I'm about to begin building the box for my grow and I will be able to build it to what I need. I don't really have limitations on space my only choke point is the 400watt hps/mh light. I want to maximize this lights ability to produce buds and originaly thought a 4 plant scrog would be best. I'll have a mother and would pull 12 clones and pick the best 4 to flower. This would be done in a large custom DWC container blah blah .. but as I thought about it more. What if I go with about a 40-50 plant SOG. I would use these 6.25" pots (.75 gal) and flower the clones within a week of being rooted. I would probably switch to a flood/drain system for this. I'm would also consider coco and a drip system. What do you all think? Both would be a bit of work to maintain but again I'm trying to make the most of the light and maximize yeilds.
I think 40-50 plants for a 400 watt light is to much. I'd go with the scrog but lets see what others say
4 plant SCROG is the best with a 400w light, you should get a decent yield. The only drawback to SCROG is that you will need to let your plants veg for a considerable amount of time to allow the screen to fill in. You will be repaid in the end though. Kryptic is right, 40-50 plants is way too much for a 400w light and .75 gallon pots would be way to small for a mature plant. I think you should do a little more research before you go any further. Good luck.
I dunno. You can do amazing things with these plants. I've done alot of reading. Why is 40 plants too many? 6.25" pots .. in a row of 7x7 = 3.6ftx3.6ft = 49 plants. Or am I just too stoned to do math?
Ok I did more reading. Specifically on using sog and the density of plants involved. I read that 1 plant per sqft is a good rule of thumb. That being said I will upgrade to either 8" or 10" square pots and cut the number of plants down to perhaps 36 (8" pots, 4'x4' area). If I need the 10" I'll just do 25 plants. Does this seem more logical/practical?
The diameter of the pot doesnt matter, it is the volume. You will probably need at least a 1 gallon pot, at the VERY least. There is a good chance of them getting rootbound though. Also the general rule is 100 watts per plant so you would need about 4000w to efficiently grow 40 plants. Anything less would be a waste of time. I am growing 8 plants under a 400w HPS in a 3.5x3.5 area and that is cutting it real close. If you've never grown weed before look around at some people's journals or something to get an idea of how the plant grows. If you want to grow a bunch of small scraggly ass plants then do 40 under a 400w HPS and you can call it a really expensive gardening lesson. Your choice . Good luck man.
I agree with the OP, I think that you can get more yield from doing SOG than 4 decent sized plants. Say he does 36 clones, 12/12 from the time they show roots. Maybe veg a week or two at most. If you figure he can probably get 3/8 to 1/2 oz per plant that's 13.25-18 oz, With 4 decent sized plants, I would estimate from 2-3.5 oz per plant doing the 4 plants, meaning 8-14 oz. I could be wrong, but this is how I'm looking at it. Even if my estimates are off and the 4 plant scrog yields say 16 oz compared to 14 oz for SOG, the difference in veg time required to fill the screen, IMO, makes up for it. And all of this doesn't take into account that it's easier to do a perpetual harvest with SOG.
My last grow was 48 kush in 2 gal pots under 3 600w lumatek digitals. Solar max bulbs and ultra pro light reflectors. I got 3 pounds 3 1/2 ounces. I did 5 rows wide by 9 rows long with 3 left over at one end. If I did again I might squeeze in one or 2 more rows. 55 max. You just have to rotate plants around alot and prune 3-4 times. Good luck
Awesome info. Thank you. edit: i ran the numbers. if i do 12 plants in sog i should yeild about 10oz. i think i'll do this as my final descision. I'm going to do a 9 (3x3) plant sog under my 400watt and see what the yeilds are, a trial run for my setup. I will then do a 16 plant sog and see which harvest yeilds more. I will then decide on an amount of plants and setup a staggered harvest of every 2 weeks. Hoping to bring away at least an oz a week from this trial. 1g/watt is the goal right? I should be able to turn out a lb every 8-9 weeks. This would be amazing.
1 gram/watt is rarely achieved but yes it is the ultimate goal. I've only seen a few people acheive this. Hopefully people that have will chime in.
Can anyone else weight in on this for me? I'll be starting my build in just a few days now and want to get everything planned out. 12-16 plants. SOG under 400watt. I'm looking for at least a HP every harvest; once I get dialed in I hope we can push that up to a full 453grams (1lb). We'll see how green my thumb is. :]
well I commend your efforts LBH...all's I can say is dont get your hopes set on a particular final weight, this will lead to dissappointment in the end...Goals are good...but they do not account for all that can and will happen during your first few grows. Its hard to hear people saying they harvest 3lbs and not want the same(I mean hell we all want that big harvest) but a new grower must take into account that alot of these guys that state they harvest big yeilds, have most likely been growing for sometime and have thier systems dialed in. Growing takes time/practice and most of all patience. Good luck on the grow.