much? ive never tried it but if it helps with stretch I would give it a go for shure

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collective gardener said:

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Since I can't use the basic uploader, here's the description of the pics from left to right:

1. Bubba 2 weeks into bloom. 2 gallon pot filled with rockwool croutons and top dressed with coco. This plant is an ideal size for us. It will yield around 2 ozs and takes up very little space. Many fan leaves and any small shoots have been removed.
2. Bubbas between 2 and 3 weeks into bloom. Plants in buckets would not fit on tray. When new trays are built, they'll go on them.
3. Mothers and rooted clones. Mothers are Pre-98 Bubbas, a new Bubba, and Tahoe OG x Chemdog.
4. 25 topped Pre-98 Bubbas going into bloom tomorrow.
5. 6.5 week Bubba. An old mother being retired.
6. Same as #5
7. Same as #2
8. Same as #5
9. 3 week Bubba. This one ended up WAY bushier because we put it into the 2 gallon pot very early in veg. While it will yield more than most of the other plants, it takes up more room. We are testing to see which ends up yielding more per square foot. My money is on more thinner plants. We'll see.
10. Same as #9.
11. Blooming old Bubba mothers. We staked up the sagging buds after taking pic. Each of these plants will yield well over an Lb. Each is under its own 1000 watt HPS. These will be the last of the large plants. All future plants will be smaller. More patients in our collective is allowing us to legally grow more, but smaller plants. This is the style of growing I'm used to. We couldn't do it at first because we didn't have enough members.
12. Tahoe OG x Chemdog new mother. This is one of three cuts given to me by another collective grow op. It's not a big yielder, but absolutely great quality. Every dispensary we gave samples to placed an immediate order.
13. New Bubba mother. This is a cut given to me with the Tahoes. It's Pre-98 Bubba (the only Bubbas we really like), crossed with an unknown OG, and back crossed several times with the Bubba. It grows just like the pure pre-98, but has the OG flavor everyone loves.
14 & 15. Same blooming old Bubba mothers as above pics.

We'll be sending the new strains to Steep Hill Lab for THC testing. I have a feeling the Tahoe X Chemdog is going to be off the charts. It better be, considering the small yield. We're just running some small test batches of the new strains. 90% of the grow will remain our old Pre-98 Bubba. Once we're convinced the others are worth growing in bulk, we'll ease them in a little at a time. We may also expand our flowering area. Our veg room could support 3-4 of our bloom rooms.

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kevin murphy said:

all ive got to say is simple...excellent work mate..now thats a grow room..

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davidgrimm said:

subscribed

Hi there

Love your grows and info. (Read through all 1200 ish replies, took a few hours though but was well worth the time). Thank you for taking the time and sharing your experiences.

I have read RIU for a couple of years now but rarely post because I don't consider myself an expert. I don't get Killer buds (although the collective in SF that I belong to ALWAYS takes my excess even when they are telling other members 'sorry but we are full up, try back in a couple of weeks' (anyone heard those words before ?? lol) nor do I get 2 lbs per light (consistently) or any such nonsense. My current bloom operation puts out three 4X4 trays with 1 1000 watter per tray twice a month (I grow Blackberry Kush) so I get around 1 1/2 --2 lbs per cycle. My wife and I run everything from the mother's to doing the trimming. [We keep it small for security reasons plus just trying to get by, not make a fortune. If you want to make a fortune, go plant hundreds of plants outdoor, get 1 lb average and sell them bunch to out of state guys for $2,500+/-.] We use ebb and flow and grow in coco (recently switched from Atami to CocoGro, a prewashed coir fiber that we are happy with. We do not buy clones anymore because of bad experiences with spider mites. [I felt your pain, almost had to nuke everything to the ground like you did in order to get the buggers extinct.] We are in northern California so PM is a given but not since I bought and use a sulfur evaporator. We grow in the garage (three car) as opposed to in an industrial park so we have to pay sky high electricity rates. Thought about moving to an industrial park (and getting the much lower commercial rates) but then keet reading articles like where the police in Santa Cruz (a notorious loose place to grow) bust this grow in an industrial park and release a statement saying the owners of the grow attempted to say it was for mm purposes only (and had their recommendations posted on site) but, according to the police, it "had" to be "for profit". Figured I would look more like the small time "mom and pop" operation we are if we were in our home.

Just got through moving the operation (What a bitch to do!!!) and plant cycles still not all the way recovered yet. Loved your idea about screwing everything together to facilitate ease of moving. Lights are wired 220 thru a sentinal controller. Was running 50 plants per 4X4 tray. Now vegging longer (3 weeks) and putting 15-20 per tray. Use a cloning machine. Absouletely love it. I lose maybe 1 or 2 clones per cycle (currently 60). Thats great in my mind... maybe people can do better but I was never able to using rockwool. All the other standard stuff but don't have CO2 yet. Next on our lists of purchases. Will need to seal the room then and that requires a sealed AC so its gonna be expensive. I probably have maybe $15,000 invested in the grow so far bought a little at a time over 4 years so we are not in it cost wise anywhere near your figures. But then yours is done first rate and that is usually the best (and cheapest) way to go in the long run. I haven't posted a grow journal because I don't think I know enough to try to instruct anyone yet. Might at some later time... maybe after doing it for 10 years I'll feel like an expert.

The main thing that I have learned in 4 years of indoor growing is that, to paraphrase someone's legend under their signature, 'There are about a 100 different things/procedures that you have to do for 1 cycle of growing and about 100 different ways to do each one so there is like a bazillion (someone more math inclined than I please do the actual calculation) different ways to grow and no 2 grows are exactly alike'. I am still experimenting even after 4 years and its heartning to see that a much more experienced and talented grower like yourself still changes things up to see if he can get it any better. Much love and well wishes!

David Grimm
(nom de plume)

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C.Indica said:

Yo CG, ever thought about doing a frankenstein plant with grafting?
I know you have handfuls of strains to work with, bucketloads of time to do it, and the know-how + creativity to make a monster.

Imagine having one or two big mothers with all of your strains attached?

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collective gardener said:

Rosecity,

Personally, I would not top them this time of year. You're really close to bloom beginning. Topping this close to the stretch may kill your yield.

I know pruning is a charged topic. If I was growing un-topped plants outdoors in the middle of a field I would not prune them at all. They will grow as nature taught them to and maximize their yield all by themselves. But, this is hardly the case with indoor plants, trained plants, closely spaced plants (your plants), or plants with limitted acces to the sun (also your plants). My theory on this is that the more we deviate from the plants natural state (outdoors in a field), the more we may have to alter the plants shape to maximize the yield.

Both myself and my "sister" grow op (40k watts) have done several side by side tests with pruned and un-pruned plants. Like most of us here, we are just trying to figure out the best way to maximize our yield of grade A product. Years ago (like 10+) we found that the strains we grow yielded more per sq ft if they were topped 1 time early on. We tried topping twice, but ended up with more smaller and less marketable buds. We aslo found that the best planting density for highest yield was 4 plants per sq ft. However, that's alot of plants with 200 sq ft of bloom space. So, as a comprimise, we grow 1 plant for every 1-2 sq ft.

For many years I refused to do any pruning. I would let the leaves die and fall off rather than prune. Then, my friend did a test. One tray he left alone, and another he removed any fan leaves that were overlapping other leaves. His yield went up a little. Then, we both started running tests. After dozens of test runs, we came up with what we do now. No leaves are removed in veg. When we go into bloom, we remove just a few inner fan leaves...just the really big ones. We remove a few every week. After the stretch, we remove any lower growth...leaves and shoots...that are not going to produce good sized buds. This usually means the lower 6" is bare. We also then remove enogh inner fan leaves to allow the light to reach the lower most sections. We also remove enough outer fan leaves to eliminate serious shading of the plant next to it. The goal is to let light reach the entire plant, but not get to the tray. This increased our yield by at least 20% over plants left alone. An added benefit is not ending up with a bunch of tiny little buds.

I just don't think that a plant's energy shoulf be wasted on growing small loose buds that are not appealing. We need to either let the light reach them, or remove them early on. I know many people don't agree with pruning. Also, many strains may not be suitable for this technique. Puse sativas are a good example. The branches are already spaced enough to let in the light. But, if you're getting alot of sub-standard buds, maybe try letting in some light and see what happens.

On a side note. In 1996 I read an article in High Times about a grower who planted 9 plants per sq ft! His yield was amazing. I had to try it. At this time there was no medical defense, so if you already had over 100 plants it really didn't make much difference if you had 300 or even 900...you were just as fucked. I placed 300 just rooted clones, all in 4" x 4" rockwool blocks, in a 4' x 8' tray lit by a pair of 1000 watt Son Agro HPS's. The plants were non-topped Northern Lights. The finished height was under a foot. Each plant yielded just over 1/4 ounce. That 4 x 8 tray yielded 5 fucking pounds! 2.5 ounces per sq ft. That was the best yield per sq ft or per light that I have ever had. Unfortunately, now that we're a legal collective with a plant count limit, this cannot be done again. But, If I were a closet grower, this is exactly what I would do.

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TheLastWood said:

Gardener I'm really intereted in the rockwool and blocks you have under them.

I doubt ill switch from coco anytime soon but I mean, that just looks too damn easy.

I've always got the impression rockwool is finicky and hard to grow in.

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ZAQ said:

Once you go hydro you will never go back and you can do a organic hydro

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