Motherplant -> Clones -> Sea of Green

Hello everyone, after my first 2 successful test grows I decided to go for a more ambitious growstyle. Seeing as this is the first time I'll be growing in this fashion I wanted to post what I was working with in the hopes that someone could enlighten me so that I could improve my work.

I'm currently In the second week of raising my motherplants.

I got Honey B,
Utopia Haze,
LSD
and Laughing Buddha

from Barney's Farm and they are all looking great.
(Pictures will be added.)

I grow the mothers under a 400 W HPS and I will be flowering the clones under a 600W hps, 9 at a time in a space of 1 square meter.
That's 9 pots of 33.3 square centimeter each.
I may add an outer layer of the same pots to get 25 flowering clones in the flowering room each flowering session but I was wondering if that was even do-able with a 600HPS lamp or if I need to switch to a 1000W (Any thoughts?).

Harvest will take place once every 2 months.
Does anyone have a slight guess of how much of a yield I'm looking at?
Any suggestions/thoughts/advice would be greatly apreciated!

Your friendly neighborhood Dutchman,
Hatshikkiedee

no Mh for your mothers in veg? uhm, how big are the pots? sounds good. I would say 4 plants would do WELL under 1 600w, you can fit 6... even 9 but you have to consider they wont be as big cause they will fight for light =/ i figure.. less plants less hassle longer grow yes bigger plants bigger yield.

Well, I went to the growshop where I get all my gear and they told me that the only reason why they have MH lamps is because americans, australians and sometimes canadian tourists come by and demand some MH's instead of HPS. They showed me this graff which stated that my HPS puts out as much white/blue light as the MH on top of the other spectrums.
Apparently MH is an outdated technology and the fact that it leans so much to the white/blue-ish spectrum is misleading to the buyer.
That blew my mind and made me feel like a tourist in my own country ^^. I didn't believe it, but then I went to another shop and they said the same thing.
Source: Amsterdam Dampkring Growshop / Amsterdam Barney's Seed Shop

Thanks for the feedback on the amount of pots though... Really thinking about getting a 1000W now...

if your space and cooling abilities allow it, go with the 1000w. it will penetrate deeper into the canopy allowing you to grow taller plants with more, dense bud on them. the pit about hps v mh cracks me up. i feel the same way about the spectrum, but the hydro shops around here look at you like you have two heads if you mention using hps for veging. most of them insist you need a mix of mh and hps even for flowering, which i do run but for entirely different reasons i.e. the mh was given to me lol you could easily do 25 plants under a 1000w and get a good yield out of it.

your going straight from clone to flower in a true SOG style right?? 100w would be needed to cover that footprint for sure

jphebbie2 said:

your going straight from clone to flower in a true SOG style right?? 100w would be needed to cover that footprint for sure

Click to expand...

Well, I don't know if it is the "true" SoG style but yeah, it's definetly a SoG technique that I'm using. 1 main cola and 4 mini cola's beneath it per plant.
100W? For how many plants? And excuse my lack of knowledge but what do you mean with "footprint"?
Thanks in advance...

SCCA said:

if your space and cooling abilities allow it, go with the 1000w. it will penetrate deeper into the canopy allowing you to grow taller plants with more, dense bud on them. the pit about hps v mh cracks me up. i feel the same way about the spectrum, but the hydro shops around here look at you like you have two heads if you mention using hps for veging. most of them insist you need a mix of mh and hps even for flowering, which i do run but for entirely different reasons i.e. the mh was given to me lol you could easily do 25 plants under a 1000w and get a good yield out of it.

Click to expand...

SCCA, thanks for the input! Now I know what I wanna do. Run 9 plants per flowering unit under a 600W HPS, then expand to 25 under a 1000W HPS once I get the money.
I was wondering though... How much would the electricity bill set me back for a 600W or a 1000W HPS? Any Idea?

Hatshikkiedee said:

Well, I don't know if it is the "true" SoG style but yeah, it's definetly a SoG technique that I'm using. 1 main cola and 4 mini cola's beneath it per plant.
100W? For how many plants? And excuse my lack of knowledge but what do you mean with "footprint"?
Thanks in advance...

Click to expand...

I think he mean't 1000w. The footprint is the actual size of your grow in square feet or meters.

A 600w is more than enough for a 3x3 space, or a square meter for you euros. Sorry for converting measurements here but if you're doing 9 plants, 1 per square foot, you'll need to keep the vegging time low so you don't get a lot of side branching into the plants next to it.

Hatshikkiedee said:

Well, I went to the growshop where I get all my gear and they told me that the only reason why they have MH lamps is because americans, australians and sometimes canadian tourists come by and demand some MH's instead of HPS. They showed me this graff which stated that my HPS puts out as much white/blue light as the MH on top of the other spectrums.
Apparently MH is an outdated technology and the fact that it leans so much to the white/blue-ish spectrum is misleading to the buyer.
That blew my mind and made me feel like a tourist in my own country ^^. I didn't believe it, but then I went to another shop and they said the same thing.
Source: Amsterdam Dampkring Growshop / Amsterdam Barney's Seed Shop

Thanks for the feedback on the amount of pots though... Really thinking about getting a 1000W now...

Click to expand...

I would be quite suspect of the info you get from your hydro store. They are mixing a few slivers of fact with outrageously incorrect conclusions

First off, hps and mh are roughly the same age (hps is actually older, but that's mostly academic). The issue with HPS bulbs is that they burn at roughly the same color temps, so the spectrum is basically dictated by the technology. Hetal halides are different, they can be composed of a variety of halides which burn at different colors, so you can actually control the spectrum generated by the MH. If you want to look historically hps were invented as outdoor lights for streets, and buildings where the color of the light doesn't really matter. MH was developed to produce similar light output for applications where spectrum matters (such as film and theater, displays, etc).

What he is talking about (and I'm sure the charts he showed reflected) was absorption ranges for the primary peaks of chlorophyll A and B. There is a reason there are four peaks Also lack of blue spectrum causes stretching in pretty much all plants. This is related to the way that reds and blues reflect, and a lack of blue spectrum signals the plant that it is receiving reflected light instead of direct light. This will cause the plant to stretch to attempt to break through whatever canopy is shading it. Anyone who tells you otherwise needs to talk to some experienced gardeners

He blew your mind because what he was saying was pure misinformation and probably went against everything you've learned from knowlegable sources

I've spent many a gilder in dampkring, not a bad shop but overrated. I haven't been there in a while though, and looks like they expanded from just selling seeds and bud I'm a little disappointed they aren't more knowledgeable.

edit: forgot to give you help after explaining why the help you got wasn't good

Because of the stretch if you can only do one light spectrum in veg your best bet is MH. You can get bulbs which will be a much more complete spectrum and will give you nice tight node spacing. The key is to look at the bulbs, and not just the kelvin, but the actual spectral chart, see where it peaks. Kelvin is a rating of radiation from a black body and measures a range of spectrum, giving an indication of a peak. The chart will be by wavelength in nanometers, and those are precise, look for peaks at the same wavelengths as the A/B peaks of chlorophyll.
Even better, mix spectrums. run an HPS and a MH, it will be an improvement over running one of either.

For flower, the plant behaves differently and reverts more to a genetic behavior as far as growth goes. At this point it ceases to matter as much which spectrum you give it as long as it can use it to create sugars. This is when most growers will switch to all hps. Personally I still mix hps and mh in flower, but yeah, that seems to be more personal preference, as I see great results with both setups.

t0rn said:

A 600w is more than enough for a 3x3 space, or a square meter for you euros. Sorry for converting measurements here but if you're doing 9 plants, 1 per square foot, you'll need to keep the vegging time low so you don't get a lot of side branching into the plants next to it.

Click to expand...

Hmm, sounds about right... I was planning on vegging the clones for 2 to 5 weeks and trimming them in such a way that they grow to have 1 big cola (and not much else) per plant.

gobbly said:

I would be quite suspect of the info you get from your hydro store. They are mixing a few slivers of fact with outrageously incorrect conclusions

First off, hps and mh are roughly the same age (hps is actually older, but that's mostly academic). The issue with HPS bulbs is that they burn at roughly the same color temps, so the spectrum is basically dictated by the technology. Hetal halides are different, they can be composed of a variety of halides which burn at different colors, so you can actually control the spectrum generated by the MH. If you want to look historically hps were invented as outdoor lights for streets, and buildings where the color of the light doesn't really matter. MH was developed to produce similar light output for applications where spectrum matters (such as film and theater, displays, etc).

What he is talking about (and I'm sure the charts he showed reflected) was absorption ranges for the primary peaks of chlorophyll A and B. There is a reason there are four peaks Also lack of blue spectrum causes stretching in pretty much all plants. This is related to the way that reds and blues reflect, and a lack of blue spectrum signals the plant that it is receiving reflected light instead of direct light. This will cause the plant to stretch to attempt to break through whatever canopy is shading it. Anyone who tells you otherwise needs to talk to some experienced gardeners

He blew your mind because what he was saying was pure misinformation and probably went against everything you've learned from knowlegable sources

I've spent many a gilder in dampkring, not a bad shop but overrated. I haven't been there in a while though, and looks like they expanded from just selling seeds and bud I'm a little disappointed they aren't more knowledgeable.

edit: forgot to give you help after explaining why the help you got wasn't good

Because of the stretch if you can only do one light spectrum in veg your best bet is MH. You can get bulbs which will be a much more complete spectrum and will give you nice tight node spacing. The key is to look at the bulbs, and not just the kelvin, but the actual spectral chart, see where it peaks. Kelvin is a rating of radiation from a black body and measures a range of spectrum, giving an indication of a peak. The chart will be by wavelength in nanometers, and those are precise, look for peaks at the same wavelengths as the A/B peaks of chlorophyll.
Even better, mix spectrums. run an HPS and a MH, it will be an improvement over running one of either.

For flower, the plant behaves differently and reverts more to a genetic behavior as far as growth goes. At this point it ceases to matter as much which spectrum you give it as long as it can use it to create sugars. This is when most growers will switch to all hps. Personally I still mix hps and mh in flower, but yeah, that seems to be more personal preference, as I see great results with both setups.

Click to expand...

Holy bejeebus.
...Thank you, for this knowledge! I think I'm finally getting as close to the truth behind lighting as I wanted to be. You guys RULE!

Dear gobbly, Seeing as I'm working with a setup in which I veg 4 Mothers on floor 0 with a 400W HPS, clones on floor 1 under fluorescents and getting my flower on in a seperate compartment under a 600W HPS; What type of MH lamp would you advise me to add to my mother-vegging area in terms of wattage and other specifics? It's a space of about 2 by 0.80M (I'll be posting foto's this week).
Any specific lamp-models jump into your head that you would advise an ambitious newbie to buy?
While I wait for your response I'll thoroughly plow through the science behind what you explained to me...
Thank you all again for all your input!
H

Hatshikkiedee said:

Holy bejeebus.
...Thank you, for this knowledge! I think I'm finally getting as close to the truth behind lighting as I wanted to be. You guys RULE!

Dear gobbly, Seeing as I'm working with a setup in which I veg 4 Mothers on floor 0 with a 400W HPS, clones on floor 1 under fluorescents and getting my flower on in a seperate compartment under a 600W HPS; What type of MH lamp would you advise me to add to my mother-vegging area in terms of wattage and other specifics? It's a space of about 2 by 0.80M (I'll be posting foto's this week).
Any specific lamp-models jump into your head that you would advise an ambitious newbie to buy?
While I wait for your response I'll thoroughly plow through the science behind what you explained to me...
Thank you all again for all your input!
H

Click to expand...

np at all

You don't mention how tall your mother area is, which is going to effect things. There are a few ways you can go. If you have enough height and ventilation I'd go with a 400w in HID. You could get by with a 250w in that space, but I've never really seen a point in going lower than 400w, it's a much more standard wattage in horticulture, and not much price difference. If you go the HID route it's all going to be about heat. If you can keep the venting to where it stays in the high 70's you'll be pretty happy, how cool you can keep it will dictate how close you can get the light.

Another option to think about is T5HO's. They are small diameter fluorescent tubes which are a newer technology and rather efficient, with much better penetration than older fluorescents. Their primary advantages is that they will produce the same light as an HID running at nearly twice the wattage, and they will produce significantly less heat. The primary disadvantage is that they will not penetrate as far as HID's. Whether this matters really depends on how much space you have to veg in, and how tall you want them before they move to flower.

So to apply all this to a real world example:

I started out under a metal halide for veg, and had decent growth. Lots of leaves, great greens, very healthy, could see up to an inch a day in growth at every top. had some heat issues though, and a bit of stretching from how far up I had to keep it. I was pretty happy with my results, but the temps were a constant struggle.

Decided to increase the number of plants, so got a 4 foot, 8 tube, T5HO and mixed 2700 and 6000 k bulbs to hit all 4 absorption peaks. The growth was amazing. Tightest nodes I have seen, and bushiness I had only dreamed of. Insanely vigorous growth, suddenly my biggest problem was that they were growing too fast, and getting too big. However, once the plants got over 30" they started dropping lower leaves. Basically the canopy was thick enough that the T5's just couldn't penetrate more than 30 inches. For me this is not a problem, as I shoot for a 30-36" veg in hopes for plants that reach 4-5 feet in flower. For some, this would be a disadvantage and a reason to go with HID. It's important to note that the HID was 12-18" from the plants to keep temps proper. The T5's can be within 1" of the tops without burning as long as I keep an oscillating fan blowing over the bulbs.

Far as bulbs, I've used hortilux mostly. You can actually look at the chlorophyll peaks, and the spectral charts published by different lamp manufacturers, and actually match them. Some of this becomes really nitpicky, and it's debatable whether differences can be seen. I tend to go on the premise that a broad spectrum is better, but it's not the only way to go by any means. You also do want to keep in mind that these days you can get broad spectrum HPS lamps (isn't technology great), as well as HPS spectrum HM lamps. It's just a question of what is normal, and normal hps are mostly red, and normal mh will usually be mostly blue (though often look white to us).

Something you might find helpful is something called PAR. Most of us are familiar with lumens, and you will often see lumen measurements thrown around with grow lights. Lumens are a measurement of the spectrum of light which humans see. However, humans and plants are different and plants 'see' a much different range of light colors than we do. There is another measurement of light output which is actually designed to measure the amount of light which plants do see. It's called PAR (photosynthetic active radiation). It is literally a measurement of the intensity of light in the ranges of which chlorophyll performs photosynthesis. If you can find PAR ratings on the equipment you look at, not only do you have a relevant value to compare to other items, but you have an idea that the company who made it actually understands horticulture.

Last but not least, something that you can take as a warning sign if you're ever in the shop and wondering if you can trust the sales staff is whether people deal with everything in absolutes. The guy saying you have to have hps. The perfect NPK ratio. The specific micro supplements you use. The photoperiod you veg under. These and many other questions have no single answer. They vary dramatically based on your conditions, requirements, experience, desires, environment, genetics, etc. The true gems are the people who will take the time to learn your situation and make informed suggestions, or take the time to teach you the differences so you can determine what is best for you

As promised, here are the pictures!

2 weeks since planting seeds:
The three on the left are LSD
The three on the right are Honey B
The two in the center-back are Laughing Budha

7 Weeks since planting seeds:
The two in the center-front are Utopia Haze



The young-to-be-mothers up close...




The mother/clone area from afar...




HPS on/fluo's off...



I'll keep you updated on the progress.
But thanks to Gobbly I'm definetly getting me another MH or a T5HO... Prolly the latter though if it saves me heat and electricity bills.
It's a small compartment with only room for 4 mothers and all the walls are white so I guess penetration shouldn't be an issue...

Your friendly neighborhood Dutchman,
H

if you do go t5, get as many tubes as you can fit. The key is number of tubes, and how close they are together. Also something a lot of new users don't understand is how much the reflector makes a difference in usable light. You want t5's with individual reflectors. Keep in mind they almost all have reflectors which are one piece, but each bulb should sit in it's own parabola, basically out of line of sight with the other bulbs. This one difference in reflector designs can lead to 30-40% more usable light hitting your plants, so it not something you want to skimp on.

Very nice looking setup. It looks like your veg area is about as tall as I can get my lights up. By the time the plants start getting too large to fit, they have just barely started to drop their lowest leaves, so it seems to be on the upper end of what height works well with the t5's.

Another interesting tidbit about them, HID spectrum degrades. I have seen test showing spectrum reductions by up to 50% after 8 months. T5's on the other hand retain the majority of their spectrum for 12-24 months under the same usage. This is actually a decent advantage, but not one most people really understand. I have heard very few other people talking about the spectrum reduction in HID, and surprisingly few even mention that they need to be changed every ~8 months to maintain good spectral coverage

Interesting, thanks! I'm going to be skimming through your posts these following days and have a look at your work...
I'll upload more pictures once I'm at a higher stage...
H

New pictures of the grow-closet comming up, bigger plants, mylar on the walls... Almost time to choose 4 of the 10 plants for motherplanting based on vigor and prepare the flowering area for the 6 plants that are left for flowering so I got more space in the "Mother-Plant Section"

But before you guys get a peak... I was wondering if anyone could advise me a petroleum generator that could power my operation so I could work off the grid...
I've searched the web but I'd figure that someone here should have some experience with a fuel-generator of some sort...

I hope someone has some good words on this, Id apreciate any thoughts, suggestions or past experience with this subject.

Your friendly neighbourhood Dutchman,
H

Hello everyone, It's been a while and I'm back to show you the development of my plants and of the first motherplant I've selected.


This is my one-lamp unit starting up.



This is my lamp going full blast.



The first motherplant I've selected. Utopia Haze - Barney's Farm.


I was wondering if I should already FIM this motherplant and if anyone has any suggestions on how I should go about properly preparing this plant for cloning.
I'm looking forward to your opinion guys.
Peace,
H

Firstly, I find the peeps at the Dampkring a bit one sided. It is quite typical of the grow shops to ignore MH. My local one doesn't even know what they are
Funy, I was going to pop in there to buy a replacement MH bulb.

Hatshikkiedee said:

Well, I went to the growshop where I get all my gear and they told me that the only reason why they have MH lamps is because americans, australians and sometimes canadian tourists come by and demand some MH's instead of HPS. They showed me this graff which stated that my HPS puts out as much white/blue light as the MH on top of the other spectrums.
Apparently MH is an outdated technology and the fact that it leans so much to the white/blue-ish spectrum is misleading to the buyer.
That blew my mind and made me feel like a tourist in my own country ^^. I didn't believe it, but then I went to another shop and they said the same thing.
Source: Amsterdam Dampkring Growshop / Amsterdam Barney's Seed Shop

Thanks for the feedback on the amount of pots though... Really thinking about getting a 1000W now...

Click to expand...

2 600 will work better, but I am not sure you will need that for your space. The light coverage (or footprint) of a 600 is perfect.

gobbly said:

I would be quite suspect of the info you get from your hydro store. They are mixing a few slivers of fact with outrageously incorrect conclusions

First off, hps and mh are roughly the same age (hps is actually older, but that's mostly academic). The issue with HPS bulbs is that they burn at roughly the same color temps, so the spectrum is basically dictated by the technology. Hetal halides are different, they can be composed of a variety of halides which burn at different colors, so you can actually control the spectrum generated by the MH. If you want to look historically hps were invented as outdoor lights for streets, and buildings where the color of the light doesn't really matter. MH was developed to produce similar light output for applications where spectrum matters (such as film and theater, displays, etc).

What he is talking about (and I'm sure the charts he showed reflected) was absorption ranges for the primary peaks of chlorophyll A and B. There is a reason there are four peaks Also lack of blue spectrum causes stretching in pretty much all plants. This is related to the way that reds and blues reflect, and a lack of blue spectrum signals the plant that it is receiving reflected light instead of direct light. This will cause the plant to stretch to attempt to break through whatever canopy is shading it. Anyone who tells you otherwise needs to talk to some experienced gardeners

He blew your mind because what he was saying was pure misinformation and probably went against everything you've learned from knowlegable sources

I've spent many a gilder in dampkring, not a bad shop but overrated. I haven't been there in a while though, and looks like they expanded from just selling seeds and bud I'm a little disappointed they aren't more knowledgeable.

edit: forgot to give you help after explaining why the help you got wasn't good

Because of the stretch if you can only do one light spectrum in veg your best bet is MH. You can get bulbs which will be a much more complete spectrum and will give you nice tight node spacing. The key is to look at the bulbs, and not just the kelvin, but the actual spectral chart, see where it peaks. Kelvin is a rating of radiation from a black body and measures a range of spectrum, giving an indication of a peak. The chart will be by wavelength in nanometers, and those are precise, look for peaks at the same wavelengths as the A/B peaks of chlorophyll.
Even better, mix spectrums. run an HPS and a MH, it will be an improvement over running one of either.

For flower, the plant behaves differently and reverts more to a genetic behavior as far as growth goes. At this point it ceases to matter as much which spectrum you give it as long as it can use it to create sugars. This is when most growers will switch to all hps. Personally I still mix hps and mh in flower, but yeah, that seems to be more personal preference, as I see great results with both setups.

Click to expand...

Excellent post, listen to this carefully bru.

And the next post as well.

Hatshikkiedee said:

New pictures of the grow-closet comming up, bigger plants, mylar on the walls... Almost time to choose 4 of the 10 plants for motherplanting based on vigor and prepare the flowering area for the 6 plants that are left for flowering so I got more space in the "Mother-Plant Section"

But before you guys get a peak... I was wondering if anyone could advise me a petroleum generator that could power my operation so I could work off the grid...
I've searched the web but I'd figure that someone here should have some experience with a fuel-generator of some sort...

I hope someone has some good words on this, Id apreciate any thoughts, suggestions or past experience with this subject.

Your friendly neighbourhood Dutchman,
H

Click to expand...

Hatshikkiedee said:

Hello everyone, It's been a while and I'm back to show you the development of my plants and of the first motherplant I've selected.


This is my one-lamp unit starting up.
View attachment 1404595


This is my lamp going full blast.
View attachment 1404594


The first motherplant I've selected. Utopia Haze - Barney's Farm.
View attachment 1404596

I was wondering if I should already FIM this motherplant and if anyone has any suggestions on how I should go about properly preparing this plant for cloning.
I'm looking forward to your opinion guys.
Peace,
H

Click to expand...

As a mother plant imho I would have topped it earlier, or just bent it over to get a few main leading branches (like LST, which I am sure you have come across) Perhaps a top just now would be best, clone the top and grow that out as well if you want. With a mother plant you want to aim for a small bushy plant, and by snipping early this produces more and more sites that you are able to clone from. Also there is stock in keeping the size of the pot down, unless you plan on getting into selling clones and want to grow a mammoth tree. So I would look at perhaps reducing the pot. There is an excellent thread on riu about making bonsai mother plants.


Your plant are looking like they need to be reaching for the sky, but are a bit droopy instead. The "mother to be" looks a bit better though. How far have you got that 400 away from them? I would have expected a bit more development in a month to be honest.
Couple of questions:How often are you water? Are they using much water? I couldn't see the temps but I assume the pic with the meter was at lights off, whats the temps/rh at lights on?

Will check in for an update, good luck bru.

Peace, DST

If you're doing true zero vegging sog you can do up to 20-24 plants at a time under a 600w light.