Heath Robinson speculation before reproducing his results

I am attempting to recreate Heath Robinson's tree grow in a custom under current DWC setup. I am not going to do everything I have read about his grow because I think I will need more control over a few things - mainly temperature. I am interested in starting a discussion with other growers that are trying the same thing as Heath and would like to build off others experience.

I am going to have 4 - 600 watt HPS lights surrounding each plant vertically. I will have the light cycle switch to only have 2 opposing lights on for the first 6 hours and then switch to have the other 2 on. Veg time is supposed to be 6 weeks but I think that there will need to be some pretty amazing results from the vegged plant before moving to flower. I am having good results now but I want to learn more about the veg process and try to tweak it to perfection in my installation. Any help on this is appreciated.

I will use ductless mini split air conditioning units and I will use a water chiller. Heath mentions that he does not use an air conditioner nor CO2. I can only imagine that using these will increase my chances of success.

My first question is related to using a water pump. In the posts Heath made he uses large homemade square net pots with holes drilled into the bottom and the net pot is then put into a larger bucket and he uses a water pump to heavily pump a large amount of water directly at the base of the stalk. Would I need to do this 24 hours a day in flower? I think that more nutrients make it to the roots when they need it as compared to using just an air stone.

My second question is related to the size of the net pot and the results. Is there a known benefit to using more hydroton in a large net pot or does it make more sense to have a smaller one and get more roots in the water?

Is there a forum post that actively talks about this?

i havent heard form heath on the forums in awhile. That guy can grow. I think alot of people were calling bullshit on his weights though. Anyway no threads I know of specifically talking about that but any search for growing trees will help. Personally i like small plants. that string shit looks like a real pain in the ass.

Worth it in stated where you are limited on the number of plants you can grow. Also I like doing shit like this and showing and sharing the results. I will agree that there is a better chance that he did something that wasn't mentioned like vegged for 5 months or used CO2 - whatever. I see the pictures and I want to strive to achieve the same or better. I cant believe that there aren't people that have tried his methods on here. I am interested in what you learned.

Same question though - Does using a water pump to pump water directly to the base of the stem give the plant more of something that a bubble stone will not?

Be a lot simpler and less trouble to just use soil and if you must, bump them up to a large pot like a 10-20 gal. Don't set yourself up for failure.

I've got tropicals, trees, growing in large RootBuilder pots and a few in large conventional pots that were treated with a root tip pruning paint, copper hydroxide. Griffin's Spin-Out. Then there's MicroKote. They love it and it's easy peasy. I use a high N slow release food so I only have to water.

"I am going to have 4 - 600 watt HPS lights surrounding each plant vertically." And what are you going to do if you have too much light and start bleaching out the chlorophyll?

This is not about his methods, it's about understanding what makes a plant tick. How you deliver is immaterial. What you know about gardening, nutrition, plant processes is all that matters. A monkey can set up a grow room. It takes a seasoned master gardener to pull it off. Heath knew what makes a plant tick and like me, I guarantee he did not divulge "secrets" that are particular and unique to his background and growing style.

The psychology of cannabis growing reminds me of the days I'd fish on a salt water pier. One isolated guy would land a good catch and before you know he'd have 20 fishermen crowding his spot.

Good luck

Oh ben...why even post if you're not going to answer any of his questions and basically just say "lol switch to soils!"?

computergroove said:

I cant believe that there aren't people that have tried his methods on here.

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There are lots of us who use this method and it's been around for quite a while...

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/570843-flowamastas-methodology-how-grow-monster.html

I personally call it "recirculating hempy". I ran it for a few years.

I have an IRL buddy that has ran this method for over a decade with hydroton.

computergroove said:

Same question though - Does using a water pump to pump water directly to the base of the stem give the plant more of something that a bubble stone will not?

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Most guys I know that run this type of setup do use an air pump and air stones in their res. It helps keep bad bacteria away. Fluming is another option.

ilikecheetoes said:

Would I need to do this 24 hours a day in flower?

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Depends. IF you can stay on top of your crap (pH, ppms, temps), you can run it 24 hours a day.

Most guys flood a few times a day though.

ilikecheetoes said:

I think alot of people were calling bullshit on his weights though.

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That happens when you use this method. 20 ounces off of a "meh" plant under a 600w can be especially unbelievable to the hardcore organic guys that get excited over four ounces off a plant.

blacksun said:

Oh ben...why even post if you're not going to answer any of his questions and basically just say "lol switch to soils!"?

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You wouldn't understand.

There are lots of us who use this method and it's been around for quite a while...

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A 1,000 flies on a pile of shit can't be wrong.

I looked at that thread and am not impressed. "Massive", "super", "monster".....heard it all before.

Depends. IF you can stay on top of your crap (pH, ppms, temps), you can run it 24 hours a day.

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You just made my case...

I have no idea who Heath Robinson is, got any link that will show me why this cat is so highly regarded?

As for net pot size, in my experience it doesn't matter. I have grown the same strain side by side in 2.5" and 8" net pots in DWC and saw no difference, fairly big plants too. In the 2.5" net pots the base of the plant's stalk actually pushed out a bunch of the hydroton and still has no notable effect on the plant. Save yourself some money on hydroton and use a smaller size net pot. My current setup that I've been using for years uses 3.5" net pots and I've never had an indoor plant that would need one any bigger.

Heath Robinson is a grower who really pushed the limits with designing hydroponic setups for squeezing every last gram out of a light. He's famous for the flooded tube vertical sog that hit 2g/W with a 600W bulb. https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/149998-heaths-flooded-tube-vertical.html He also did the tree machine grows (I'm having trouble finding a link to his grow with it because many have emulated it) which were trying to use vertical lighting to achieve similar efficiency with drastically reduced plant counts. He did use strains known for being very high yielding (the flooded tube was with a top Dutch commercial strain and the tree machine was with critical mass) but his results were still very impressive. He also bred the Black Rose which is just a gorgeous plant.

Thanks Duck!

can't see any reason why you can't pull it off, 6 weeks veg in a deep water system would grow a tree, done it my self a few years back, use a mh as the plants will be a lot more bushy and in mid flower its an ideal to throw some net over to hold the branches in place.

No worries man, his stuff is worth a look.

blacksun said:

That happens when you use this method. 20 ounces off of a "meh" plant under a 600w can be especially unbelievable to the hardcore organic guys that get excited over four ounces off a plant.

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So true it's not even funny.

The key to big harvest as most people should know. Is environment, enviromemt, and you guessed it environment. Also you will have more success if you adopt a ebb flow to your dwc. Forget nutrients, forget strain. Your grow room is only as strong as your weakest link. That is the number one rule when trying to harveset huge trees and bushes successfully. I'd tell ya what nuties to use for Guranteed succes but I'm sure my boss would have a riot. 1500ppm co2, ph of 5.2 and lots of wattage and you will be successful of your capable.
Happy growing! Bud brothers