Working With Consultant/Grower, Can You Please Tell Me What You Think Of This Advice?

24 plants is a lot to take care of? How? I have about 300 at any given time and take about 150 cuts a month.. I spend 2 nights per week doing this. Only thing I don’t do is trim.

nxsov180db said:

24 plants is a lot to take care of? How? I have about 300 at any given time and take about 150 cuts a month.. I spend 2 nights per week doing this. Only thing I don’t do is trim.

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How big was your first grow? That’s really the question. Do you recommend going 24 for a first timer?

MajorGrindage said:

Thank you so much for the encouragement! I've been thinking 24 plants is do-able for 2 people, but some other responses im getting have me reconsidering. I guess i have some thinking to do haha.

Thanks again for the encouragement, and i really appreciate the good luck wishes! Take care!

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24 plants is nothing I run that on a 4x10 table in 3 gal pots of pro mix i spend 1 hr a day hand watering at the most.

thumper60 said:

24 plants is nothing I run that on a 4x10 table in 3 gal pots of pro mix i spend 1 hr a day hand watering at the most.

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And you have experience and you have your process dialed in. 24 plants is a lot for a first grow. Even with 2 people. Can it be done? Absolutely. But chances are It will be considerably easier to pay attention to and learn from a lower plant count for the first grow or two in order to dial some stuff in and tackle any issues that may come up.

I like it so when you say 24 like are you doing 1 light or a plant a light? Have you calculated the amount of btus your lights, fans, dehumidifiers, etc are going to produce? What kind of walls is it drywall do you plan on redoing walls? Do you have a game plan far as the setup I would definitely automate as much as you can to make life easier on you I did a 15x15 bedroom and it kicked my ass cause I didn't have automation back then. What size ceilings are you working with 30x40 is 1200 sq ft shit will use the shit out of some juice if you plan on filling it wall to wall and will take more than a 200 amp panel.

Coco dtw. Everything on timers. I run 48 in a 12x12 with 1 gal pots. Lot of work but i only go to my grow every 3rd day. I have a full time job. Definitely far from my first time like yourself. But if you are passionate about it you will succeed. Shit i see people on here growing dank and its there first time. Why is this. Research. When i started growing there wasn't forums. If you set a plan research the shit out of it you will be ok. Will you have problems? For sure. Thats how you learn. I went from a 2x2 too a 24x24 building. Dont listen to the haters. Research plant problems and bug problems so when shit goes down you already have an idea what to do. Growing weed is easy. Growing dank is a skill. In my opinion the dry and cure is where a lot f up. Also it always looks good doesn't mean its dank. My number 1 suggestions is start with fire genetics.

OP: what lighting have you considered? Hid or led?
I feel you on organics but if you chose to grow with leds then it may not be ideal. Leds grow with "cold" light and this means the plants need a bit extra care to climate to transpire properly; without proper transpiration some nutrients (cal/mag) doesnt get taken up properly. With synths you can adjust your feeding, with organics its much less immediate. If you grow with organics you need to have a very good plan how to add calcium and magnesium with immediate effect, you wont be able to wait for it to becomes plant available. So maybe organics with a bit of calmag?
Id probably lean towards getting 2x 4x4 (or whatever size you prefer) and try to grow synths in one tent, coco drain to waste, and then some Sips in the other.
Its a good point to make that some even stick a bit of bottle nutes in their SIP reservoir.

Getting some experience before doing a full buildout is the best idea.

I can speak speak for a lot of growers here, there are going to be a lot of obstacles. Bugs, mildew, deficiency's, humidity issues ect. It takes time and experience to learn the early signs of the above issues to prevent a total loss. Id run a couple different styles of growing in small amounts and see what works the best.
Honestly I would love to be in your shoes!!! I hope your future grows are a success and you continue to post in our community. Happy growing

MajorGrindage said:

Yea ive definitely smoked some amazing flower grown with coco and salts, but some properly grown organic weed (in my opinion) is by far the best flower i have ever smoked. Im similar to you and also just like the idea of going organic/a more natural approach.

Ill have to look into mixing my own soil for sure. For my first grow just to make things easier i think i am going to go pre mixed with the Roots Organic Original or GreenFields, but after researching i may end up changing my mind and mixing my own as you suggested.

And by the sounds of it im thinking ill only go with racked veg in the future if i end up expanding and really need extra space.

I definitely want organic, and simple (at least simple at first while i learn how to grow), but i honestly dont even care about being able to go on vacation. If being more hands on with the plants means the quality will be greatly increased, we can sacrifice vacations for quality. We rarely even leave town anyway.

Ive never heard of sips. Ill have to look into that. Is there a brand you'd recommend? That sounds like it could be a perfect option.

And ill be sure to look into some good dry amendments. If i ever decide to reuse my soil that will definitely be necessary.

Thank you so much for the help!

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Mix your own just don’t be to heavy handed due to your going to be feeding them too .
Much cheaper much better understanding of your soil.
next the guys on the tent idea is good idea if your barn is big by all means get bigger tent tents keep bugs an more from easy attack if you want to learn easier way then harder way use tents then move once understood to your room but your going to need to seal an also air that area so your going to need filters unless you want everyone smelling you down the block to do that easily an learn tents .
soil organic rocks coco sucks in my opinion to much up down round round fixing issues I think sane as water hydro go easy use soil an make it good the very beginning of understanding your grow is that soil

I would agree with most of what they say, apart from maybe the racking system, depending how big ur gonna veg dictates pot size and more importantly weight, you don’t wanna be hauling 15 gallon bags of moist soil up and down, I’d suggest rolling dolly’s for veg plants. Blumats work well, but they can fail and flood a room, I prefer drip line (hose with holes) and to use a pump and timer to deliver multiple smaller waterings per day. They are right about keeping the soil consistently moist, dry backs are the enemy when working with a living soil. With an irrigation system set up to only deliver clean water then you will need to top dress, I recommend ewc, aloe, kelp meal, and insect frass.

food for thought, I used 500l fabric beds per 4x4/5x5 with 4 plants in each, when you consider the size of 4 plants to fill a 5x5 canopy it will usually translate to larger veg containers. The larger the veg container the more soil ur gonna have to displace at transplant time, the more soil you displace - the more goodness you’re disrupting. This led me to veg in smaller containers then transplant and veg a while longer in their flowering beds.

Hey glad to see your finally getting to live out a dream of yours. So 24 plants is NOT too many plants for a new grower not even in the slightest. I would recommend finding a good seed company like compound genetics or exotic genetix spend some good money on 3 or 4 strains in the 5 seeds per pack of fire genetics from some of the best breeders in the game and plant 3 out of the 5. Its always a good idea to save a couple of seeds from each pack for the future. Tag em 1-3 on each strain germinate them in paper towels in plastic bags for a couple days then id recommend a promix coco/peat blend with 0 nutrients added except mycorrhizae for root growth.


Ive been in the grow scene over 20 years and moved to LA in the early 2000s to grow legally and compete with the best in the business and let me tell you that every time I was willing to bet my left nut some flower was grown fully organic in soil only to learn it was grown with General Hydro 3 part on full aeroponic or top drip with perlite or hydroton had me all confused. That is when I learned nutrients rarely had much to do with quality and it was ALL about the genetics. Prior to my boy who I moved to LA with on this adventure managed to get us linked up with a phenomenal grower that had been growing since early 90s and had the tried and true recipe did we really see any progress. I thought we'd be able to move to LA grab some clones from the clubs and take over. Boy did I have so much to learn about growing, we had hit up damn near every single dispensary that sold clones in the greater LA area and the best strain we ending up getting was a Green Crack and plenty of bugs. Thanks to our buddy D the savior who I was lucky took a liking to me did he decide to come over and check out our grow. When he saw our setup he told me politely that he was going to help us but was going to start from scratch and if I could just sit back and watch as he will teach me everything I need to know. He said he was going to go home and cut 50 or 60 clones and come back in 2 weeks with 6 1000watt hps a co2 generator, RO water filter and ph/ppm meter to properly take advantage of the sqft. Thats when I went from small closet grows to large 25+ light grows with perpetual harvests every 2 months. All thanks to D the guy who took the time to teach a youngster an amazing trade.


The rule of thumb for a perpetual grow is to have a veg room at least 2/3 the size of your flower room so during your 8-9 week flower cycle you can get the plants to the exact size you need so the day you cut down your moving the veg into the flower room to start that count down. One thing I have not seen in your thread is the lights you plan on using or how big/long you want to veg these plants you could do 3gal, 5gal, or 7gal I wouldnt go much bigger then 7gallon pots unless your trying to grow some monsters. There is always that perfect ratio of plants per light. You dont want more potential plant matter then available ppfd or else you end up with leafy fluffy buds that are not dense. Ive always set my grows up based on 70/80watts per sqft which would help me in finding out how many lights to use. Typically with HID/HPS the minimum was 1lb per 1000watt HPS with the better growers getting easily 1.5lbs per same watts. That would be an avg of .5grams to .75gpw on HPS/HID lights. I had the best luck with the 3gal pots as they are exactly 1sqft in floor space and can easily achieve 2oz per sqft of quality flower.

Over the last couple years ive transitioned to the new full spectrum LEDs thanks to Samsung changing the game. It has been a huge relearning of how to grow that im glad to say I have finally got them figured out. People are claiming to get upwards of 3.5 grams per watt on these new LEDs to which I think are full of shit and until I see or hear from legit growers im not buying it. These new LEDs do have the potential to get upwards of 1.5 maybe 2.0gpw if growing higher yielding strains on full hydro dialed in perfectly. I would really love to help out as mush as possible with out coming off as a know it all lol. I've never been active on grow forums nor have I ever been one to share much grow knowledge with anybody other than my childhood friends which is what caught my eye and made me want to see you guys kick ass. I wont steer you towards anything that hasnt made me a believer. I would just like to be as helpful to the success of an amazing hobby that has cured my depression and alleviated finical stress. Well Im sorry for the wall of text and rant I just went on but I hope I could have been of use to your new adventure.

You’re doing what many people dream to do. I commend you for that.

as others have noted, growing production is abit more difficult than a handful of plants in a tent in your bedroom….

pests and maintaining VPD are going to be your biggest and quickest you’ll see obstacles. A barn isn’t gonna hold dry air unless you really seal it up, same with bugs. You’ll want to look into an IPM program for bugs and mildew.

I don’t know how you’re going to keep humidity down in flower.

I quickly drew up these dimensions for a pole barn i just purchased. It is just under 30x40 feet. I still need to draw the doors to each room.

I have a few questions for you guys:

1. I showed this to my friend, and he recommended having a center walkway, rather than having each room connected by a doorway like i currently do. Do you think he is correct, or do you think my current plans are OK?
2. My friend also recommended having a room at the entrance to change clothes/shoes in, rather than walking directly into the dry/trim/irrigation room. Do you think he is correct, or is the current plan OK?
3. In general, do you think the dimensions i chose for the rooms are good, or would you personally do something different?

Thank you guys in advance for any help, it is much appreciated!

Personally I would make 4 -15'x20' rooms, just for ease of construction..

HydoDan said:

Personally I would make 4 -15'x20' rooms, just for ease of construction..

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Ive always heard that your flower rooms should be bigger than your veg room to allow room for your plants to stretch. Do you think that would be a problem with 4 rooms that are the same size?

I really appreciate the help!

MajorGrindage said:

Ive always heard that your flower rooms should be bigger than your veg room to allow room for your plants to stretch. Do you think that would be a problem with 4 rooms that are the same size?

I really appreciate the help!

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Well, you'll have one veg room and two flower rooms, so technically, your flower room will be twice the size if your veg room

I would frame in an entry way to access all the rooms from the main room at least, with their own doors. Something like this maybe ^

MajorGrindage said:

Ive always heard that your flower rooms should be bigger than your veg room to allow room for your plants to stretch. Do you think that would be a problem with 4 rooms that are the same size?

I really appreciate the help!

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On second thought, I think I would go with one flower room 20'x30' and 2 rooms 15'x 20'.. Your veg room should have enough space for veg plants and clones.. Trim room can be used for storage and trimming..

I honestly will pay whoever has the best plan either through cash app, venmo, zelle, or whatever you have.

Growings been my dream since i was a kid, so i am making sure to do this the right/legal way so no issues arise. There will only be 24 plants between two people, and we will only expand if we become caregivers. I checked with the city and made sure everything is fully legal. There will only be 24 plants between two people, and we will only expand if we become caregivers, which is fully legal in our city.

The barn is 28'-10" x 39'- ⅜ , so nearly 30x40 feet.

I want you to draw it out how you personally would set it up.

My idea is to have 1 veg room, 2 flower room, and 1 room for storage/drying/trimming, and possibly a bathroom and mudroom as well. But if you have a better idea, go for it.

Luckily, i have plenty of money to work with so you dont have to draw a budget grow.

Thank you so much in advance for the help. I look forward to seeing what you guys draw

Just Google cannabis grow floorpans and pick the design you like the layout of.....scale it up or down and there you go.