How much does aeroponics increase results?

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
so 45 oz from 2000 watts? Obviously you had some problems and don't take this as ragging on you, grow any way you want to, it's all good, but that's just over a .6 gpw. Title of the thread is how much does aero increase yield, so in this case it doesn't. I am sure that you are going to dial your system in, and start with better cuts and have a better canopy which will all increase your yield, but aero has never and will never increase yield bottom line. The easiest way anybody using HPS can increase their yield is to switch to LED.
 

leblanca

Member
so 45 oz from 2000 watts? Obviously you had some problems and don't take this as ragging on you, grow any way you want to, it's all good, but that's just over a .6 gpw. Title of the thread is how much does aero increase yield, so in this case it doesn't. I am sure that you are going to dial your system in, and start with better cuts and have a better canopy which will all increase your yield, but aero has never and will never increase yield bottom line. The easiest way anybody using HPS can increase their yield is to switch to LED.
Indeed i had a different problems, i started with 15 seed and they all sprouted but some got sick and died, i had about 7 that made it to the tent, an than some issue with nozzle at first caused another 4 to die so i was left with 3, and those 3 grew but i got root rot at a point, and also over fertilised and got some nut burn, so indeed it was quiet a learning experience but considering the issue i had a good success, also keep in mind this is the 1st time i grew weed indoor and 2nd time i grew weed at all.
I also did build a LED light to replace my HPS
135143390_10157982832217857_3963161081566805025_o.jpg

its 1800W LED with 72W of UVB, hoping to get good result with that.

My tent also was 1/3 empty as so many plant had died to i was blasting 2000W on plastic, so that explain also the poor watt to grams ratio, im hoping that the next run will be better with the improvement i made.
 

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
You’d be surprised how good plants are at using the light. One plant in a space will not produce half as much as two plants. Regardless of problems and solutions, aeroponics won’t increase yield compared to any other form of hydro. You’ll be shocked with those lights you upgraded to.
 

leblanca

Member
You’d be surprised how good plants are at using the light. One plant in a space will not produce half as much as two plants. Regardless of problems and solutions, aeroponics won’t increase yield compared to any other form of hydro. You’ll be shocked with those lights you upgraded to.
Well i don't use aeroponic to increase yields, i use aeroponic cause i like complicated shit.
That been said i do think that if a system is well dialed in with no plant death aero can save a week of veg time so if you have 3 harvest in a year well you gained 3 weeks that can be used to grow more weed so over time increasing yields.
But that is a very marginal gain for all the complexity of aeroponic compared to soil or coco for that matter.
Aero works very well for plant that only veg, like lettuce, it works well with cannabis too just doesn't get as much benefit from it.
 

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
I did it for a decade, never really saw much of a gain to be honest in time to be honest but I think it has more to do with low stress. Other forms of hydro it’s really easy to stress at transplant thus slowing the growth first week.
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Well i don't use aeroponic to increase yields, i use aeroponic cause i like complicated shit.
LOL!! Exactly why I do it too. Well that and Im addicted to fuzzy hairs :D

20201210_220413.jpg

P.S. shhhhhhh dont tell anyone or you will get into a fight, but grams/watt is 'stoner science' and completely meaningless ;)
 

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
How is understanding changes made to your garden useless? I agree, it’s useless to compare to others and it’s only part of the equation, but it’s extremely useful information for a grower. But growing the most weed you can from your garden is not everybody’s goal, some people want to look at fuzzy hairs.
 

leblanca

Member
How is understanding changes made to your garden useless? I agree, it’s useless to compare to others and it’s only part of the equation, but it’s extremely useful information for a grower. But growing the most weed you can from your garden is not everybody’s goal, some people want to look at fuzzy hairs.
You have to admit those are some pretty sweet roots, i like the different type of roots we can differentiate
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
How is understanding changes made to your garden useless? I agree, it’s useless to compare to others and it’s only part of the equation, but it’s extremely useful information for a grower. But growing the most weed you can from your garden is not everybody’s goal, some people want to look at fuzzy hairs.
See, I knew it would get some push back ;) Im not interested in getting into a fight, but here are a few points to consider:
1) Watts from the wall or actually reaching the plant or from the label on the fixture?
2) What about efficiency - LED vrs CMS, HID, etc Big differences here.
3) Distance from the light to the canopy = inverse square law.
4) oops - skip this one - different metric
5) Are we talking average watts over the life of the grow or peak watts used in flower or fixture label watts? I dim my lights to different levels depending on growth stage - and it changes with each grow/strain. Plus I raise and lower the lights depending on canopy heights.
7) Are you growing 12/12 or 18/6 or 24/0? How long in each stage if you change from veg to flower?
8) Genetics - some strains handle more light, some less. You can have the exact same lights, nutes etc and two different strains will produce wildly different yields.
9) The secrete to huge gms/watt numbers is to just veg longer. Thats all it takes. Veg 3 months instead of 1 month, and your plants will be much larger and you will have huge gm/watt numbers.
10) There are more, but thats plenty :)

As you said - most of that has to do with not being able to compare grows from different people - but there is still reason why its not useful for your own personal tracking.

#9 is the one that really kills gm/watt for me. Just grow veg longer - without changing anything else - and you will get some trees, and your gm/watt numbers will be insane.

I managed a solid 5 gm/watt (depending on how you measure it) just by vegging for 3 months one time. I ended up with a single surviving plant in my tent (males), and wanted to really fill up my scrog screen, so I kept vegging until I did. Ended up with 1200 gms dry.

My lights were never turned up over 250 watts in flower, and were kept to under 80 early to 200 max late during veg. So if you take the average watts - call it 225 even though it was actually lower - that works out to 1200/225 = 5.3 gm/watt. Or take my peak watts 1200/250 = 4.8. Or take the label watts on my driver 1200/320 = 3.75 - which is still a very big number for gm/watt.


I decided that the only metric that makes sense for me is grams of dry yield per day of growing. If I yield 1000 grams dried, and it takes 150 days, thats 6.6 grams per day of growing time. My cost per day doesnt change much from one grow to the next. The only significant variable is the time it takes to get from seed to harvest.

Having a huge harvest isnt all that great if it takes months to get there. I find I get more grams per day of growing fast, small autos than I do from photo period plants that have larger yields, but take much longer to finish.

When I was growing in soil I averaged around 4-5 gms per day. When I switched to hydro I went up to the 5 to 6 gm/day range. Now that Im growing using aero Im in the 7 gm/day range.

That grow with the big yield - my largest harvest - took over almost 6 months so 1200/174 = 6.8 gm/day. Even though that was my largest harvest, that wasnt my best gm/day by a good bit. I grew three autos and managed 7.7 gm/day over just under 3 months. But the gm/watt on that auto grow looked like crap in comparison. I had about 700 grams dry for the same 320 watt fixture, so my gm/watt number was less than half for a grow that actually netted me more meds.
 
Last edited:

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
Dude, none of that matters, if you are comparing your own grow with previous ones gpw is a solid way to get info on how well one cycle does to another, and it covers everything you’re talking about. Obviously you take time into the equation and strains. But to say it’s useless is saying data is useless, what you want to say and should say is it’s useless without understanding other aspects of growing.
 

Pine crest 99

Active Member
That’s a good read, I like that.
Atomiser
Very nice way of thinking about that.
So in the increased end results would be
Up to you in other words .
 

Autofire

Well-Known Member
DTW hack

Stick a couple of decent size air stones in the bottom of a Coco pot fed by a large enough air pump and you get a noticeable increase in growth rates.

Same principal as DWC without the risks. How does it compare to DWC? I'm not to sure I've only ever run DRW coco. But I've run a side by side with and without and pushing air into the pots worked for me.
 

bk78

Well-Known Member
DTW hack

Stick a couple of decent size air stones in the bottom of a Coco pot fed by a large enough air pump and you get a noticeable increase in growth rates.

Same principal as DWC without the risks. How does it compare to DWC? I'm not to sure I've only ever run DRW coco. But I've run a side by side with and without and pushing air into the pots worked for me.
Pics of your sbs with “noticeable growth” please.
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
TW hack

Stick a couple of decent size air stones in the bottom of a Coco pot fed by a large enough air pump and you get a noticeable increase in growth rates.

Same principal as DWC without the risks. How does it compare to DWC? I'm not to sure I've only ever run DRW coco. But I've run a side by side with and without and pushing air into the pots worked for me.
I could see that helping if you were running the coco really wet or if it was too packed, poor drainage, non-breathable pot, etc. and not letting enough oxygen get to the roots.
 

Autofire

Well-Known Member
I could see that helping if you were running the coco really wet or if it was too packed, poor drainage, non-breathable pot, etc. and not letting enough oxygen get to the roots.
My coco gets watered about 3 times a day in vege and 5 or 6 times day in flower. Drainage is fine. I set my timers to aim for about 10 percent run off. When saturated Coco/perlite is about 50 percent, it can't really be over watered.

The stones just add extra oxygen to the root zone which improves nutrient uptake.
 

Wastei

Well-Known Member
I see some faster growth rates compared to DWC but not that much. The main positive is at transplant, in DWC you need some days for the roots to establish and reaching the reservoir, in HPA and AA you have optimal root environment from transplant.
 
Top