Hello GC, I've been growing for a few years and was only taught one system that I've stuck with and has worked well for me, but I want to move away from hand feeding to a drip feed system. I also want to switch from cubes to coco in 5 gallon buckets. The question I have for you experts is how many plants is optimum for a 4K watt space. My grow area is approximately 9'6" X 9'6". I was thinking 4 plants per light to cover an approximate space of 4 sq ft but it always helps to ask.... Thanks in advance!!! Neo Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
You have slightly under 5x5' per 1000w light? I would probably go with 4 plants per light. With the large wattage bulbs it's worth letting the plants gain a fair bit of height if you have it available. You could have 6 or 9 plants under each bulb. The more plants you have the shorter the veg time will be, but the more work you have to put in. Generally you could have almost any number of plants, and have the size of each of them to match the area they have available That's a very big grow to be using coco, have you considered hydro? It's a lot less work
Thanks for the reply GoldG. Can you explain what you mean by more work and big grow for coco? I'm thinking it would be less work since I'm only mixing notes once a week and automatic feed schedule. Also, I'm growing in rockwool cubes now but hand feeding. Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
Setting it up and on clean up day after harvest you have to deal with all that coco. Most hydro set ups have much less root medium to deal with. Plus you only need to mix and adjust nutes around once a week or even less if you have a very large reservoir or top up tank Coco can only be used a few times because it eventually starts to break down. It's not a bad system but once it gets to a certain size I find most people usually opt for something like DWC, F&D, or drip irrigation
When setting the timer for the irrigation make sure you have allowed some time for the coco to dry out a bit. Having plenty of air to the roots is so important if you want big yields. I'm no expert on coco though so I'm probably not the best guy to talk to. I have tried it but it wasn't suitable for my needs. I'm more of a DWC guy. I'm sorta lazy and like the least amount of work possible. I hope I haven't put you off coco, my last few posts sounds a bit pushy now I read them over again