20,000 Watt Medical Grow Op Construction
- Thread starter collective gardener
- Start date
)
Jozikins
Well-Known Member
Okay, so I smoked a bowl, have another one loaded, and I'm copying what I type as I go this time! I write a lot as well, but it's because we dig what we do, you can't talk about it without hearing passion, you can't write about it without expressing that passion. 2 4x8 tables with 2 1k fixtures is pretty standard issue, so you should be dandy. I love that you trim in a room with lots of extra HID's too, I always hang up HID's in the room I'm trimming in if I have to trim more than a qp, my eyes start to hurt real fast and then it's just a struggle without the HID lighting.
As far as the Big Mamma's, I always recommend presoaking your blocks no matter what size for at least one day. I know it can be done in a matter of minutes for the most part, it is best to be able to monitor the pH over a course of 1-2 days and makes sure nothing funny starts happening. I do this with my peat plugs and when I did hydro I did it with all my blocks of all sizes, I never used blocks as large as you do though, I was in DWC with smaller plants. But you only have one chance to give your plants a fantastic start, after that, all you can do is try and correct it with a fantastic follow through, but nothing beats a head start off the line.
I believe you can absolutely get a living medium going in your rockwool cubes, you use your cubes more as a soiless medium than anything, so you should be able to get away with it, I don't see why not. I am currently rocking BioBizz as well as brewing my own tea's, I highly recommend both, nuts to buying store bought, prepackaged teas. VermiTea is great shit, no doubt, same with BounTea, but nothing beats your own made with a excellent recipe. The BioBizz is so far preforming very well, I bought all the parts to it and most of them are hydro safe. I don't need any extra ca/mg, I don't even think I need silica, but I still add it anyways. BioBizz is a complete fertilizer and so far into this grow, everything is up to par with the House & Garden complete line up. Last round I only used tea, my custom soil mix, and one application of shooting powder, which I shouldn't have done, fucked with the experiment. But my yields were still near the same, give or take because of the plant size, and the smell, taste, and smoothness of the smoke was amazing, even after a very short flush... which I guess was pretty useless with a lot of the stuff I put in the soil anyways, lol.
When I am done with the pure BioBizz round I will let you know. I am doing it with both living"soil" I made from a Sunshine Mix #4, and then plain Sunshine Mix #4 as well, I will let you know the results on the plain sunshine side of the room. So far I am very impressed with the BioBizz product, and the customer service is fantastic, informative and a sense of humor. I would shoot them an email about your ideas, I know by the next day they will have a excellent response, they are on dutch time. I went organic because dispensaries were more demanding of it, so far I have not regretted this decision, it makes everyone happy and has been an amazing science experiment for me, so much fun. But be damn can earthworm castings burn up a plant, I thought they would be much more mild! lol.
Right now I am using the XXXL Magnum hoods with 600w's, and I am getting a 3.8 x 3.8 foot print with great growth! They have lousy light penetration though compared to other hoods I have used, they are best for plants around 2ft in my experience, but I'm going to start using a few larger plants and see what happens. I can't get too tall in my current set up though. I really like the Yield Masters II's best so far to be honest. Just good for all-around applications. I want to try the Block Buster hoods though, looks like you have a few in the veg room, actually.
Organics takes a lot of adjusting too and you will have your fair share of overfeed or over watered and even underfeed plants getting the whole "Living" medium thing going, but once you do it's worth it. Tea makes everything so cheap too, and the flavor of your end product can't be beat! Really brought the OG flavor out in the SFV OG (Swerve's remake). Pure Lemon Diesel Funk. So far I have not seen any wimpy colas in my garden either, nothing but over-fattened colas!
And now I continue the smoking
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
Okay, so I smoked a bowl, have another one loaded, and I'm copying what I type as I go this time! I write a lot as well, but it's because we dig what we do, you can't talk about it without hearing passion, you can't write about it without expressing that passion. 2 4x8 tables with 2 1k fixtures is pretty standard issue, so you should be dandy. I love that you trim in a room with lots of extra HID's too, I always hang up HID's in the room I'm trimming in if I have to trim more than a qp, my eyes start to hurt real fast and then it's just a struggle without the HID lighting.
As far as the Big Mamma's, I always recommend presoaking your blocks no matter what size for at least one day. I know it can be done in a matter of minutes for the most part, it is best to be able to monitor the pH over a course of 1-2 days and makes sure nothing funny starts happening. I do this with my peat plugs and when I did hydro I did it with all my blocks of all sizes, I never used blocks as large as you do though, I was in DWC with smaller plants. But you only have one chance to give your plants a fantastic start, after that, all you can do is try and correct it with a fantastic follow through, but nothing beats a head start off the line.
I believe you can absolutely get a living medium going in your rockwool cubes, you use your cubes more as a soiless medium than anything, so you should be able to get away with it, I don't see why not. I am currently rocking BioBizz as well as brewing my own tea's, I highly recommend both, nuts to buying store bought, prepackaged teas. VermiTea is great shit, no doubt, same with BounTea, but nothing beats your own made with a excellent recipe. The BioBizz is so far preforming very well, I bought all the parts to it and most of them are hydro safe. I don't need any extra ca/mg, I don't even think I need silica, but I still add it anyways. BioBizz is a complete fertilizer and so far into this grow, everything is up to par with the House & Garden complete line up. Last round I only used tea, my custom soil mix, and one application of shooting powder, which I shouldn't have done, fucked with the experiment. But my yields were still near the same, give or take because of the plant size, and the smell, taste, and smoothness of the smoke was amazing, even after a very short flush... which I guess was pretty useless with a lot of the stuff I put in the soil anyways, lol.
When I am done with the pure BioBizz round I will let you know. I am doing it with both living"soil" I made from a Sunshine Mix #4, and then plain Sunshine Mix #4 as well, I will let you know the results on the plain sunshine side of the room. So far I am very impressed with the BioBizz product, and the customer service is fantastic, informative and a sense of humor. I would shoot them an email about your ideas, I know by the next day they will have a excellent response, they are on dutch time. I went organic because dispensaries were more demanding of it, so far I have not regretted this decision, it makes everyone happy and has been an amazing science experiment for me, so much fun. But be damn can earthworm castings burn up a plant, I thought they would be much more mild! lol.
Right now I am using the XXXL Magnum hoods with 600w's, and I am getting a 3.8 x 3.8 foot print with great growth! They have lousy light penetration though compared to other hoods I have used, they are best for plants around 2ft in my experience, but I'm going to start using a few larger plants and see what happens. I can't get too tall in my current set up though. I really like the Yield Masters II's best so far to be honest. Just good for all-around applications. I want to try the Block Buster hoods though, looks like you have a few in the veg room, actually.
Organics takes a lot of adjusting too and you will have your fair share of overfeed or over watered and even underfeed plants getting the whole "Living" medium thing going, but once you do it's worth it. Tea makes everything so cheap too, and the flavor of your end product can't be beat! Really brought the OG flavor out in the SFV OG (Swerve's remake). Pure Lemon Diesel Funk. So far I have not seen any wimpy colas in my garden either, nothing but over-fattened colas!
And now I continue the smoking
Nice response. Now it's on. Touche! On Guard!
You can tell me all you want about Bio Bizz...none of it means anything compared to what you said about customer service. I'll try it. Just because you say they have great customer service, is plenty for me. If a company makes a shitty product, they won't want to talk to you about it. Therefore their service will suck. But, if a company believes it's making a great product, they will be happy to talk to us about it. I simply refuse to buy anything from a company that won't talk to me. And, they're out there.
You are spot on with the limits of the 600's. It's a light that must be used properly to work. I've never even HEARD of someone lighting a 3.8 x 3.8 space with a 600...regardless of reflector. I guess that's still over the absolute minimum 40 watts/sq ft level. I like that you recognize the limitations of those lights., and adjust your canopy to suit the light's capacity. I hear people on here all the time claiming 600's are SOOOOOO much better than 1000's, without adjusting their grow to fit the light. Bottom line is, it takes some experience to grow well with 600's. When I say "grow well", I mean to achieve results similar to what can be had with 1000 watt lights. I'm split right down the middle. If I could redo this grow, I don't know if I would stay with 1000's or go to several more 600's. Eeither way, I grow with a minimum of 60 watts/sq ft. After the bloom room remodel, adding the 2 lights from veg into bloom will give me closer to 70 watts/sq ft.
I'm glad you noticed my Blockbusters. Those are very nice reflectors: Easy to clean, even lighting pattern, and built well with good materials. The Blockbuster would be an excellent choice for a 600 watt light. It still gives plenty of spread, without SO much diffusion as to dilute the light too much (as a Raptor or XXl may do). The Blockbuster may just be the best size for all purpose growing. If you were growing an 18" - 24" finished canopy height, one of the larger reflectors may perform a tad better.
I'm super pumped about the organic nute testing. I have the highest hopes for the Yellow Bottle nutes...Hydro International Advanced Floriculture. I just love their lineup. I also like the looks of AN's Iguana for an orgainic base nute. I know that I want to use a high end base nute that has everything. This is my safety net. My days of custom blending the entire nute schedule are over. After I find the organic base nute that will give the plants everything they need, I'll add other stuff to give them also what they want. I've had great success in prior organic live soil grows. But, on this one, I will not acept a decrease in yield.
Wolverine97
Well-Known Member
Are you changing mediums as well, or staying with rockwool?
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
Absolutely staying with rockwool. It's so ironic that my very first grow in 1992 was rockwool. Since I've tried every conceivable growing method. Yet, here I am...back at rockwool.
I don'y know how many people are doing organic in rockwool...I doubt that there are too many. I've read that coco is better for establishing life in the medium. I've just had such better quality and quantity with rockwool on this grow. Not to mention the simplicity, labor savings, and ease of disposal. Since I hand water once per day, the water retention rockwool offers is a real plus. I can also increase/decrease the volume of media very easily...customizing the volume to be just ready for water after 24 hrs.
Even if I can't get good colonization in the rockwool, I believe that just feeding the plants all organic liquid nutes will make a taste/aroma difference. But, if it doesn't, I'll still be "organic", which is where we'll need to be within the next few years to satisfy the granola head market. I would never have even tried this 5 years ago. There just wasn't the availablity of quality filtered liquid organic nutes. When I grew organic most of my nutes were in the form of top dressings and a fairly hot custom soil blend in very large containers. This was mostly done in my light and climate controlled greehouses. I tried it indoors just one time. WAY too much a mess for indoor growing.
So, this live organic rockwool thing will require some lengthy testing. I'm figuring a year to get it dialed in right. I would love to get some suggestions from you guys for a COMPLETE organic base mix. Something similar to AN Iguana. The first 500ppm will be the base mix. That's my "insurance" to make sure all the elemental bases are covered. Then we'll add a big variety of other shit. But, the base must contain all the Macro, Secondary, and Micros. If it's lean on one or 2 things, I can always supplement.
Thank you all iin advance for your suggestions. Your opinions mean alot to me...well MOST of your opinions...LMFAO.
Wolverine97
Well-Known Member
Good luck with it CG. I'm sure you know this already, but the whole key to living organics (what I do) is the CEC (cation exchange capacity)of your medium. So you'll never be able to achieve good microherd numbers, but that may not matter. Then again, it may if you go Bio Bizz. With synthetic nutrients (with quality chelation) it doesn't really matter what kind of microlife you have going on, as the plant is able to absorb everything immediately. With organic nutrient lines, you need that CEC of the medium to "hold onto" the elements so the herd can do its work. With constant addition of microbes it may work just fine though, I really don't know.
I could go on and on, but that's why I was asking about the rockwool.
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
I agree with you 100%. This may or may not work with rockwool. I like your idea about constantly adding microbes. Maybe even with every watering? I could also keep some supercharged tea brewing at all times. Would you recommend homade teas, or bottled microbes to keep the life going? Or both? I've only used teas in the past...there were very few botttled products the last time I had an organic grow of any size. Do you have a favorite bottled microbe that you think I should try? What do you think about starting the life in the rockwool block a week (or more) before we even load the plant onto it? We could even put the blocks on a heat mat to supercharge the microbe growth? Whatever we do, we need to keep it CLEAN. I can't have the place turn into a dirt farm. Your suggestions, as always, are appreciated.
Wolverine97
Well-Known Member
Living soil is my thing and honestly, I'm just getting into the science of teas. In a perfect world I'd say tea hands down over bottled, but so much comes down to proper aeration and base materials. It would probably be better to start with bottled (IMO) so you have a good baseline to work from. I do make my own tea, but I've been getting a bit lazy with it lately. I really like Xtreme Gardening Mykos, and Azos so far. They're single species inoculants, and I also use Great White but really only for the trichoderma. If you were to try to build a colony prior to transplanting into the blocks, I'd start with bacterial rather than a fungal culture. Which ever way you go, I'm sure it will turn out dank.
Also, there's a new bacterial product out called Quantum Growth that I really want to try, just haven't ordered it yet. It supposedly has a two year shelf life.
Also, there's a new bacterial product out called Quantum Growth that I really want to try, just haven't ordered it yet. It supposedly has a two year shelf life.
Jozikins
Well-Known Member
I'm so fucking defeated man. It happened again, this response was at least twice as long. I saved it all and lost it when I posted a link in it, and I thought I resaved it but it didn't happen, ,this time it was an error by rollitup. It signed me out, and when I signed back in, instead of posting it, the page was no good and brought me to a blank url, and everything was lost!!!
God fucking dammit man, I want to help you because I have experience with all of this shit but RIU will not stop bugging up. This is why half of everyone on here is an idiot, all of our good information gets lost! You'll have to forgive me if I submit 10 responses for now on, 1 for each paragraph!! Arrrgghhh, I'm having a little fit over this right now, I need to go burn one. I spent like an hour typing all that out, I had some great links too!
http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2011/02/breeding-microbes-with-compost-tea/ Here is the stupid fucking url I copied that lost me all the shit I typed out. I guess I'll use notepad as back up next time.
Great fucking source of info though and brings you to one or two other fantastic resources. If you grow your own, you might as well brew your own.
God fucking dammit man, I want to help you because I have experience with all of this shit but RIU will not stop bugging up. This is why half of everyone on here is an idiot, all of our good information gets lost! You'll have to forgive me if I submit 10 responses for now on, 1 for each paragraph!! Arrrgghhh, I'm having a little fit over this right now, I need to go burn one. I spent like an hour typing all that out, I had some great links too!
http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2011/02/breeding-microbes-with-compost-tea/ Here is the stupid fucking url I copied that lost me all the shit I typed out. I guess I'll use notepad as back up next time.
Great fucking source of info though and brings you to one or two other fantastic resources. If you grow your own, you might as well brew your own.
TheLastWood
Well-Known Member
I used to use mycos in my coco, I swore it made a differance, but then I heard ph down kills the mycos so I stopped usin it.
Is that true?
I like botanicare, I know my pure blend pro isn't "true living organic" or live soil, but its still a synthetic organic, and I'm very happy with it.
Is that true?
I like botanicare, I know my pure blend pro isn't "true living organic" or live soil, but its still a synthetic organic, and I'm very happy with it.
BambamLFC
Member
Dude, that is the selling point! hot bitches and legal weed shit what else do u want man!?If I owned hell and Cali, I'd rent out Cali and live in hell. lolSeriously though, can't stand the place. Aside from the pretty girls and good weed laws I find nothing else redeeming about the state. I usually don't bring it up for obvious reasons lol
Anyway, I'll just kinda piece out here for a little while or this whole thread will get jacked by people mad that I don't like Cali
PS: Oh yeah, good wine too!
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
Wood,
I like the whole Botanicare lineup. It's like "Organic Light". I settup my 70 year old patient growing with Botanicare to start. She insisted on organic (so I lied a little). She's since gone top dressing with real organics. But the Botanicare got her up and rolling semi-organic with zero growing experience. That Sweet Raw is a very inexpensive source of magnesium Sulfate. I used to use tons of the Cal Mag to wet out coco with. I think for the $$$ you can't beat the stuff. Good job.
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
My understanding is that low PH will hurt Mycos. I'm sure if you're over 6.0 you'll be just fine. Wow...Mycos...you're getting me pumped to start some organic growing. I went to Grandma Rasta's (70 year old grower) house yesterday and burned a blunt with her. Her shit is 100% live soil organic. All the nutes are either in the original soil mix or top dressing. Anyways, the pot was out of this world. She makes my Bubba taste like something totally different...and better. I forgot what a difference it makes when you do it right. People who say there's no difference haven't smoked the real deal live soil organic. Shit, I grow hydro for a living, but still prefer to smoke the organic. Hope I can get the same quality from my new patented "Live Rockwool Organic".
a random screen name
Active Member
Absolutely speechless at this thiread.. PROPS
Puanatat
Member
*I'm so fucking defeated man. It happened again, this response was at least twice as long. I saved it all and lost it when I posted a link in it, and I thought I resaved it but it didn't happen, ,this time it was an error by rollitup. It signed me out, and when I signed back in, instead of posting it, the page was no good and brought me to a blank url, and everything was lost!!!
God fucking dammit man, I want to help you because I have experience with all of this shit but RIU will not stop bugging up. This is why half of everyone on here is an idiot, all of our good information gets lost! You'll have to forgive me if I submit 10 responses for now on, 1 for each paragraph!! Arrrgghhh, I'm having a little fit over this right now, I need to go burn one. I spent like an hour typing all that out, I had some great links too!
http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2011/02/breeding-microbes-with-compost-tea/ Here is the stupid fucking url I copied that lost me all the shit I typed out. I guess I'll use notepad as back up next time.*
Great fucking source of info though and brings you to one or two other fantastic resources. If you grow your own, you might as well brew your own.
Yeah I learnt my lesson quite quickly with RIU. Now I type everything up in Microsoft Word, paste my links in there as well and it checks my spelling hahaha! Then I just paste it into RIU and if it doesn't work the first time I just do it again, I'm yet to do it twice though. I do the same on my iPhone as well, copy everything after I finish typing my response. Hope this helps.*
Top stuff as always CG, you've got me wondering about going organic...*
How's the experimental grow area going, what are your plans - have they changed? I can't remember but what was the go with the induction lighting? I remember a lot *of people asking ten or so pages back. No pressure though, just wondering.
TheLastWood
Well-Known Member
Well when I'm deciding when to chop, before my 3 DAY FLUSH I will snip a bud, give her a 2 day dry then smoke a bowl, and I never taste any "chemicals" or even a "hay" smell that ppl talk about.
I don't know if its the "synthetic organic" or if those are just rumors. And after a nice cure they always taste and smoke good.
I work 40 hours minimum a week(sometimes up to 60 hrs), and have to do everything around the house as well, and don't have the time to go fully organic.
Trust me, I would love to compost and have a worm bin, both interest me a lot. Then I could brew teas and top dress and throw the rest in an outdoor garden.
Coco is so easy and I have great results with it. I think I'm gonna try a few plants in rockwool.
If I ever went organic I would mix up a big batch of subcools super soil, I think the "just add water" technique could be right up my alley.
I don't know if its the "synthetic organic" or if those are just rumors. And after a nice cure they always taste and smoke good.
I work 40 hours minimum a week(sometimes up to 60 hrs), and have to do everything around the house as well, and don't have the time to go fully organic.
Trust me, I would love to compost and have a worm bin, both interest me a lot. Then I could brew teas and top dress and throw the rest in an outdoor garden.
Coco is so easy and I have great results with it. I think I'm gonna try a few plants in rockwool.
If I ever went organic I would mix up a big batch of subcools super soil, I think the "just add water" technique could be right up my alley.
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
The inductive lighting test will be done. When I was getting ready to do it several months ago I get hit by mites and all extra time was spent eradicating, and finally destroying a crop. The we changed from trees to SOG...from coco to rockwool...and from having a full time employee to just my wife and I. The whole idea behind the proposed 4 testing trays is to be able to run tests at a moments notice with no hassle or settup time. When the current harvest is trimmed, cured, and distributed I can begin the bloom room remodel.
The remodel will be pretty extensive. I visited Commercial J's grow op last night as he was harvesting. He grows the same exact cut that I grow, uses the same nutes, and has a little les light/sq ft. BUT, he runs a sealed room with CO2 enrichment. His fucking buds are almost double the size of mine. I want to move up the schedule on getting the new ductless split A/C unit and CO2 enrichment. Part of that involves increasing the cooling airflow to the lights and routing the light intake air from outside the bloom room. Since I will be moving the lights during the remodel, I want to go ahead and do all this ducting and fan work. I learned in building other sealed grows that the more air flow through the lights, the less A/C will be needed to keep the grow cool. And, let's face it, inline fans and ducting are alot cheaper to purchase and maintain than A/C systems. So, what was just going to be a basic tray remodel hase become trays, lights, ducts, and fans. It's really not too big of a job. I think I found a guy to help us get it done. We should be ready for running the tests by the beginning of next month. Actaully, we have to be. In another 2 weeks we'll have about 100 plants ready to go into bloom. The idea is that we do this with the bloom room only half full.
mastiffkush
Well-Known Member
I am only on page 8 so far and i love this thread! I am looking forward to the day that i am able join a collective, form my own. Great job, keep up the good work...keep smoking, toking and fuck the feds...they will get what they deserve one day!!