Hi, the most efficient method of maximizing yield - grams per watt that I know is vertical aero/hydro. It can achieve 2g/watt or even more. The question is: can I beat that? Is it possible to get 3g per watt with other method? Vertical seems to be very optimised and logical, almost not beatable. Then I came up with this idea: vertical gives so great results by increasing growing area with the same lamp count. Bigger growing area is followed by increasing the plants amount and yield. However vertical is still limited by a surface area of a plants cylinder surrounding the lamp. Imagine a room that is 4m x 2.4m (13.11' x 7.87'). Imagine a 20cm (8") square pot 5.7l (1.5 gallon). You can fit 480 clones/plants with this area. Above the plants just one 1000w or even 600w on a mover. Most of you will start now to scream hey! You're insane, you need at least 4x 1000w to cover the place of this size!!! I know that! I know I won't have 100g (3.5oz) per plant like most of you is trying to have. I know I won't have 50g per plant. Shit, I'm not expecting even to get 20g. But how about averaging 6.25g (0.2oz) from one clone? It isn't much but when we multiply that number we get 480 * 6.25 = 3000g! Astonishing 3kg (6.61 pound) with a single 1000w lamp on a mover that gives amazing 3g/watt. Same with 600w hps - how about average of 3.75g (0.14oz) from one plant? Plant won't get enough light but 3.75g isn't much! It's just a little but 3.75 * 480 gives a big number of 1.8kg (3.97 pound) and again 3g/watt. I know I can get a lot more than 3kg or 1.8kg with proper lightning on such area but it is not my goal. With this kind of growing you are sacrificing space in order to maximize yield from a lamp. I have a question to all experienced growers. How far or how close are my calculations from truth? I need your opinion and constructive criticism. The numbers are just taken from my head, it can be more or less, I'm asking rather about this kind of method. Happy growing!
Sure that's enough space for small clones but what happens when they root and stretch out a bit, then you have 480 small plants, not to mention maintaining that many plants? Unless you have some fool proof method of cloning, getting all 480 to root would be hard, some would fail, so assuming at least 1/10 fails to root, you're going to need 528 plants to acheive your 480. And where are you gonna get 480 clones? You're gonna need a hell of a lot of mother plants. It's like communism, looks good on paper, but doesn't quite work the way you'd like
Up to a point it works great. But at some point you start to battle with the law of diminishing returns (and it's a lot of work/automation). I've ran a similar system with increasingly amazing yields up to a point. Then, as more plants get added, the yield starts to taper off again. It's all about maximizing your lamp's zone of maximum efficiency. For a 600W lamp, you have about 2' to play with (the "Goldilocks zone"). If you can top/train your plants to have all their buds within this zone, you can increase yield. You can then push up the number of plants within a certain space to see at which point yield starts to drop off. Then pull back on the number of plants slightly and you have your optimum number of plants/pot size for the system. There are a number of factors at work, from the root mass volume, to the crowding effect. Also, every strain reacts slightly differently to crowding/topping/pruning, so you need to tailor the system to match the strain(s) you are working with. -mu