what kind of yield to expect from my first grow

ok, i think i'm finally set...kicking a roomate out to use his bedroom as my grow room.

Battle plan:

-Climate controlled room with good ventilation.
*plenty of space, adjustable lighting hight, oscillating fans.
*hydroponic...3-5 gallon bucket per plant.

-400 watt HPS
http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-HTGSupply-400-watt-High-Pressure-Sodium-Grow-Light.asp
*using standard HPS for flowering ( will there be a significant difference in quantity/quality with a more expensive bulb? if so...recommendations?
*have not yet bought a MH bulb for vegging...again...any difference in growth with cheaper bulbs? recommendations?

-2 strains, 10 plants how many can i grow at once with 400w?
*5 White Widow Femmed
*5 Full Moon Femmed

i read alot of people say to Veg until 6" plant, then flower for 2 months... is there a benefit to this rather then growing big plants upward of 6ft?
i suppose if i do the small plants i should expect and oz. per plant?

what do you average for your indoor plants per foot? and how many feet per plant? how many watts of light?

i read you can roughly ball park 1gram per watt...but what does that mean? 1g on each plant per watt? and obviously if you grow tall plants this is no longer true...so time has to be a variable in this equation.

Smoke.Town said:

ok, i think i'm finally set...kicking a roomate out to use his bedroom as my grow room.

Battle plan:

-Climate controlled room with good ventilation.
*plenty of space, adjustable lighting hight, oscillating fans.
*hydroponic...3-5 gallon bucket per plant.

-400 watt HPS
http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-HTGSupply-400-watt-High-Pressure-Sodium-Grow-Light.asp
*using standard HPS for flowering ( will there be a significant difference in quantity/quality with a more expensive bulb? if so...recommendations?
*have not yet bought a MH bulb for vegging...again...any difference in growth with cheaper bulbs? recommendations?

-2 strains, 10 plants how many can i grow at once with 400w?
*5 White Widow Femmed
*5 Full Moon Femmed

i read alot of people say to Veg until 6" plant, then flower for 2 months... is there a benefit to this rather then growing big plants upward of 6ft?
i suppose if i do the small plants i should expect and oz. per plant?

what do you average for your indoor plants per foot? and how many feet per plant? how many watts of light?

i read you can roughly ball park 1gram per watt...but what does that mean? 1g on each plant per watt? and obviously if you grow tall plants this is no longer true...so time has to be a variable in this equation.

Click to expand...

hows it going man. for one of your questions a 400w for 10 plants is possible but in buckets you are pushing it one good rule of thumb is 5000 lumens of light per square foot at min so for a 400 its going to cover about 2x4 foot space and when i say min i mean it i use 400w's over 2x4 flood and drain trays(11 plants in each) one 400 over each tray and my center plants(right under the lamp) yield well but the yield goes down twords the outside of the tray my center plants(white widow) have yielded as much as 1 3/4 oz a 21" plant in sea of green the outers about a 1/2 oz each. now for the grams per watt that just means however many plants you are growing under that lamp and total yield of all the plants so if you are like me and running 400 watt over 11 plants and yield 448 grams(1 lb dried) per tray its a simple equation basically 448 divided by 400 for the light is 1.12 so 1.12 grams per watt is it and let me tell you i have been growing for years and 1 gram per watt is very hard to achieve so you could grow one big lady under a 400 that yields you 448g or 11 with the same yield under 400w still the same gram per watt ratio. .5g per watt is realistic especially with only 400 watts you would need perfect conditions.

We haven't tried it yet but we just ordered some 400w GE Lucalox PSL/XO HPS bulbs and expect good things. I don't have a solid reccomendation atm because our last bulbs of choice were discontinued. Yes, imo enhanced spectrum bulbs are well worth the price. The aforementioned bulbs ran us 56$ each shipped.

How many plants you can grow depends on the strain and how big you veg them. We grow four plants in 2.5'x2.5' under a 400w. A square area any wider would be too large for the light to reach the outer plants well. With 5-6 colas each after topping, each plant yields almost a qp trimmed and dry. We harvest just under a pound overall. In soil, I wouldn't try to put more than 3x3 plants under a horizontal lamp. Any more would require the pots to be too thin.

If this is your first grow I would run 3 or 4 in soil first to get the feel of things soil is much more forgiving then hydro
When you master that then you can upgrade this will also let you dial in the setup
IMHO
Good luck