Dystopia's PPP 250w VScrOG

Stgeneziz said:

That Sky shot is Awesome!! Good effin job, you're really in tune with your grow. + rep.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I call it, for lack of a better term, tender loving care. I beat the shit out of these plants: topped them, super-cropped them, twisted them, tied them down, and pruned the living hell out of them. And yet, deep down in their roots, they knew I loved them.

And dang if they ain't going to pay me back with the dankest buds ever...they damn well better!

miami30532 said:

another thing is there a reason u like 250 watt light verses 400 or 600 watts???

Click to expand...

I'm a small-time grower, I like to keep it legal and what I can grow with a 250-watt light more than meets my needs. There's more to growing lots of big, dank buds then just wattage...

how come u put the lights up 6'' if your runing such a cool system i mean it seem like u can let the plant grow all around the light. ant the tube cool enough to let it get closer .

miami30532 said:

how come u put the lights up 6'' if your runing such a cool system i mean it seem like u can let the plant grow all around the light. ant the tube cool enough to let it get closer .

Click to expand...

If you look at most vertical grows, they are typically SOG-style (maximum plants, minimum vegetation time) with the plants only growing in from the sides. I'm doing mine ScrOG-style (minimum plants, maximum vegetation time), and I've got buds coming up from the bottom as well. I didn't anticipate how much the plants were going to stretch - they stretched like a pure sativa - and the shoots coming up from the bottom stretched all the way to the bottom of the light and there's no room left for them to flower - see attachment. So I had to raise the lights to accommodate them. No big deal, everything's still getting light as planned.

yah there are for sure still getting plenty of light...they dont need super high wattage when they are that close. The plants adjust to light, they know what to do

ya makes seance. So u don't think that more light watts will yield more bud? someone was saying because they have a vert. light to, and he said he's geting a pound off a plant and i don't no if i believe that? that sounds alot??

miami30532 said:

ya makes seance. So u don't think that more light watts will yield more bud? someone was saying because they have a vert. light to, and he said he's geting a pound off a plant and i don't no if i believe that? that sounds alot??

Click to expand...

Of course more watts can potentially yield more bud. I could probably never pull a pound off a 250-watt light, but could probably easily do it with a 400-watt light. I've seen 3 pounds off a vertically hung 600-watt light. But like I said, what I get off a 250-watt light is more than enough for me. If I needed more, and have maxed-out the yield from my current light, I would have to go to more total wattage.

And don't get all caught up in per-plant yield. It's total yield for the light you're using that matters. You can grow 16 plants SOG-style that you throw right into 12/12 and get an ounce each from, or 1 plant that you vegetate forever and get a pound off of it. Same light, different yields per plant, same total yield, and the SOG-style actually yields more over time because of no veg time. Personally, I would always grow SOG-style if I didn't have max plant number limitations to stay legal. I personally think growing trees indoors is a waste of time and resources...UNLESS you can shape the lights around the plants, i.e. with CFL's or some other form of side-lighting.

.............

Scribed for obvious reasons.

Although give it 2 months and I anticipate seeing tons of journals featuring this set up after your posts. Very well structured, very well organized, very well presented.

+rep for you and can't wait to see the yield you get here. The 250w HPS club is gonna sh*t themselves when they see the outcome of this...matter of fact, the 400wHPS club is gonna sh*t themselves too!

-Butters

(Butters) said:

.............

Scribed for obvious reasons.

Although give it 2 months and I anticipate seeing tons of journals featuring this set up after your posts. Very well structured, very well organized, very well presented.

+rep for you and can't wait to see the yield you get here. The 250w HPS club is gonna sh*t themselves when they see the outcome of this...matter of fact, the 400wHPS club is gonna sh*t themselves too!

-Butters

Click to expand...

Thank you! This is my first attempt at a vertical grow and I already know of several things I would change, so we'll see...

In my previous tutorials I talked about the “flower box”, how you calculate the size of the box based on your light’s wattage, and how hanging the light vertically more than doubles the size of the box. Remember, all of this is based on a single-source light (i.e. one HID light). Multiple-source lights (like CFL’s) change things and I won’t deal with how to plan your grow for these – refer to Roseman’s tutorials, he’s really got CFL’s down.

When planning a grow to maximize your yield with a single-source light, the two main factors to consider are the wattage of your light and the number of plants you are growing. I’m going to use three different examples of horizontally hung lights to start; a 250 watt, 400 watt, and 600 watt light. From my first tutorial, I said the first thing we need to do is calculate the horizontal footprint these lights will support. I won’t go through the calculations; let’s just say that a 250 watt light will cover a 2’ x 2’ area, a 400 watt light a 3’ x 3’ area, and a 600 watt light a 4’ x 4’ area. So I’ve drawn 3 different boxes that I’ve split into 1 square foot grids:

These grids represent the horizontal footprint (looking down on the grow from the light’s perspective) that each light will support. The idea is to fill this grid with buds, and how you do it depends on how many plants you are growing. I like to shoot for four main colas per square foot. This is a good starting point, you may have to adjust a bit for the particular strain you are growing (how fat the buds and supporting leaves get).

So if I were doing a pure SOG grow – I define a SOG as one main cola per plant, growing as many plants as possible per square foot, no veg time, and lollipopping to minimize bushiness and focus growth to the main colas – then I would use 4 plants per sq ft. This means 16 plants for a 250-watt, 36 plants for a 400-watt, and 48 plants for a 600-watt light:

But let’s say, for whatever reason, we’re limiting the number of plants we’re growing. For instance, let’s say we’re growing 1 plant per square foot, or 4 plants for a 250-watt, 9 plants for a 400-watt, and 16 plants for a 600-watt light. In this case I would top or FIM each plant to get four main colas per plant to fill my horizontal canopy:

The same thing applies no matter how many plants I’m growing; I want to top my plants in such a way that I get four main colas per square foot of light coverage. So if I was only growing two plants under a 250-watt light I would top each plant to get eight main colas, and so on. The easiest way to calculate this is to use this formula:

Number of main colas per plant = (4 X square footage light supports) / (number of plants)

For example, let’s say I’m growing 6 plants under a 400-watt light. The 400-watt light supports 9 square feet (3’ x 3’ = 9 sq feet). So the formula would be:

Number of main colas per plant = (4 x 9) / 6 = 6

So I would want each plant to have 6 main colas. There are many ways to do this: topping, FIMing, LST, super-cropping, etc. I prefer topping, because it is very easy to obtain exactly how many colas you want. I basically use this method to obtain the number of colas I want:

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/151706-uncle-bens-topping-technique-get.html

I won’t go into any detail on this since it’s pretty well explained by Uncle Ben, I just expand it beyond 2 or 4 main colas when necessary. Feel free to ask any questions if you need further clarification. I use LST and super-cropping as methods to maintain the canopy level, which I will talk about in a future tutorial.

Now that we’ve determined how to fill out the horizontal part of our “flower box”, the next thing is to determine how we are going to fill the vertical part; as a little preview, I’ll be talking about “lollipopping” to maximize the growth of the main colas. If Roseman is reading I know you deplore “lollipopping”, but what I consider “lollipopping” may be a bit different then what you consider it to be and I used it EXTENSIVELY on my current grow…and remember, side-lighting with CFL’s changes everything…

nice graph man.. im sure ill be copying a lot to help da newbs.. lol

I am officially amazed Dystop. It's like you read my dreams and built the ideal system. This is defiantly a thread I will be following, those ladies look beautiful! and I love the set up.

hey Dys, amazing thread, you and Heath have really inspired me to do something interesting coming up. Your experience, knowledge, dedication and professionalism really shine through in your posts.

I wanted to brainstorm and seek advice from you, since I think your mind is working in the same way I am trying to be, basically maximizing efficiency and aiming for highest GPW.

So let me start with some basic materials that I would like to use. I'd like to use a grow tent, for a lot of reasons, including convince, portability, light tight, and humidity-proof (ie: not damaged by high humidity water), built in reflective materials (either reflective pvc, or mylar dependign on brand, any preference?), and controlled climate. I'm not dead set on it, but it seems a good options for me now since I rent and can't make mods to my living place.

Here are some options I am looking at, the first one has the largest total dimensions
78" x 78" = 6084 in^2

Heres a picture of the 78" one this uses reflective PVC in the inside


here is a picture of the 76" one which uses thermal film on the inside
76" x 76" = 5776 in^2




and, finally other options which is not square, its more rectangular, but this model does offer mylar in the inside
96" x 48" = 4608 in^2




So, I'm thinking to use one of these options for the reasons I mentioned above, but I really want to do a setup like you in the terms of efficiency, and maximizing gpw. Assuming all tent set up have a roof about 78" tall (6.3 feet), the next question becomes, how to make a super light efficient setup? I'd like to grow super trees with max yield per plant, so I'm thinking 3 sq ft per plant, so 4 plants (per tent) is looking like the target number?, probably running a veg cycle for 1-2 months before flower.

I'm makign the following image 780 pixels wide, representing 78" x 10 for conveince. Basically, the idea is to put 4 plants in a square pattern, the light source in the middle, and then chicken wire aroudn the perimiter (and roof also possible) which would allow me to sculpt the plants in a circle




anyways, this is a setup I was kind of thinking of, but it doesn't seem very efficient to be able to really 'surround' the light with green.

For details, I was thinking of running a modified ebb & flo system, with 5 gallon buckets and netpots, running DWC in each bucket and keepin them filled for at least 50% of the time (ebb & flo resovior would allow me to change the water all together and make full system modifications) with a resovior at least 30 gallons. Would keep the resovior outside of the grow tent.

For lights, anywhere under 2000 watts, some combination of 600w and maybe 1k watts, like 1k + 600, or 2 600, or 3 600. So, please I'd like to hear your input! I'd like to get 3 lb per plant (even if its 2 years in the future after i perfect it), I know my realistic numers will probably be a sliver of that goal =] ok, well thanks and keep posting inspiration.updates too!

Anyways, would love to hear some help if you wanted to help me design my system I like to run trees, since its a medical grow op and like to keep the numbers down.

4 x 400w HPS if it must be under 2000w... that 200,000 lumes.. 600w x 4 = 360,000 lumens. one 1000w HPS light is 140,000 lumens. your running at 22,000 lumens right now with that 250w.. This is Boomer's setup:

You high-tech scientific new space-age growers just amaze me.

I'm just a simple ole water and bucket grower with some aquarium supplies and low wattge funny lookin twisty light bulbs in a spare bedroom closet.

Hey Square Pusher, welcome to RIU. You should prolly start a thread with your questions, so we don't have to clutter up dystopia's thread with a very interesting discussion. =) Also, I have read on a few places on here that reflective PVC might be toxic to MJ. even if it isn't, Mylar is tested and true. and you can find pretty much every size in mylar on ebay. Start a Journal when you start your grow so we can all see!! This sounds like It could turn out some cool plants..

Stgeneziz said:

You should prolly start a thread with your questions, so we don't have to clutter up dystopia's thread with a very interesting discussion. =)

Click to expand...

It's OK, questions help me to expand on points I've made or lead into points I want to make

squarepush3r said:

hey Dys, amazing thread, you and Heath have really inspired me to do something interesting coming up.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

squarepush3r said:

So let me start with some basic materials that I would like to use. I'd like to use a grow tent, for a lot of reasons, including convince, portability, light tight, and humidity-proof (ie: not damaged by high humidity water), built in reflective materials (either reflective pvc, or mylar dependign on brand, any preference?), and controlled climate. I'm not dead set on it, but it seems a good options for me now since I rent and can't make mods to my living place.

Click to expand...

Ha! I’ve never personally used a tent, but I’ve helped to get some up and running. I personally would build a tent out of (you guessed it) PCV pipe and either Black and White poly or Ultreflect film; I can’t really comment on specific manufactured tents, though.

squarepush3r said:

I'd like to grow super trees with max yield per plant, so I'm thinking 3 sq ft per plant, so 4 plants (per tent) is looking like the target number?, probably running a veg cycle for 1-2 months before flower.

Basically, the idea is to put 4 plants in a square pattern, the light source in the middle, and then chicken wire aroudn the perimiter (and roof also possible) which would allow me to sculpt the plants in a circle

For lights, anywhere under 2000 watts, some combination of 600w and maybe 1k watts, like 1k + 600, or 2 600, or 3 600. So, please I'd like to hear your input! I'd like to get 3 lb per plant (even if its 2 years in the future after i perfect it), I know my realistic numers will probably be a sliver of that goal =] ok, well thanks and keep posting inspiration.updates too!

Click to expand...

Well, I’ve never done anything vertical on that large of a scale; take a look at this thread (if you haven’t already) for some ideas on growing trees for max yield: https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/101347-critical-mass-tree-grow-x.html

What you have diagrammed is fine, I would put two vertical 600-watt lights on top of each other, one about 1/3 of the way up, and one about 2/3 of the way up. There’s really no other way to do it vertically in a 6 ‘ x 6’ tent.


But don’t get hung up on yield per plant; it’s GPW that you’re looking at. So if you nail everything perfectly with a high-yielding strain you might be able to pull 2 grams/watt or 2400 grams for 1200 watts or somewhere around 6 pounds. With the size restrictions you’ve given, 3 pounds per plant might not be obtainable; you can’t grow four plants BIG enough to yield 3 pounds each in the space you’ve provided; you can only grow so much weed in a restricted area, it doesn’t matter if you put the sun in there. And any more than 1200 watts would be overkill in that size space in my opinion.

Another option, and I only bring this up to demonstrate my point, is to use the 96” x 48” x 78” tent, and 2 600-watt lights with 6 plants. I would hang the lights vertically and arrange the plants and lights as follows:

Granted, the outside plants won’t yield as much as the middle plants, but combined they should yield an equivalent amount to your example. If you did some training of the plants around the lights you would basically be replicating Heath Robinson’s https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/149998-heaths-flooded-tube-vertical.html ,which was done in a 4’ x 4’ area…but you’re doing it twice over. Heath pulled nearly 3 pounds from this grow, and I would say 6 pounds would be the max you could pull from the area you provided. Two 1000-watt lights might give you slightly more, but would probably be over-kill - you can only grow the plants so close to the lights and 1000-watters would restrict how wide the plants could get even more - and any extra yield would not justify the operating costs in my opinion.

And, of course, if you are growing in a completely controlled environment (CO2 enrichment, A/C, humidity control, etc.) you might get more yield…but again, you can only grow the plants so big in the area you’ve provided…

Again, though, understand that this is conceptual on my part and not based on experience, so take it for what it’s worth…

lol. I love all the all the demo pix. I know I sound dumb, but it helps to understand the concept better.

Roseman said:

You high-tech scientific new space-age growers just amaze me.

I'm just a simple ole water and bucket grower with some aquarium supplies and low wattge funny lookin twisty light bulbs in a spare bedroom closet.

Click to expand...

And a fine one at that. Good 'ole common sense and the wisdom that comes from experience trumps us make-it-harder-than-it-needs-to-be types every time!

But I enjoy growing as much as smoking, and I would get bored if I did the same thing over and over. I'm always tinkering; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Only time will tell with this one!

Hey Dys, I have a Q. Do you use a magnetic, or digital ballast? I'm about to make a decision on an hps, and there's a significant price difference between them. I was wondering if you could help me understand the difference or benefits of either. I'm guessing there's a reason it's more expensive, but I'd like to know if it's worth it or not. thanx. =)