welshspencer
Active Member
Thanks VVvery nice tank you have there. should hold a few plants
When i go to my local garden store. what will I be looking for, (as I have no idea)
are these special attactments?
Regards
]
Get a Harvest Every 2 Weeks
- Thread starter Al B. Fuct
- Start date
- Status
Thanks VVvery nice tank you have there. should hold a few plants
When i go to my local garden store. what will I be looking for, (as I have no idea)
are these special attactments?
Regards
]
welshspencer
Active Member
Hi Guys
If i was to use this set up, but with half the amount of plants. ie instead of 21 plants per tray . just useing 12 plants. so 48 plants in total.
Could I get a good grow useing two 450 lights
If i was to use this set up, but with half the amount of plants. ie instead of 21 plants per tray . just useing 12 plants. so 48 plants in total.
Could I get a good grow useing two 450 lights
VictorVIcious
Well-Known Member
yes if you have it arranged right. That assumes of course, that you have seperete lights for mothers and clones to feed the system. It will not be a great harvest, it should be a good one. VV
GIJoe8383
Well-Known Member
do you cut the clones when the mother is in veg or in flower? and how many weeks in before you cut? i am a bit confused
This style of op is known as 'Sea of Green' or SoG.
You can build this op in any scale you like, from a single mother and just one plant put in to the flowering area every two weeks up to as big as your needs require.
The idea is to grow only the top cola of a naturally growing plant with none of the lower branches and the small buds those branches produce. All branching, pretty much everything on the lower 1/3 of the plant, is snipped off in about wk 2 & 3.
Plant at 6 wks flowering, note lower branching is removed
The method of putting clones in to flower with no vegging time keeps plants relatively short, to about 36-40" (1 metre), which better suits artificial lighting.
Even powerful HPS lighting can only penetrate foliage so deeply, so a metre tall is just about right. I find that big lights give better bud density, so I use two 1000W HPS, one over each pair of 4' x 4' flood trays.
The mums are maintained under 24 hour 400W HPS. The clonebox has 6x 18W fluoro tubes (24"), usually on 24/7 but shut off for the first 6-8 hours after doing a new batch of cuttings.
Clones go straight from the clonebox into the flowering trays- no vegging required. They grow a little bit vegetatively for the first 3-4 weeks but then stop getting taller and start making bud weight after then.
I keep about 6-8 mothers and do about 30 cuttings every 2 weeks from them. I choose the best 20-23 clones to be put in the 4-tray flowering area.
Leftover clones become replacement mothers or are discarded. Mothers are replaced one by one, about every 4-8 weeks as needed.
As each batch of clones goes in to tray #1, a batch comes out of tray #4 to be harvested, every 2 weeks.
The mother vegging area is in the same room with the flowering plants, but has a lightproof curtain to prevent interrupting the flowering plants' lightcycle and has its own ventilation system as well. Each tray in both the veg & flower areas has its own pump, reservoir tank and timer, allowing the watering rate and nute mix to be tailored to the plant for vegging as well as during each 2 week phase of flowering.
See my gallery for pics of the op in action as well as pix of clones in rockwool cubes and clonebox details.
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
wow, this thread just goes and goes.
Thanks muchly to the valiant Victor Vicious, the mightily proficient potroast and dedicated others for looking after queries.
I don't have much time for cannabis boards in general lately; I am running this op! I've been hanging around OSA mainly of late, but I don't even go there much. Busy, busy, busy...
In between harvests and whatnot at the moment so I looked in on this thread here on RIU. Will try to catch up some of the queries. Apologies to the kind caretakers if I duplicate anything they've already replied to.
Flowering trays 1-4 run Canna Flores, also 1400ppm @ 5.8. 1 tsp Epsom Salts and 10ml Canna liquid calcium additive per 125L tank on mixing. Tanks are dumped every 2 weeks.
Flowering tray 2 (plants in weeks 2-4) get Canna PK 13-14 phosphorus & potassium additive at 0.5ml/litre at the beginning of wk3. BE CAREFUL... if you use PK at Canna's upper recommended limit of 2ml/L, you may cook plants. I got acute potassium toxicity from this dosage.
Recently resumed use of bubble curtains in all tanks. Didn't bother with them for a while as the pumps quit and I was too slack to replace them. Seems to be some benefit, even when using rockwool as a medium.
I like the mobility of plants in simple pots of media, watered by flood/drain. You can easily relocate plants to the best lighting position for each plant's rate of development, pick them up and turn them around for inspection, spraying, etc. A pot full of media will also hold enough water to get a plant through a couple days if a water pump has failed, as well.
Probably about $200-250/mo including power, water, nutes and various supplies. Not bad for what it does.
Yes, once rooted, you can move clones into the mother veg area, but one of the main advantages of SoG is flowering clones as soon as they have good roots developed. This limits the finishing height of the plants to about 33-40" at the end of wk 8. If you veg cuttings much before flowering them, they'll get too tall. Artificial lighting can only penetrate foliage so deeply; 40" is good for a 1000W HPS, giving solid buds all the way down the plant. Keep in mind that all branching on the lower 1/3 of the plants is snipped off at the end of wk1 of flowering and again in wk3.
Tall plants in a grow room is a waste of time. Artificial lighting, even the mighty 1000W HPS, can only penetrate foliage so deeply. A tall plant (more than about 40" or so) will suffer from poor development low down on the plant. If plants are unpruned, air circ will be poor.
SoG is all about growing mainly the top cola of the plant without all the little popcorn buds you get on lower branches. SoG exploits the best coverage area of indoor light, eliminating the need for light movers and so on.
It's complex enough with 4 trays and 4 tanks.
Have I missed any queries?
Thanks muchly to the valiant Victor Vicious, the mightily proficient potroast and dedicated others for looking after queries.
I don't have much time for cannabis boards in general lately; I am running this op! I've been hanging around OSA mainly of late, but I don't even go there much. Busy, busy, busy...
In between harvests and whatnot at the moment so I looked in on this thread here on RIU. Will try to catch up some of the queries. Apologies to the kind caretakers if I duplicate anything they've already replied to.
For vegging my mums, Canna Vega, 1400ppm @ 5.8.
Flowering trays 1-4 run Canna Flores, also 1400ppm @ 5.8. 1 tsp Epsom Salts and 10ml Canna liquid calcium additive per 125L tank on mixing. Tanks are dumped every 2 weeks.
Flowering tray 2 (plants in weeks 2-4) get Canna PK 13-14 phosphorus & potassium additive at 0.5ml/litre at the beginning of wk3. BE CAREFUL... if you use PK at Canna's upper recommended limit of 2ml/L, you may cook plants. I got acute potassium toxicity from this dosage.
Recently resumed use of bubble curtains in all tanks. Didn't bother with them for a while as the pumps quit and I was too slack to replace them. Seems to be some benefit, even when using rockwool as a medium.
Ebb 'n' Grow? Is this a brand name? What kind of system is this? You mention buckets- I guess it could be an aero or DWC (bubbleponic) system.
I like the mobility of plants in simple pots of media, watered by flood/drain. You can easily relocate plants to the best lighting position for each plant's rate of development, pick them up and turn them around for inspection, spraying, etc. A pot full of media will also hold enough water to get a plant through a couple days if a water pump has failed, as well.
Depends on what you think 'a lot' is.
Probably about $200-250/mo including power, water, nutes and various supplies. Not bad for what it does.The clonebox runs 18/6 for the first 2-3 days after I do a batch of cuttings, then it's on 24/7. Immediately after I do a batch of cuts, I set the timer so their first 6 hours is in the dark. Allows time for water to begin to uptake from the RW cubes.
Yes, once rooted, you can move clones into the mother veg area, but one of the main advantages of SoG is flowering clones as soon as they have good roots developed. This limits the finishing height of the plants to about 33-40" at the end of wk 8. If you veg cuttings much before flowering them, they'll get too tall. Artificial lighting can only penetrate foliage so deeply; 40" is good for a 1000W HPS, giving solid buds all the way down the plant. Keep in mind that all branching on the lower 1/3 of the plants is snipped off at the end of wk1 of flowering and again in wk3.
7-10 days.
No veg time in SoG.
Yep, that's it.
Aim for 50W of HPS per square foot.
Clones don't need to be pounded with light; they just need to be convinced it's daylight for 18+ hrs/day so they won't try to flower just yet. I use 3 twin tube, 18W (24") fluoros in my ~18" x ~26" floorspace clonebox, so all the clone leaves can be within about 2-3" of a tube. If I was using CFLs, I might use 3x 20W for my clonebox. For your 5-6 plants, 1-2 CFLs will do to get the area well covered.
Yep.
Soil indoors is a pain in the ass. It's heavy and messy. SoG requires a large number of small plants, meaning lots of potting soil. Automated watering systems are easy to make or buy and give you the advantage of consistency. You can't forget to water and you always water the same amount.
Tall plants in a grow room is a waste of time. Artificial lighting, even the mighty 1000W HPS, can only penetrate foliage so deeply. A tall plant (more than about 40" or so) will suffer from poor development low down on the plant. If plants are unpruned, air circ will be poor.
SoG is all about growing mainly the top cola of the plant without all the little popcorn buds you get on lower branches. SoG exploits the best coverage area of indoor light, eliminating the need for light movers and so on.
Because the room is only 7' tall and I don't have a fish-eye lens for my camera, I can't take a single image of the entire op. There's pics of the individual trays early on in this thread.
11? I only flower for about 8 weeks.
It's complex enough with 4 trays and 4 tanks.
Cuttings taken from plants in flower are notoriously slow to set root. So, I don't take cuttings from flowering plants- that's what the mother plants are for. I do a batch of cuttings every 15 days or so. If you rely on taking cuttings from plants in flower, should a batch of clones fail, you may have no plants around which have been in flower for less than 2 weeks from which to get more cuttings... and in the biz, we generally refer to that condition as 'up shit creek without a paddle.'
You'd probably need at least 15 reasonably well-established mother plants to get 60 thick stems every 2 weeks. If I needed 60 every 2 weeks, I'd probably run 18-20 mothers under a 400 or a 600 HPS or MH. I have long used HPS for vegging but used a 360W MH-HPS conversion lamp for a while; wasn't happy with the MH, went back to a 400HPS for vegging the mums.
Hey, thanks for that. Can you have that BJ delivered?Man this is some of the BEST info I've seen here or anywhere else. I'm gonna get my sister to give you a BJ!!
What do you mean 'almost'?
A single 400-430 HPS ought to be able to flower 12 SoG pruned plants with good results.
The point of diminishing returns is between 50-60W of HPS per sq ft. I run about 61W/sf. BTW, individual high powered lamps are better than a number of smaller ones. The bigger wattage lamps deliver higher intensity (brightness), which cannot be replaced by putting two dimmer lamps next to one another. Lumens don't 'add'!
Mother plants are kept in constant veg mode. If you are raising a mother from seed, it must be vegged until it is sexually mature (showing preflowers at the nodes), takes about 10-12 wks from seed. My mothers come from cuttings from sexually mature plants which are excess to my needs for flowering, so they are already sexually mature. A clone stuck in to the mother veg area will need about 2-3 wks vegging before it is big enough to take nice big clones from it.
Have I missed any queries?
growwonderer
Active Member
wow whats your electrical bill like, doesnt that make u nervous?
VictorVIcious
Well-Known Member
Your confusion isn't about the setup.Its about the idea of mother plants. Reemember the house plants your mom used to grow, and every once in a whiole a branch would get broken. She would put it in water until it formed roots and then plant it and grow it. Same thing. You keep some plants that are known to be female because they came from a known female plants and always give them at least 18 hours of light. They think its always summer so they keep growing new branches. YOu keep cutting them off and planting them. After they have rooted you put them in 12 hours light, twelve hours dark. They think its getting to be fall so the start producing flowers so they can be pollinated by a male plant before winter sets in and kills them. They produce more flowers hoping to get pollinated.
Mean while you cutting more clones from the 'mother plants'. Hope this help you. VV
VictorVIcious
Well-Known Member
Al is running two 1000watt light, one 400watt light and 3 2' small flourescent lights. Many folks on here run more lights than that. VV
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Could you be a little bit more vague?
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
No, not really. When everything in the op is on (12 hours per day), the whole ~shabang~ draws 3543 watts. When the flowering lights are off, it is drawing 400W.
This is well under the 'noise' of dishwashers, water heat, fridge, clothes washer, several computers and all the other nonsense in this place. This place draws about 1500W with the op totally shut off, Mind you, the power co never knows my consumption to that level of detail.
Your mileage may vary. If you are a single person in a 1 br apt drawing 50kWh/day, questions may certainly be raised (esp if your pwr use interferes with other residents use of the service)... but if you pay your bill in full on time every time, you're just a good customer.
My op is really rather small compared to the average "commercial" op, which might run 10-15kW.
FlipAPenny
Well-Known Member
Glad to see you're back AL!
With you sharing all your knowledge you are greatly appreciated.
I just found 3 males of my own and am about 2 weeks into flower. Now that I know who is male/female I will be taking clones and running the SOG opp. It took quite some time to get most of everything I needed but I think it will be well worth it!
If you have any quit suggestions they are more than appreciated.
-That's all I have to say about that.
With you sharing all your knowledge you are greatly appreciated.
I just found 3 males of my own and am about 2 weeks into flower. Now that I know who is male/female I will be taking clones and running the SOG opp. It took quite some time to get most of everything I needed but I think it will be well worth it!
If you have any quit suggestions they are more than appreciated.
-That's all I have to say about that.
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Thx for the compliments, Penny.
Quit suggestions? Dunno wot you mean.
Your main task now is to establish a gaggle of healthy mother plants which will deliver the number of cuts you need. If you intend to put 20 plants in to flower every 2wks, cut 30. Be ruthless- use only your best performing cuttings for flowering. Use leftovers to replace old mums and compost anything which doesn't thrive. Retire mums often- I keep a mum usually for no more than 4-6 wks (2-3-4 passes of cuttings per mum), tops.
Quit suggestions? Dunno wot you mean.
Your main task now is to establish a gaggle of healthy mother plants which will deliver the number of cuts you need. If you intend to put 20 plants in to flower every 2wks, cut 30. Be ruthless- use only your best performing cuttings for flowering. Use leftovers to replace old mums and compost anything which doesn't thrive. Retire mums often- I keep a mum usually for no more than 4-6 wks (2-3-4 passes of cuttings per mum), tops.
FlipAPenny
Well-Known Member
What do you mean by 2-3-4 passes? I'm sure this is going to be a no brainer but I need to ask.Thx for the compliments, Penny.
Quit suggestions? Dunno wot you mean.
Your main task now is to establish a gaggle of healthy mother plants which will deliver the number of cuts you need. If you intend to put 20 plants in to flower every 2wks, cut 30. Be ruthless- use only your best performing cuttings for flowering. Use leftovers to replace old mums and compost anything which doesn't thrive. Retire mums often- I keep a mum usually for no more than 4-6 wks (2-3-4 passes of cuttings per mum), tops.
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
I do cuttings every 2 weeks. 2 passes is 4 wks, etc. Some mums are more productive than others and remain healthier longer, accounting for the variation in how long I keep them.
FlipAPenny
Well-Known Member
Quick question.
I'm almost 2 weeks into flowering from my seedlings. Once I know for sure that I have a female can I take her and put her back into veg. so I can have a much bigger mother to begin with or would this kill her?
My other option would be to take clones while they are in flowering and put them back into veg. but I would be stuck with SMALLER clones than desired. Help me please.
-Peace
I'm almost 2 weeks into flowering from my seedlings. Once I know for sure that I have a female can I take her and put her back into veg. so I can have a much bigger mother to begin with or would this kill her?
My other option would be to take clones while they are in flowering and put them back into veg. but I would be stuck with SMALLER clones than desired. Help me please.
-Peace
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Penny, a convenient way to sex a plant under veg sked lighting is to cover one branch for 12 hours a day for about 7-10 days. You can also take a cutting from a plant of yet-unknown sex, get it to set root and then put it under 12/12 light.
daddychrisg
Well-Known Member
Ebb 'n' Grow? Is this a brand name? What kind of system is this? You mention buckets- I guess it could be an aero or DWC (bubbleponic) system.
I like the mobility of plants in simple pots of media, watered by flood/drain. You can easily relocate plants to the best lighting position for each plant's rate of development, pick them up and turn them around for inspection, spraying, etc. A pot full of media will also hold enough water to get a plant through a couple days if a water pump has failed, as well.
The ebb n grow system is just like hydro farm in the way that you have individual buckets and a Res, but there is no top feed. The buckets are 3 gallon, so they grow big plants well. But when it comes to a sog with this large of buckets, it seems like I have alot of wasted space. I also like being able to move the plants around as I see fit at any part of the cycle. I have been tempted to try and grow 2 plants in each bucket as an experiment, but have yet to break my on going pattern. Thanks for all the great info Al, I admire all your hard work!
I like the mobility of plants in simple pots of media, watered by flood/drain. You can easily relocate plants to the best lighting position for each plant's rate of development, pick them up and turn them around for inspection, spraying, etc. A pot full of media will also hold enough water to get a plant through a couple days if a water pump has failed, as well.
The ebb n grow system is just like hydro farm in the way that you have individual buckets and a Res, but there is no top feed. The buckets are 3 gallon, so they grow big plants well. But when it comes to a sog with this large of buckets, it seems like I have alot of wasted space. I also like being able to move the plants around as I see fit at any part of the cycle. I have been tempted to try and grow 2 plants in each bucket as an experiment, but have yet to break my on going pattern. Thanks for all the great info Al, I admire all your hard work!
Stargrl Chi
Active Member
Your setup is amazing, I want to have something similar to this in its efficiency someday. But I am not aiming for quite that much quantity ... Yet.
... Yet.- Status