ideas and advice plz for new grow

hi guys. im new to this forum,iv been disappointed with the lack of help from other forums, hopefully il get a better response from here. iv done 4 grows before, i usually veg for 5 weeks then 12/12. my plants usually end up 4 foot tall and 3 foot wide, and i get 3 1/2 - 4 oz off each plant. i am happy with the quality but would like some advise on how to get higher yields??
i have two 3m x 8m rooms to use, i normaly grow 12 large plants per room. i was thinking of sgroging the whole lot, but have never sgroged before. is it possible to scrog large rooms?? is it hard??

iv got £5-600 to spend, im going to include some piks and a list of equipment i already have,

- 6 x 600w hps
- 2 x 200w tube cfl
- 12" carbon extraction kit
- 6" carbon extraction kit
- 36 pots and 12 x 1m2 trays
- enough clay pebbles to fill 36 pots
- ph/hydrometer
- i used g.e.t complete nutes last time

If your looking to increase yeild then try lollipopping them. That means to remove the lower lateral branches and all inner growing tips on remaining laterals branches, then with a week to ten days before flower top the main tip. This forces the plant to use all its energy at the mains instead of wasting all that energy in lower light conditions producing popcorn.

One light(600 min.) per plant is a sure way of one pounders.

1pound per plant!!! Shit dude i get dat off four plants. Do i remove all the branches? Would i need to veg longer??

check out the "topping" tutorials on this forum. looks like you are growing christmas trees. toppong and LST can help train the plant to be shorter and give you more primary bud sites. that would be my opinion. you want your plants to spread out more and have more sites on an even canopy. something like this.

They look good thanks for advice, how much did you get off them??

wwxbb said:

They look good thanks for advice, how much did you get off them??

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those ones their are still in flower. only running 1 600w for now. taking the 2 tents down and switching to 3 slightly smaller tents. so i'm just finishing those till i get the new tents up. hoping for 6 ounces off each plant.

Yes! What nuglets said. Topping and canopy control are key elements to increasing yields. Always think of growing ONE canopy...not X number of plants!

The more flowering positions you can get under your light's footprint, the better!!

These are 8 plants under 2k watts in a 4x8 area @ day 14 of flower. They were topped once a few days before transplant into 10 gallon pots and vegged for 17 days under the 2k.



Grow Safe!!

slump said:

Yes! What nuglets said. Topping and canopy control are key elements to increasing yields. Always think of growing ONE canopy...not X number of plants!

The more flowering positions you can get under your light's footprint, the better!!

These are 8 plants under 2k watts in a 4x8 area @ day 14 of flower. They were topped once a few days before transplant into 10 gallon pots and vegged for 17 days under the 2k.

View attachment 2164981View attachment 2164982View attachment 2164983View attachment 2164984

Grow Safe!!

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sweet slump...looking great man. only a 17 day veg though? those are some monsters for only being 17 day veg and 14 days of flower.

Day 17 under the 2k

I transplant clones into 3x3" rockwool and I pre-veg under a T5 bank for 7-10 days to build a bigger root mass then top the plants 3-4 days before transplant to the 2k. When I transplant them into the 2k garden, they barely flinch and never really show any transplant shock and they just keep on growing! I run co2 @ 1500 ppm which really helps with mass during veg. I also veg under HPS to add those extra lumens.


Heh. Went back and checked the calendar notes just to make sure I wasn't blowing smoke. I transplanted them to the 2k garden on 03.20.12

03.29.12 @ 9 days of 2k veg and the biggest plant is almost a foot tall.

.

04.07.12 @ day 19 (first lights on for 12/12) they're around 18-20" and went 36 hours of darkness on day 17 of veg before they went 12/12. I normally go just 14 days (or 18"...whichever comes first) but I decided to top one plant again so I let them go a few more days before starting the 12/12



04.14.12 @ day ~9 of flower, you can see the flowers starting and the size the plants have put on.



Then the pics I linked before were from 04.19.12, so around day 14 of flower.

I was thinking about doing a journal for this grow as I'm approaching week 6. My problem with starting a journal when the grow starts is that I'll never finish it, so I figured I'd get everything together for a journal and then post one up when it's ready to smoke.

Grow Safe

Slump ur plants look good dude! I want mine lookin like dat.... In your oppinion what would be the best way for me to get 16-18 oz, do you fink id be beter off growing 1-2 plants wid like a 10 week veg??

Does any one know what sq.f area a plant would take up under a screen if its been vegged 8-10 weeks?? And how many lights should i use to cover it? Also would it take longer to flower if it has a longer veg??

wwxbb said:

Slump ur plants look good dude! I want mine lookin like dat.... In your oppinion what would be the best way for me to get 16-18 oz, do you fink id be beter off growing 1-2 plants wid like a 10 week veg??

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Are you manually top feeding the hydroton? It looks like you're just using the trays as huge saucers? How big are the pots? They look around 20L?

Personally, I'd scrap the hydroton unless you're going to run ebb & flow. If you don't mind the manual top feeding I'd go with coco...your plant numbers are low enough to not make it too labor intensive.

I'd put both 600w in one room and if the pots are around 20L, I'd do 6-8 pots per 600w and keep the light ~ 12-18" from the top of the canopy.

I always shoot for a certain height during veg and don't really care about the number of weeks. For the most part, my plants are 18" when I flip them to 12/12.

As discussed, topping is paramount to creating a full canopy. The earlier you top a plant, the more the side branching will be able to participate in the canopy. Trimming the bottom 1/3 of the branches right before flowering and also around day 15 of flower helps the plant not waste energy on developing nodes that will never receive proper light. The plant can then take this energy and focus it on the canopy resulting in less popcorn buds.

If you're planning on spending the money - 2 more 600w for the other room and do the same thing with 12-16 plants. Realistically, you're shooting for about 600g+ from each room. You could stagger the grows and pull a harvest every 5-6 weeks. After a few grows you'll be able to fine tune what you're physically doing to the plants with pruning, etc. and maybe add some co2 at one point and shoot for higher numbers.

Grow Safe

hi
i was using a water pump in each tray but they kept disconnecting (think there was to much pressure), so i ended up just top feeding,erm yeh so in the end the trays ended up as big saucers, yeh the pots are 20l`s but i was thinking of going for bigger as there is always a big ball of roots growing out the bottom. i already considered coco but was told it would yield less and quality would be not as good???

they ended up getting a few litres flushed over them evry two hours and non at night. and if i went for coco what nutes would you recommend??, iv been using g.e.t, which i think is a new company, they worked ok, i think??.

wwxbb said:

hi
i was using a water pump in each tray but they kept disconnecting (think there was to much pressure), so i ended up just top feeding,erm yeh so in the end the trays ended up as big saucers, yeh the pots are 20l`s but i was thinking of going for bigger as there is always a big ball of roots growing out the bottom. i already considered coco but was told it would yield less and quality would be not as good???

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Coco is fine. I've ran grows in straight coco and got comparable results as my hydro systems...just really pack it in when you're filling the pots ^^ You end up watering a bit less when using coco or soil. Hydroton requires quite a bit of feeding to keep the roots from drying out.

As far as bigger pots, it's all relative. Just run fewer of them and veg the plants a bit bigger. It will take some fiddling and a grow or two to get it down to where your canopy is filling in just right but it should show improvements in harvest weights right away.

I ran my most successful grows in coco. I used GH coco bales with a hydroton mulch on top to break up and distribute water. No offense slump but I wouldn't "pack" it in there. 5gal. pots are my best friend but depending on your veg time it could differ.

kool thanks for your help, which of these would you recomend? or would it not make much difference?? perhaps a perlite coco mix??
http://www.hydroponics.co.uk/Growing-Media/Soil-Mixes/Canna-Professional-Plus--soil-mix
http://www.hydroponics.co.uk/Growing-Media/Coco/Canna-Coco
any thoughts on nutes??, have you ever tried g.e.t?

wwxbb said:

kool thanks for your help, which of these would you recomend? or would it not make much difference?? perhaps a perlite coco mix??
http://www.hydroponics.co.uk/Growing-Media/Soil-Mixes/Canna-Professional-Plus--soil-mix
http://www.hydroponics.co.uk/Growing-Media/Coco/Canna-Coco
any thoughts on nutes??, have you ever tried g.e.t?

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I'd personally go with the second one. Never heard of G.E.T...do you have a link?

their websites playin up a bit, i used
lets grow a &b
lets bloom a & b
powerthrive
power to bloom
and umph foliar feed
http://www.growingedgetechnologies.com/products.php

wwxbb said:

their websites playin up a bit, i used
lets grow a &b
lets bloom a & b
powerthrive
power to bloom
and umph foliar feed
http://www.growingedgetechnologies.com/products.php

Click to expand...

Honestly, anything is fine for the time being. Work on the growing itself and tinker with the nutrients later. I've seen some exceptional grows with just any old base and a boost in flower.