So I've been thinking... I have a few too many plants in my tent than I'd like, 14 medium to large sized plants, just starting flowering under 600w hps in a 4x4x7. Now, I've heard people saying Xg/watt is the best you can yield. This got me thinking, what if I split them in two groups and have my light always on, then rotate the two groups of plants between the 600w tent and a dark, ventilated room? Based on Xg/watt, wouldn't that mean I would get twice as much bud from each plant if I did that? IK,IK, no pics for now because i don't have a camera, but out of the 14 plants: 7 are LSTd and fully matured (they grow single leaf nodes) in 12" pots, 4 are a bit smaller (and LSTd) in 10" pots, and 3 are 8" pots growing straight up (with about 5-6 nodes). Amazingly they all make an even canopy. They're in a 4x4 area so there's about 0.25sqft of free space when the pots are all packed in there. They just started flowering and I fear they're going to strangle each other, stretch, grow rot, all the above if i don't take some out... but what a waste! Also, 12 are female and 2 are still unknown. All in all, would it be worth switching the pots every 12 hours for the next 60 days and doubling my electric bill, or is the g/watt logic not applicable here?
if they all fit in the tent and get good light i wouldnt worry about swapping them out.. you wont double the yield from doing that just your electric bill. the plants will have more room though but if they fit, use the space you have. filling the tent completely will maximize g/watt ratio. ex. if you put 1 plant in a 600watt light thats growing straight up then you would have less grams/watt than if you had say, 10 plants in the tent under the same 600watt light, you would have about 10x the grams per watt. then say if you had a 1k watt light with the same plants you would have a higher yield than the 600watt in most cases. if you could fill the tent completely twice then that would just mean you get to harvest more plants with 1 room. you would still be burning the same amount of watts for each set of plants but you would have more since you would be flowering twice as many plants..
I see what your saying and its clear there must be a limit to how many plants will effectively raise the yield while not diminishing quality of the bud and environment; I'm worried these 12-noded mature LST bushes will only get bushier, then they won't fit anymore and get the proper light. A picture would help, but basically they just began flowering and even in these massive pots, no soil gets hit directly by the light. I've never done LST before so i don't know the direction these plants will continue to grow, and if the sideshoots off these side shoots will start going nuts. Its mostly BC Big Bud btw (and a few misc), 65/35 indica/sativa
if they do start to shadow each other and not get good direct lighting then that would be a great idea if you had a "dark room" for their night time. when you lst it usually grows out in the same direction(toward the light) until its completely sideways then it will grow upward and all of the side growth will come up also making it more bushy. if you lst you could completely fill out the room with 2 sets of plants and maximize your yield per watt.
The lstd plants in the big 12" pots all have about 10-15 large sideshoots coming straight up off the main stem, and each of those are about 2-4 nodes. Just how bushy will this monster get? Because as of now, there's about 1sqft per plant in the tent, think I'll need more for them? lol My other minor concern is smell for the ones in the "dark room"... i don't have two carbon filters, so its going to stink up the dark room and everything else too. I do have mmj auth though, so getting caught by the cops isn't the issue, more of a landlord/other tenants thing.
You don't want to hassle with shuffling your plants in and out of that tent twice a day every twelve hours on the dot every day for the next couple of months...
called flip box and youd need another tent and another hood and bulb and it works and your ballat will last alott longer without on and off but double ytour elec tric comsupmtion for the light
I should add, either me or my room mate is awake and with them every time they switch from dark to light - its 10am and 10pm. And since their light is alternating, once I start this it would be less than ideal to mess with one of the groups' light schedule twice and revert back to all in one tent, so I couldn't just switch back for a week to give myself a break. It seems like the ones on the outskirts just don't have the light they need though - some have stretched a bit more than they should and the smaller ones just aren't growing as big as they should. In terms of labor, I already check on my plants about twice a day, and try to water every other day (not quite enough to make any runoff water, but then I flush every couple weeks pretty well), and with so many plants in there I already have to take 4-5 out to reach the back ones to LST them, trim dead leaves, water/feed, etc. The precision in timing the 12/12 right will be tricky, but all-in-all I don't think it would be a lot more work, just more demanding. Even if one group of plants gets 11 hours of light and the other 13, some people actually do that on purpose during flowering (and maybe this could make for a nice side-by-side experiment of 11/13 and 13/11 haha). In nature there is never the same amount of light; granted, its always decreasing for this purpose but I don't think it'll turn them into post-op tranies lol so basically... Good: * More [direct] light for each plant (~100w per plant, 50w more than before) to hopefully increase yield (but more importantly, quality) * Better airflow/lower humidity (right now RH=60-65%, future issues like bud rot) * No more damage to leaves/shoots due to pots slammed together in a grow area too small * More space to allow the intake to vent into the fan, rather than right in front of a plant (and the leaves are beginning to grow over the cool-air intake) * I found my dark tent - a table (legs on chairs if necessary) with some black trashbags and/or a tarp over it, very cheap and easy * .... Bad: * In the next 60 days, I'll have to move 1680 pots back and forth between the grow tent and dark tent with almost perfect precision (14 plants * 2 x per day * 60 days). * Smell will be spewing from the dark tent without a carbon filter (maybe I could make one of the DIY ones?) * 190% of the electrical usage (but same as when I was vegging with 24/0) * .... In order to keep this op profitable and running through the winter, I need a little under a pound (assuming decent quality). If you think this can help me get a pound off this grow, I think I'll have no choice but to do it.
Solved the smell problem - I purchased this yesterday and got it today, this thing works GREAT! [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach-TrueAir-Room-Eliminator/dp/B002SHCEVG/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top]Amazon.com: Hamilton Beach TrueAir Room Odor Eliminator: Home & Garden[/ame] For my night room, I have a fan blowing air out and another oscillating within, but no carbon filter. Three days later, my entire (800-900sqft) apartment has a massive smell (like a wall of stank when you walk in)... thirty minutes after plugging this thing in near the exhaust and the smell is GONE. They also sell tobacco filters for this, and I'll try those out after these are used up, but it does still leave a slight odor after it tries to clean smoke. Given that it will clean the air more than once (compared to an exhaust carbon filter), I think it is good enough. Anyways, nice $30 solution IMO.