Hi there I'm still learning about growing and oh boy is there a lot to learn ! And what an interesting and extensive subject, I'm pleasantly surprised. I used to think all it took to grow was a seed, a pot, some water and a lot of sun ahahahah ! I'd like your advices on a few things. I am thinking of making a grow room of, apologies for the very precise measurement but I live in europe and have no idea what those means they're right off a converter, 6ft 1011⁄16in x 4ft 33⁄16in. Or, in the metric system, 210cm x 130cm. I would like to know how many plants I could realistically stuff in there and have a good harvest with. Perhaps twenty ? Maybe a bit less, something like 15 ? The walls will be covered with reflective mylar, if I had about 15 to 20 plants, would a single 600 watts HPS be enough ? I have a lot more questions but I'll keep on searching for those and will come back and ask them if I find no definite answer. Thanks a lot ! Oh, and the plants will be feminized Northern Lights !
I don't know how many plants you could fit in that space, but you'd need more than 600watts. You're probably looking at more like 1000, at least.
I see, then if you say "at least", would two 600 watts lights make sure that I have well enough light to make my plants happy ?
Yes, two 600W is the way to go. 600W are the most efficient HID lighting, so 2 600W will be excellent. The number of plants in your box depends on the size of the pots and the size of the plants. It sounds like you plan on flowering lots of smaller plants vs a few big plants.
Well in your experience what would be the best for greater yield ? I'm wondering if having 10 with room to grow is as good as having 20 of them that are overcrowded.
It just depends on what you want to do. Some people do fewer, but bigger, plants. Others do a larger number of smaller plants. I do the latter since I have limited space and smaller plants are easier for me to manage. 10 with room to grow will definitely be better than 20 overcrowded. Overcrowded is never a good thing, plus it can increase your odds of fungal and pest problems in flowering. You are working with a space that is about 24 square feet. You are going to need to have room to move around in there, so let's call your usable flowering space about 18 sq ft. If you do 1 plant per square foot, you could put 18 plants in there (you would need 2 600W to do this). What is the height of your space? This will help determine what style would be best.
12" across is gonna be a tight little canopy, I think you're going to get far more yield if you shoot for 18" or so
^I agree, you want more space than that. I wasn't very clear, I meant that as an illustration of the max number of plants for that space.
My setup right now is 6 plants in a 3' (36") by 4.5' (54") room. Eventually that's going to mean a 2x3 grid of 18"x18" blocks, should be just right for 10-12" pots
The height is unset ! I was actually wondering how tall I should make it ! I plan on actually building a little grow room in my bedroom and the ceiling goes up to 3 meters which is 9ft 10 1⁄8in. I have no idea how high the ceiling of my grow room should be ! So you guys think I COULD use 18 plants, but SHOULD use less so it isn't too crowded. How about 15 plants ? How does that sound ? Would using 15 plants leave at least 18" between them ? I really really really don't understand this system apologies about that ahahah Or could it be that I should use less plants ?
If you want to leave 18" between them, you definitely don't want to go over 15 plants. 12 sounds better. Still depends on how big you plan on growing your plants. The best thing to do is to get your pots and put them on the floor of your room so you can map it out. Ultimately, you will be able to make a better decision than any of us since you are most familiar with your space. As far as height goes, the more height the better IMO
Number of plants is much more a function of growing style than of space. Think about square feet (about 29 in your case) and make sure you are well lit across the entire area you will be growing in (you may or may not choose to grow all the way to the walls). You want 50-100watts per sq ft with HID (note: this rule does not translate to CFLs), so to light that whole room wall-to-wall will take a bit more than 2x600w. Once you know your grow area, then determine how you want to fill it. You literally could fill that space with anywhere from a few plants to nearly 500 -- and yield about the same either way. Basically, to fill a space with fewer larger plants will take a long veg time and training such as LST and/or scrog. This is a good strategy when growing from seed (assuming seeds are costly). To fill a space with more small plants you can pack them into a SOG and skip the veg stage completely. This is a good strategy when you have a good setup with one or more perpetual mothers and a nice cloning op. It's the quickest way to harvest so is a favorite approach of commercial growers. With either approach, what you want to end up with is a nice even canopy of tops. In fact, it should get to the point where, looking at your grow from above, you may not even be able to tell how many plants there are, all you see is an uninterrupted expanse of tops. Whether their branches connect to many small stems in separate pots or to a handful of thick stems in larger pots doesn't matter much from the standpoint of the canopy, which will be your harvest. You also asked about height, you don't need any more height than you find comfortable for yourself to move around in there. To make the inverse square law work to your favor you don't want tall plants under artificial light, you want to flatten the plants out so that all the tops are up in the even canopy, all close to the light.
Thanks a LOT for the answers, they're all very helpful ! This really helps me learn and oh boy there's a lot to learn ! Alright then, for my first time I'll use only 10 plants since I can buy them by 10. Toasty, then you recommend more light than 2x600w ? Dang ! What do you think it should be, 2x600w and a 400w in the middle of the ceiling ? I hope that won't be too much light, it does sound like a lot ! You tell me about two different methods, LST and SOG. I don't think I can do the SOG though as you tell me that I need one or more perpetual mothers and I'd need to clone, can't do that with no plants at all ! Ahahahah So I'll probably go with the LST. For my fellow newbies reading the thread that would want to learn more about it, here are tutorials for both methods http://forum.grasscity.com/plant-training/122936-how-lst-low-stress-training.html http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-marijuana-growing/186995-sog-bible.html Your advices makes a lot of sense toasty, indeed I should make sure the tops are even so that there's no plants that keep the light away from the others, they oughta play nice with each other ahahahah That means there would be a lot of trimming involved I suppose ? Man, the more I learn about this, the more I'm excited ! I really can't wait ahahahah Addendum: For the height of the ceiling, well, if I understood it well, indoor Northern Lights don't grow bigger than a man so I guess I'll make the room just high enough so that my head can't hit the lights ? I'm not the tallest of guys anyway, 176cm / 5ft9 19⁄64in So I guess probably around 2 meters / 6ft6 3⁄4in ? By the way, what do you think of my strain choice ? I shall get it here http://weedseedshop.com/cannabis-seeds/feminized/northern-lights-feminized Seems like a good price !
Adding some more things from my research ! I found that apparently, Sensi seeds are critically acclaimed and users call their Northern Lights the best there is. Problem, it's twice the usual price for 10 seeds ! Damn ! I should buy them only when I went through my first trial of fire. Northern Lights Feminised Seeds I've got another question. If I do get the setup 2x600w 1x400w, should I use the same amount of lights in the vegetative stage and the flowering stage ? I'm still searching for the answer but I doubt it. I understood that HPS lights were best for the flowering stage, and could be used for the vegetative stage, however, MH lights are deemed by Greg Green as better for the vegetation stage. Could I perhaps get 2x600w HPS, and get an MH light powerful enough to be sufficient during the vegetative stage and good enough to supply the little extra amount of light that the two HPS need ? Or is it not possible and I need the entire light set-up during the vegetative stage and should settle for three HPS lights ?
You can get a digital ballast that will allow you to run both HPS and MH. Then all you have to buy are the bulbs. And you don't need as much light during veg. This is why people can veg with CFLs and then flower with an HPS. But yea, go ahead and get a digital ballast that lets you run both types of bulbs. HTH
Alright ! Thanks ! Any pointers on the amount of light 10 veg plants would need with MH lights ? Same wattage as the flowering plants ?
Two six hundreds are not gonna be enough for twenty plants if your using large buckets. Five gallons are what I use I have a five by four area and I have two sixs. I get about two pounds dry a little more from eight plants and the eight take up every inch of space in the room. Although if you flowered clones the moment they root you could fit an assload in there. 2 600s will bring eight plants to full fruition. Also don't forget keep the plants shorter in the four foot range because you'll only get three solid feet of penetration with a six
Vegging plants can get away with less light. You could veg the ten with one six and flower with two sixs
Oh, oh, Numbnutts, I checked out your thread and I absolutely love it ! I see ! I only have one foot over you for my grow so perhaps I should use that extra foot for easier access, or perhaps a little bigger buckets ? I'll copy you ahahahah, then perhaps once I get more experience I'll be able to dare to do something different. So if I use eight plants, I should need only two 600w ? That is pretty kickass. I'd rather have a small amount of very happy plants with big yields than a lot of unhappy plant with under average yields. I want my plants to be happy ! It actually interest me to do less than ten plants, since apparently not all seeds manage to sprout, so I'll have some left to fall back on in case one doesn't. By the way, could you throw my way a few advices that I might not find in the Cannabis Grow Bible of Greg Green ? (By the way, for other newbies reading this: This book is pretty great ! We should all read it !) Also, I've been hesitating between two strains, ak-47 and Northern Lights, taking into account that I've got a carbon filter already, which would you recommend ? Any specific strain origin ? Oh man oh man, apologies about the waterfall of questions but I'm so very excited, I am just about ready to build the grow room and this is all so very fun Thanks a lot everybody, you guys rock !