Hi, I’m a new member and first-time grower getting ready for his first grow. I have designed a cabinet set-up and planned my grow. I hope to detail the design and plan in this looooong post and request criticism, advice, feedback, or comments from any and all readers with cannabis cultivation knowledge and experience who could help guide my first effort. To all who take the time to read this tome and respond, first let me say that I am not surprised by your altruism. Since joining the medical cannabis community recently and having dealt with many people in the legit and grey market cannabis industries after decades of knowing only the black market, I have learned that there is no better, more honest and honourable, more willing to lend a hand or impart knowledge, more exemplary in their business practices, or more downright friendly than the cannabis community whether they be recreational or medical users. Here’s to us. We freakin’ ROCK! And, second, that your help is GREATLY appreciated. Rest assured, I will one day pay it forward. THE PLAN My set-up will consist of 1 (one) 42”(wide) x 42”(deep) x 60”(high) veg/flower cabinet, 1 (one) 48”(w) x 30”(d) x 48”(h) mother plant cabinet, and 1 (one) 48”(w) x 30”(d) x 24”(h) clone propagation unit. The plants in the veg/flower cabinet will take up 12 sq. ft. of floor space - perfect for 1 (one) 600W HID HPS grow light. The plan is to eventually grow a 4 plant per sq. ft. (single cola) SOG organically and in soil. I will start with feminized, photoperiod seeds. Perhaps you think going organic is ambitious for a first grow. If so, please make your case. I will start by purchasing feminized Skunk and/or Northern Lights and/or Kush strains as they are widely considered the easiest, hardiest, least fussy plants for a first-timer. I will start with a handful of seeds (as many as I can afford). I will take all viable and healthy seedlings and place them in the veg/flower cabinet under either a 24/0 or an 18/6 light regimen (depending largely on your feedback). Obviously, this first grow will not be a full one. Is it necessary to sex feminized seeds? Any advice, suggestions on sexing little plants? Blue light during veg? Cuttings? Other? After a week (or when plants have reached 10” – 12” in height – again this decision will be based on your feedback), two plants will be removed from the veg/flower cabinet and placed in the mother plant cabinet while the rest will remain in the veg/flower cabinet and will, at this time, be switched to a 12/12 light regimen. I would be grateful for advice or suggestions regarding lighting for 2 mother plants in a 48”(w) x 30”(d) x 48”(h) space. I will likely bonsai the mother plants. Flowering plants will be carefully lollipopped and any suitable cuttings prepared and placed in the propagation chamber. I am hopeful this will give me enough clones for the second harvest so that the mother plants can continue to develop unmolested. I will flower for [x] weeks and harvest. Here again I would be grateful for input. I have read people flowering SOGs for anywhere from a few weeks to two months to the time necessary for the plants to “reach their floral zenith”. I am hopeful that a bountiful harvest will be achievable with only 4 weeks of flowering. Reasonbable? I am using HPS lights for both veg and flower because Ed Rosenthal obliquely recommends it in his Marijuana Grower’s Handbook. “Gardeners often combine HPS and MH lamps because they think blue light from the MH keeps the stems stouter and shorter. But any benefit is likely to be far less than they would suppose. The red light from an HPS does NOT cause plants to stretch. Stretching is caused by FAR-RED LIGHT and HPS lamps do NOT emit light in those wavelengths. Confusion about this stems from how similar the light from incandescent lamps and HPS lamps LOOK [to the human eye]. Both emit visible light primarily in the yellow, orange, and red wavelengths, so gardeners confuse the spectrums of the two lamps. But [the truth is] incandescent lamps emit more far-red than visible light and HPS lamps don’t” Anyone disagree with this? During flowering, I plan to use the HPS plus one or two CFL UVB reptile lights for 2 hours per cycle. This appears to be a relatively new, but demonstrably effective, way to increase the potency of cannabis. It appears that the plant uses THC as a sunscreen so when the plant is exposed to UVB during flowering, the trichomes create more THC to protect it from those rays! Anyone have any experience with UVB in their grow? I’d LOVE to use the new EYE Hortilux PowerVEG FS+UV T5 HO Fluorescents but I can’t get ‘em in Canada unless I buy the box of 20 (like $1000) so CFLs it must be. I will use 1 (one) small Green Pad CO2 generator per week to increase CO2 ppm in the grow cabinet. Ed Rosenthal’s book has convinced me that the earth’s atmosphere contains the bare minimum for bud development and that one of these little CO2 sacs will increase density, frostiness, and yield of the nugs! Thoughts? I will use a six inch cool hood reflector with a six inch blower to vent the light. I will vent the cabinet with a six inch sucker attached to a carbon filter. One or two small oscillating fans will circulate air from the bottom of the cabinet. The light’s fan will be electronically regulated with a thermostat controller in an effort to keep the temperature as constant as possible. I don’t believe there will be a need to electronically control the humidity but I will have a hygrometer in the cabinet and will monitor and, if necessary, remediate the humidity as necessary. Does this seem about right? Overkill? Not enough? for this size of cabinet as regards ventilation, temperature and humidity control? I am requesting generous readers to assess my plan critically and respond with any and all criticism with special attention, if I may be so bold, to my questions. But please do not hesitate to provide any feedback you’d like. THE DESIGN Attached is an image of my veg/flower cabinet design. If I could further impose, you might give it a glance and provide further criticism. I am extremely grateful to any and all who grace me with valuable criticism. Cheers to you all!
hi friend. I'm here to help I'm gonna pick out a few things I see...don't be offended, just sharing my opinion based on experience. It's very obvious you've done your homework and you're off to a great start. I grow on a fairly small scale, and I do things a little different. First off, I think you could get away with a much smaller area for mothers and clones. Once you're up and running and things are running smooth, you will have no problems over growing your mother plants and having an excess of clones. I would actually suggest just making 2 separate cabinets....one for flowering, and one for mothers, veg, and clones. Imo this would reduce the amount of equipment, building and engineering involved. ...Should you need more room later you can always add on..and at that point you will be a better builder then you were when you started. I keep my mothers and clones tiny...I keep my mothers in 4"x4" pots and grow them a max of 8" tall. I'm able to pull several clones off each mother every week (unless making a fresh mother plant). I also do up to about a dozen clones in a single cup of coco, mostly to save on work and space as well. I'm not saying you have to do things on this small of a scale...but don't feel like you need giant mother plants to keep you clones supplied, mine are tiny and I still throw away a dozen or more clones every week or 2. I would dedicate probably 75% of your grow area to flowering...the other 25% is plenty for veg as long as things are going smooth(imo). If you do plan on going with a single HID cabinet to both veg and flower, I highly suggest going with a MH for veg and HPS for flower. I love ED, but times have changed and his info is mostly out dated. I don't know exactly about the red light things he's mentioning...but hps certainly will stretch a plant more then a MH. Ed is a great dude and knows alot, but I am certain that there are growers here at GC that know far more then him, he's just one dude. I own a few of his books and he's great read for a new grower...but you're on the internet where tons of live ppl can help you! Try not to get hung up on a book that can't respond back ya know what I mean? Ask almost any hid grower here...the majority of them will tell you to use mh for veg. It is possible to veg under hps yes, but better results under MH for sure. If you take this route I suggest a electronic dimmable ballast that can run both. Maybe look into the newer cmh bulbs that ppl are raving about. I've run 400w cmh in the past with great results... Lately I've been converting my lighting over to COB leds...and even though I've talked all this stuff on hids, in the end I fully recommend building COB lights if you want top of the line lighting and lower heat. The initial costs are a little bit higher then a simple hid set-up.. but the efficiency will pay for itself on electricity savings. If this is something that interests you look into growmau5's videos on youtube. He has a whole diy video series that explains cobs and how to set them up. Start to finish for the newb. I put off building my own lights for years until I saw those videos.I quicky realized it was way easier then I thought (no soldering)...and a week or 2 later I've converted most of my lighting over to cobs and couldn't be happier. on fem seeds- They will 99% be fems...but still keep an eye out for the occasional hermie that might be caused either from genetics or stress. If a plant stresses and pops some male flowers, it can seed and ruin the whole crop...I mean it's still smokeable, but you don't wanna deal with that. Don't worry about co2...that's something that can come later when you get everything else dialed in. Only add co2 when it's your weakest link in the grow....that's probably years down the road and requires a different type of airflow set up to utilize the co2 properly. If your airflow isn't properly set up to run co2 it will all just get sucked straight out the vent through the exhaust. You money and efforts are much better spent on other equipment and skills first. There is plenty of co2 in the normal air to grow big fat buds! Just look around! on the fan/filter - you want this to run all the time in order to maintain negative pressure in the box. This is what keeps the smell from leaking out. I recommend a decent fan controller (variac) to be able to adjust airflow and temps. Cheapo speed controllers work, but sometimes create a weird vibration that can make the fan extra pud when you turn it down. So if noise is an issue go with a variac style speed controller. Plan on going overkill for the fan and dialing it down...imo this works much better and allows room for flexibility later if there is a heat wave or cold spell. Overkill is under rated. high humidity might become an issue in flower. When the plants get big they start to produce quite a bit of their own humidity. If air is being exhausted to the outside that will remove most of it. But if you are exhausting to inside the same room as the box, then you might need to look into a/c or a dehumidifier if humidity is staying over 50-60% ..plants will grow well...but the issue is that mold or budrot can set in quite quickly in high humidity. Especially when you're growing big fat buds. if you have the time or get bored, check out some of those growmau5 diy videos on youtube....I think my best piece of advice is to go with cobs rather then HID...but that's just my opinion of course. Most anyone that's grown with cobs will probably recommend the same though You know they must work well when pretty much anyone that has used them will be like "yes use them! please! I'll help you set it all up!" ... but of course that more work, more research...and I totally understand if ya just wanna throw a hid in there for simplicity. You can always upgrade later ..if you need lightproof vents for the intake area I recommend 'scrubninja style lighttraps' ...very cheap low profile and easy to make. As far as I know there is no better lighttrap option out there...scrubninja needs to patent that shit for sure. ...fuck. sorry I type so much. Just trying to get it all out there.... *my motherplants and how I clone is detailed in my thread.
Awesome feedback, Bongsauce, many thanks. Point taken about all my eggs in Ed's basket. Rest assured, I seek education from all sources. Did do some research on the CMH bulbs. Sounded interesting 'til I got to the price research. I did do some research into LEDs including COBs everything I could find (I'll look for sources) indicated that the spectra couldn't possibly be complete. Wavelength gaps etc. It's an argument about which you're probably aware. I'd love your input on the matter. Ah. I see your point immediately about the CO2. You need to place the bags high because the gas is heavier than air but the circulating fans are low and the out vent is high. The CO2 goes right from the bag to the carbon filter . . . well except for those 17 molecules that hit that leaf over there :-D It's obvious that if I insist on CO2, I have to change my whole design. Nice catch! Again, thanks for the catch on the air. I was thinking only temp. Of course I don't want all that humidity being sucked back into the cab. So to recap, Bongsauce says: Smaller area for moms and propagation which both now go in one cabinet Two smaller moms are easier to handle than large ones and will provide enough clones for a 12sqft SOG turning over every 5 to 6 weeks Strong recommendation to use both MH along with HPS lights (rather than HPS alone) if going HID Recommendation to get COBs if feasible with a suggestion that everyone who's tried 'em unreservedly recommends 'em No CO2 for amateurs. Dial that shyte in when I've advanced enough to get a positive ROI Variac controller and Overkill on ventilation. Allows more flexibility both ways and you get added quality to boot Agree? Disagree? Members please feel welcome to weigh in. Bongsauce, thanks for takin' the time, man. Truly appreciate the wisdom. EDIT: Thanks for the clone tutorial, 'Sauce.
I'm always happy to help. Great summary I disagree on the spectrum thing. Most all of spectrum arguments are based off of the chlorophyll a&b charts from the 1950's.. These charts are very misleading because they only account for chlorophyll A&B and don't take into account all the other terpines and stuff that canna produces. I used to be really into the whole a&b charts and trying to align the led array to try to mimic it...but in the long run white leds are generally way more efficient at putting out light and overall I have way better results under 3500k cobs then I did with the blue/red mix panels. That's a topic for a whole nother thread though...we could talk all day about numbers and charts, but at the end of the day the plants decide what light they prefer. Overall, try to keep things simple..there's plenty of time for experimentation an innovation later. I always think it's best to just find someone that is doing exactly what you are doing with great success (same area, same lights, same goals) and just copy them. If you want to throw your own spin on it later, or customize it to more suit your needs you can always get to that later. Getting up and running in a solid system is key though. The greatest thing about these forums is you can search and find a thread then breeze through 6+ months of someone's work/lessons in just an hour or so..quickly learning all the errors they made along the way. That's how I got started...I spent probably a week reading through stinkbud's thread at rui...that was like 9 years ago and I still utilize info I learned in that thread.
Thanks for nuttin', Bongsauce! Had finalized my decision to just simple it up and go for the HIDs. But NOOOOOOOO. You had to point me to growmau5 and inspire me to more research on COBs. Now I gotta rethink the whole thing . . . . again. grrrrrrrrrrr :-D Fascinating controversy. The COBs promise many benefits and if there were no controversy, it'd be a no-brainer to go with 'em. Now, it seems that the bio-physics indicates conclusively that there are wavelength gaps that should be meaningful with respect to PAR wavelengths yet virtually ALL anecdotal accounts from growers support your position. I believe it behooves one to always be suspicious of anecdotal "evidence" but I also believe that when it is overwhelmingly in favour of one proposition or another, one would be a fool to ignore it. I feel that, because of the controversy and the complexity of a technology I do not yet fully understand, I'll end up just going simple with HIDs but I'm gonna allow myself a couple of extra days to learn more about COBs before I rule them out for my first attempt. Thanks again for that awesome feedback.