Hello everyone, Sorry for being such a newb. My mom's paraplegic and suffers from chronic pain. She's been trying to make a switch from pharmaceuticals to pure herbal meds but it just gets to be too expensive so she asked me if I could grow some plants for her. The only thing I seem not to understand is the wattage factor. I have a budget of no more than $2250 but wanted to spend the least amount of money possible. I don't have a lot of experience growing cannabis (I've been successful with small closet set-ups of 3 or fewer plants in past years since I never had a need for more) but I have a pretty good green thumb. I'm down in Southern Cali. Have more room but wondered if it were possible to grow 16 plants in 7 gallon pots in a 5x5x7 area with, say... 3 x 600w lights? And if so, what would my expected yield be on average? I have a few good quality seeds to choose from, but wanted to grow 2 of each strain... (LSD, Liberty Haze, Nebula, Kosher Kush, Chocolope, Super Lemon Haze, and 2 other ones I can't recall).
If you have proper ventilation with cooltube I'm sure you could two 1000w and have really good coverage, without temp problems. IMO this would be better than 3 600s due to diminishing returns... But some may disagree Are you looking to go hydro or dirt? Lot of options, hydro IMO is way easier for beginners once you get past the whole pH and ppm meter thing. Once dialed in, you can typically reach yields of about 1 gram per watt with a good yielding strain. By the way excellent selection in strains, especially the SLH, that stuff is great, my favorite strain for sure. You can easily set up your room with that sort of budget, I highly suggest getting a carbon filter with inline fan and variac fan speed controller to reduce sound. You can get a bigger fan than needed and dial it way down if sound is an issue. Good luck and hopefully you stick around and start a journal
Barneys Farm LSD (since you mentioned Liberty Haze in the same breath I presume you mean this one) is a nice strain, very disease and pest resistant, fairly easy to clone, can handle nutes, the phenotypes are a bit variable but the smoke is nice, oldskool skunky smell when dried but really cerebral high. Not terribly high yields though, my experience is more sativa-like individual buds than super-dense indica buds, but quite reasonable overall. i agree that 2x 1000w is probably more efficient in terms of lumens and energy use than 3x 600w because the ballasts waste energy and the larger bulbs usually pack more of a punch per watt. Although it might seem like you'd get better coverage with 3 lamps, I think it's a toss up between the two. Yield, depending on what you grow them in (soil, hydro), the strain, how long you veg, if you train or LST them, between 2 and 10 oz per plant. If you get any less than 2oz per plant with that setup, you need to veg them more or use larger pots or change something about your strategy, because it's definitely under performing in that case. 16 plants in 7 gallon pots in a 5'x5' seems pretty reasonable to me, Sea of Green setup pretty much. Good luck!
You guys are awesome!!! Thanks for the help!! My plans on soil since I don't really know too much on hydro systems or setups. Should I look into that method, instead? I feel more comfortable and familiar with soil. Had my mix planned out and everything. Pretty excited I'm looking at carbon filters as we speak =) Cooltube, though...? Is this how I'd keep my temps down in conjunction with the fans?
Yes the tubes or hoods would be used to control the heat off the bulbs. I have a 400W HPS stuffed into a tiny wardrobe but with the cooltube my temps are where they should be. You can either place your carbon filter in your room or inline further down and outside of the room, depends on how you want your set up If you already planned out a soil mix then I'm not going to convince you otherwise, but you should check out some coco Hempy bucket grows, best of both worlds. Simple as soil, but with the growth benefits of hydro. Combined with a modified Lucas formula for coco or some pH Perfect nutes it would be very simple to maintain. But again not trying to sway you that way, but it is worth taking a look at, its very newb friendly as it is impossible to over water Best of luck!
That's a lot of plants in a 5 x 5 area especially in 7 gallon pots. how will you water the plants in the back of the tent? Will both sides have a flap to access? We are all wishing you the best of luck BTW...hoping the herbal approach will be a grand success!
Chart here on figuring lumens produced by the bulb (direct light the plants get. Reflective materials have inefficiencies, and reflected light has to travel further to get to the plants, so I don't figure with it). Multiply the rated lumens produced by that figure, you get what reaches a leaf at that distance. Sunlight's 128,000 lux (lumens per square meter) Electronically....first, realize that any AC current has about a 10% inefficiency factor right off. A 110 circuit, calculate it as if it's a 100 volt, 220, 200. All equipment has inefficiencies. For safety's sake, always assume AT LEAST 10%. Top of the line 1000 watt digital ballast actually has an 8% inefficiency at startup and 4% constant. On a 110 circuit, 100 watts is an amp. Period. The only time this is off is when it's a result of inefficiencies. Look at your ballasts, you'll see a "true amp" rating. Since each ballast carries an inefficiency, you actually USE more of your current making light in a higher wattage setup (a 1000 watt HID is better than a 600 and a 400. More light, and less inefficiency expressing itself as heat). You can grow a full size plant in a 5 gallon pot...plenty of room for roots to spread. Spacing between the pots gets important, then, though. If you're going to grow to full maturity, you need about a meter on a side space per plant. Going to flower at 30 inches, you can do passably with an 18 inch on a side space. Yield is INCREDIBLY variable. An indoor grow, grown to full size, most strains CAN give you up to 300 grams per square meter...if they get the light intensity, temps, air quality, nutrient levels, etcetera needed. I mean do your VERY best to match outdoor conditions, and you'll get about 1/3 to 2/3 outdoor grow yield. But don't expect that...that's pretty much a "perfect indoor full sized grow". SCROG it out, 4-6 ounces a plant, flowered at about 24 inches seems to be about normal. A 5' by 5' area should actually do fairly well on a 1000 watt system, single light, but I ALWAYS suggest hybrid systems...given your finances, you can get a full 1000 watt system with an analog ballast for around $200, 4 LED spots for about $250-$300, and a pair of "top of the terrarrium hood" reptile UVA/UVB bulbs for about $40, which would actually cover the shortcomings of each, in bandwidth delivered (use a couple machine screws on the hood of the HID to mount the reptile bulb hoods). So for around $500, you could have one HELL of a light system that "covers all the bases"...question is, can you manage the heat from a 1000 watt HID system? If not, you won't be able to do it with a pair of 600's, either, since they are less efficient, so more power turns to waste heat. Honestly, if you spend that $500, you can still afford a decent tent of the proper size, a high end fan, which you mount IN the tent, from the top, duct into the hood to blow across the light (or to suck OUT of the light, better yet...drawing warm air from the tent through the light at lower pressure), and blow (via ducting) out of the tent, and still be under a grand. CO2, there are a couple cheats that can help you avoid spending several hundred on a system, some of which (my own cheat, for instance) also help with cooling. being a medical grower for a person with a card, in Cali, you needn't worry about smell, cops can't do squat if you stay within your legal number of plants, so there you go saving around $300. If smell bothers you, buy a scented HEPA quality furnace filter and mount it over your exhaust duct. If you start smelling weed, turn the fan off, soak the filter with Febreeze, let it dry, turn the fan back on. $20 worth of filter and duct tape, works as well as carbon filters, but instead of carbon dust and a neutral "no smell", it smells like a house someone is using a scented furnace filter in their house air system.