250W Closet Grow - vertical experiment

So I decided to make a thread for this just because I couldnt find anyone trying to run a vertical system in a cab so I wanted to record what happens with mine just for research purposes for anybody who might be thinking of it. I was thinking about how I could use more of the space in my cab (and trying to find a way to get rid of a plant I kept as a mother that just turned into a nightmare) and thought about this for a while before I decided that one way or another the plants will probably grow, they might just not grow very well. But if this works itll help me use a lot more of my space and so should help my grams per watt.

Here are the specs for my set up:
Dimensions: 140cm tall (actually 180cm but theres a shelf 40cm above the ground) 80cm wide 55cm deep
Strain: Acapulco Gold (Barneys Farm) ----soon to be joined by----> Northern Lights (Sensi Seeds)
Growing medium: Canna Coco
Nutrients: Canna Coco A+B, Canna Boost, PK 13/14
Light: 250W HPS
Temps: Kinda embarrasing but theyre hitting about 35C so about 95F (a fan broke so I'm trying to get a replacement but until then the temps are riding high)
Light Schedule: 12/12

So I'll just jump right in, this time I'm trying to start a perpetual (as I planned on growing multiple strains so I'd have to keep different schedules either way) so one of the plants currently in my flowering cab has been in flower for 3 weeks and the other has been there for a day, from now I'll refer to them as AG1 and AG2 . The one thats been there for 3 weeks (AG1) is the one in the back and the other (AG2) is on the right, in a couple weeks ill clear some space on the left and put in a smaller Northern Lights plant I have vegging atm.

I think ill have issues with heat mostly and maybe the plants being too close to the light essentially because I have to keep the light about 6-7inches from the plants (due to the cab being small), thats sort of the big issue I'm trying to overcome here is making sure they dont get burnt until I'm rolling them up. I definitely didnt make that easy for myself by taking 2 fairly large plants so I'm also hoping they wont stretch too much, for AG1 its more of a problem, AG2 still has some space in the screen to grow into. AG1 also already had a nasty case of leaf curl when it went into flower just for the record. The actual screens I have made though are a bit of a botch job, I kinda just used what I had around so one of them is made out of cardboard tubes and the other is pvc piping. Theres another difference which is that one of the screens is L shaped so its sort of a mix between a vertical and normal scrog, this is because I topped one of the plants twice in veg and it had a number of branches which I trained down so as to thin out the canopy a little to let some more light in and allow the smaller branches at the bottom to have some space to grow out properly.

Anyway thats pretty much it for now, here are some pics of what the closet looks like now, I'll try to update this once a week until I've finished harvesting all 3 plants which will eventually be in the tent. Oh and if you have any thoughts, tips, tricks or even questions youd like to share feel free I'm definitely open to suggestions.

I will pull up a chair for this One buddy if that's Ok, I've got a 250w ScroG Setup, but not Vert.. So be interesting to see How this plays out.

atb

is the Bulb to one side rather than in the middle.. Is this due to space or for ease of access..

The light is just off the middle at the moment, I'm just trying to slowly bring it closer to the plant that I put in yesterday because with the first one after I took it out of the veg tent with cfls and put it in with the hps a lot of the leaves got wrecked by the light, I read somewhere that sometimes it takes them some time to get used to stronger lights so I'm just hoping itll go better this time and so far so good I havent had any burnt or dried out leaves yet. I also need to re-arrange some of my ducting to the cool tube as its kinda pushing up against the corner of one ot the screens and it covers the area I want to use next so I've been moving the light around a bit to get a better look at where I can run the ducting from instead.

Interessting !
subbed........

So its been about half a week since I put the second AG in and I haven't seen any taco curling or anything on the leaves which is a big relief! I sprayed it with a bit of pyretheum because I saw a couple of spots on the underside of a few of the leaves, nothing major at all so I didnt spray much but I just figured itll have flowers on it soon so this is my last chance for any kind of foliar pest control so I went for it. I rubbed it into the leaves after because I didnt want it to burn them by magnifying the light thats already close as hell to them but i missed a couple spots so now there are some small yellow burnt spots on a few leaves but once again nothing major so im not fussed. Ive also noticed a little bit of nute burn on some leaves but it was barely noticeable so I'm probably not really going to do anything about it, might mix the next batch of nutes slightly weaker because I'll be mixing that tomorrow probably. I put them on pk13/14 and A/B for the first week this time to test it out and will be switching to boost from here on in probably although I might give them another pk boost when I start seeing flowers.

Otherwise the other AG that I put in before isnt really too interesting yet, its got buds forming all over it but still not really developed enough too see proper calyxes and everything its just starting with hairs and stuff but I'm eager to see how the lower branches yield comparing to the main cola on that one as its the only plant I have that was never topped so itd be cool to see how it naturally develops (although I did do a bit of defoliation at the bottom just because there were some branches that looked like they werent going to hold anything up). There should be another 52 days or so on that one so in the scheme of things not too long although I just finished up the bud from my last harvest because I lost a bunch of it to mold so the faster these next two months pass the better!

I'm also planning on putting the first NL from sensi in next week if it grows fast enough although I'll be putting it in within 2 weeks no matter what because I have 2 of them and one will go in flower while the other will become a new mother for me and ill take cuttings from her which will veg out for 2 months before being put into flower in november. I just have to pick which pheno I want to keep and which one I'll be flowering out first then not seeing again. I'll post photos later though when the lights go on (I wanted to this morning but the lights switched off just as I was getting out my camera).

Oh and btw anyone thinking about following my idea of making an L shaped screen heres a little tip to avoid my stupidest problem, make sure the bottom of the screen is at least 8-9 inches above the edge of the pot if you're watering by hand... mines only 5 inches and id be fucked if my pot wasnt made of fabric because the jug I use to water only fits in under the screen if I bend the sides of the pot down and watering through the screen is a mess that I dont want to deal with again lol.

Well here I am again with some pics this time. I moved the light closer to AG2 (the one on the right hand side) and still no burn! I'ts got to be only 4-5 inches away from the bulb now and maybe only 2-3 away from the exterior of the cooltube so I'm very impressed that its not burning, hopefully I won't get any bleaching on the buds. You can see in the 4th pic that ive moved the ducting now to the front to get ready for the NL that will be going into flower next. The last pic is of the veg tent, on the left I have my 2 NL's from sensi seeds and on the right at the front I have my NLxBB (world of seeds) followed by my AG clone in the back right and another much younger AG clone in the middle. I think I've decided to put the NL at the back into flower first because I was away when they were topped and this one didnt get topped properly til late and I get the feeling itll be a nightmare to take care of as a mother if it just shoots up.

Anyway just for the record its now been 6 days for the AG2 in flower and about 27 for AG1

Very cool subbed for the show

So this morning I went and looked in on veg and saw that the AG clone has grown much more than the NL again. This leaves me thinking I want to flower that sucker soon because I don't want to have to have my veg tent all overcrowded with shorter plants balancing on boxes so that the light can be raised high enough not to be touching my AG clone(its about 2 inches from the bulb atm so give it another couple days and I'll have some issues). I also really want to be flowering one of the NL because I'd like to have some of that before november. But I only have one screen left in my flowering cab thats not in use, so I was thinking about putting both plants in the same screen but NL has a flowering period thats about a month shorter than the AG's which means I'd have to chop the NL without wrecking the screen that would be holding up the AG, does this sounds possible/plausible? Also I might try putting the plants going into flower next in 48 hours of darkness before I try to flower them just to see if theres much of a difference in the time it takes flowers to appear.

Ok so since im just experimenting here anyway I thought I'd try putting both plants (AG clone and NL) in the same screen for flower. I also wanted to test what the effect of a 24 and 48 hour dark period is, I left the AG clone in darkness for a day already and will be putting it in flower tomorrow (maybe tonight since itll have been 36 hours when the lights go on and if I dont put it in then itll have to be 60 hours) and the NL I put in darkness this morning so ill probably leave it until tomorrow which will make it 36 hours darkness. Thinking about that now though I may just leave them both in darkness till tomorrow so that theres a difference in the dark period, bit annoying that I cant get it to be 24 and 48 hours but oh well.

As for an update on how flower is going for the two plants that are in there now they have both stretched a decent bit which is a bit of a pain but theres nothing I can do now but keep tucking and training them and just hoping for the best. So long as AG2 doesnt stretch much more though thatll be a perfect because its about an inch from the top of the screen now but I'm not exactly holding out hopes for that, I expect it to probably be nearly hitting the top of the tent by the time it stops stretching. The buds on AG1 though are looking nicer every day and yesterday was the first day where I opened the tent to a dank smell so thats keeping me pretty happy, in about a weeks time itll be exactly half way through flower so I'm not even that bothered anymore for how long I have to wait it seems like just last week i was putting AG1 into flower hoping she wouldnt burn haha.

Also incase anyone is interested in which pheno I took from the sensi seeds NL I took the one with huge fat leaves, not because I liked the other pheno better (I actually keep going back and forth between which one I like more) but because it was topped a lot later and hasnt grown out to be as bushy which is ideal really for the space it has in flower since itll be sharing a screen, also the bushier one I feel will be easier to keep as a mother since it wont grow as tall so I wont have to raise the lights as high and I figure I'll be able to take more clones off of a bushier plant. Anyway I know I talk a lot so i'll stop here, these are some photos from I took the yesterday in veg and flower (the AG clone is missing because it is in another closet for darkness).

So I put the AG clone (I will refer to it as AG3 no) and NL into the screen yesterday because they were showing some yellowing and I just wanted to get them under some light. The AG goes up the screen about half way, the NL barley makes it up a quarter of the way so I'm hoping theyll grow to where AG 3 goes most of the way up and the NL will hopefully make it to about half way. Here are some pics to show you how everything is fitting in the screen including the tops of screens 1 and 2 (that is AG1 and AG2 so back and right of the tent). Oh and btw the NL and AG3 are in 3 gallon normal pots instead of my 5gal smart pots because A) theres a shortage of smart pots and I want to use the remaining 2 on the NL mother in veg and probably the NLxBB that I'll be flowering at the end of september, B) I couldnt actually fit any more 5 gal pots into the flowering tent. (or atleast not on either of the AG3 or NL as they had to share a screen and so there wasnt enough space under it for 2, 5 gal pots)

So I finally managed to score some funds and got that new fan ordered so it should be here within about a week, also got another small oscillating fan (since the flower tent is so full I figured adding some extra airflow was a good idea) some liquid silicone (that ive started adding at 2.5ml per gallon with the NL and AG in flower) and some more coco and nutrients and stuff so im all set for next couple weeks up until harvest. The flowering cab is looking real nice now got buds all over the first 2 screens which is making me really happy! I did a bit of defoliation to let some more light and air get past the canopy on AG2 as well. I'll try to remember to take some pics but i got a lot of work to do in the next couple days so I might not be back till thursday. I'm also having second thoughts about the blue dream I was planning on getting for next run, I'm now thinking more about going for some TGA 9 pound hammer and sonic screwdriver so if anyone wants to voice any thoughts/comments/insults about that leave a message cos I'd love to talk it over with people who actually know their shit rather than my roommate who just says he wants purple buds haha. Veg is looking good too for the most part, the NL and NLxBB are doing really well they seem to growing about an inch a day at the moment which might be a bad thing in the long run because of space issues but oh well its nice to see them happy.

I'm also only using a 250, subbed up for the show, great journal!

So i managed to get those photos of flower last night and so ill upload them but otherwise obviously not much has changed, I'm planning on putting the NL and NL x BB that are in veg in 5gal smart pots on wednesday/thursday and i'll probably be ordering my seeds on thursday so if anyone has anything to say about my swapping out blue dream for 9 pound hammer and sonic screwdriver say it now cos once I've got those seeds I wont be getting any more for a while.

---edit---
sorry i forgot to upload the photos haha here they are

Alrighty so I put my order in for some 9 pound hammer and sonic screwdriver, woulda been happy with the blue dream but ill save that for another time now im just going to be waiting for the seeds to come and then looking for a female! Otherwise an update on the plants, veg is going nice I just transplanted up to 5gal containers for the NL and NLxBB so they should be good for a while, they were both a little root bound but nothing too bad. In flower things are also going nicely my AG clone is reaching for the sky as fast as it can and is up about 6-7 inches from when I put it in there which is pretty cool. The NL is also growing up quite fast but not nearly as much maybe about 4 inches in the week that its been in flower. AG1 has got some orange hairs on it which is weirding me out cos the buds havent really formed yet but its had hairs for a while now so I guess some had to dry out. Otherwise yeah just a little over a month until I should be harvesting AG1 and I should be harvesting the NL roughly a week to 10 days after that and then AG a week after that so november will be a fun month! Anyway ill put some photos up later im feeling lazy right now and not much has visibly changed apart from the AG clone so im just going to smoke some more and watch some south park, have a dank day guys!

Just got the new fan finally!!!! It's more than double the power of my last one so I got a fan speed controller with it which i'll hopefully be able to tweak to keep things at roughly 23C although if I can keep it anywhere between 25 and 20 ill be happy. I'll take some photos when the lights turn on later (in about 10 hours time) and let you guys know how the new fan is working out.

So after messing with testing it in a couple different set ups for a couple hours to see which way did best I ended up managing to get the temps down to about 30 which is way worse than I expected, not about to spend a bunch on a ac unit for a couple cabs though so they're just going to have to deal with it until winter. At least this way I'll be able to keep the humidity down though so I guess there's that benefit.

Anyway here are the pictures, the AG1 is starting to swell so things should be looking real nice within a weeks time and now there's bud sites all over the AG2 but I haven't really defoliated much on the AG2 so you cant see many of them, ill probably do that in the next few days though. NL and AG3 (or the AG clone) are both still stretching up pretty fast so that's well appreciated. And in veg both the NL and NLxBB liked the transplant and took it in their stride and just kept growing so they're looking real nice now, really makes me wish I had more space for them but I don't so there's not much I can do.

So just a quick update here but everything is going well, they're all flowering now and AG1 has officially begun the swell. I began the germination process with the 9 pound hammer and sonic screwdriver and decided to make a little veg box for seedlings/clones, going to use 2 6500k 24w cfls and one 4500k cfl (when they get here) and see how it goes,I lined the box with styrofoam for insulation but I have no idea what the temps will be so I might be removing that. anyway here are some pics

So I was away for a week and left the seedlings with my roommate - I assumed that him having stood by me watching the whole first grow and been taking care of the plants without too many fuck ups when I was away before meant things would be ok but yeah I came home today and saw the seedlings a meter away from the lights and dripping wet. So obviously they're stretched as fuck and real droopy, I replanted them (had to be in bigger pots because they stretched so much) and they're now back up close to the lights and I took away all the soggy medium because the roots never made it out of the root riot cube because it was so wet so it was easy enough to just pull those out and leave the puddle of soggy coco behind. They seem to be otherwise healthy so I'm just hoping that at most this will stunt them a fair bit but they'll pull through for a full recovery in a couple weeks, not ideal but well thats life. Otherwise things seem to be healthy enough. The flowering tent is looking real nice, I'll take some photos tomorrow for now imna just go sleep ive been travelling all day going through a fuck ton of transfers and dealing with air france's bullshit. But yeah I'll take a closer look at things tomorrow and put up some photos.

Hope the Seedlings Pull through, by the sounds of it You got back just in time.. mates eh..

Looking Busy in the Cab now!

Sorry for taking so upload the photos I keep telling my self to get on more often but life gets in the way haha. Anyway here they are