ok, first time grower here, im gonna throw my whole plan here to see what yall think. I have been reading on here for months trying to learn as much as i can. I plan on having a box for veg and a box for flowering. The veg box will be able to hold two plants in 5 gallon buckets, flower box will be able to hold four 5 gallon buckets. I would like each plant to go from seed to harvest in 3 months roughly. I plan to start two plants and veg for 3 weeks, then throw them in the flower box, which would give me up to about 68ish days to flower (sound reasonable?) So with that said, right when i move those two plants out the veg box, i would start two more right away and veg them for 3 weeks and move them and keep the cycle going. THen i would have 4 plants in the flower box, two plants half way threw flower, and two new ones. Then when I harvest the first two, two more will be ready to start flowering (do you follow me?) That way I would have a two plant harvest almost every month. In the veg box, I would have 4 60ish watt 6500k-5500k CFLs(Or would you reccomend more lights and less wattage per light). I also plan on LST'ing and topping to increase yeild In the flower box, I would like to do a HPS but am worried about heat since it will be in an enclosed box, but not air tight. What do you all think? Last thing, if vegging for 3 weeks then going into flower mode, how much would you predict each plant to yeild? Keep in mind i will be lst'ing and topping to get as many bud sites as possible For anyone who actually read all this, u must be high hahaha. but no really, i would really like any feedback and suggestions
I think your plan looks pretty good! Just for info sake, what you're referring to technique wise is called "SoG" or "Sea of Green". You would want more lights with less wattage in order to spread the light out more to accommodate multiple plants, with your plan of having 4 plants in flowering at any time, I think your lighting would be just fine. HPS for flowering is GREAT, but as you stated heat WILL be an issue. We're not in your head so, we have NO WAY of saying what your heat will be like! Yield will be a WILD GUESS no matter what! Give it a shot and get your first grow under your belt, then make an educated guess as to your next yield based on what you can improve upon! Good Luck!
You need to check temp of the surrounding area also to determine the amount of water needed if you get the plant too hot it will die. There is never to many lights as long as you have them spaced right. It will take bout 2-3 weeks for your plant to start to sprout out of the soil. If you want to harvest in 68 days your plants won't be full size. I suggest you wait 3 months then when you see amber hairs/fibers you harvest it.
I was thinkin 3 weeks from the day it sprouted. But now that i think about it, that might not even be enough time. I would like to get a good size yeild off these plants
Yeah, 3 weeks isn't enough to do everything you're thinking of. Now I've never topped, so I can't really speak from personal experiences, but the buzz seems to be that topping is a pretty bad method. It doesn't really increase yeild, it just helps keep the plant shorter and bushier. LST will increase your yeild dramatically. I would like to talk you out of topping. Consider this. When you bend that plant over you'll now have dozens of bud sites that all act like the top cola used to act. If you snip the main growth all you've done is turn 1 into 2. By bending you turn 1 into 12 and you do it with WAAY less stress. Since time is a concern with the Veg cycle, topping is just going to slow down the growth way too much and you're not going to have the time to allow them to fully recover from such a thing. Now, yeild depends on strain, so I'm not sure what to say there. But, you should be able to fill a square meter with 4 plants so we'll just work off that. Assuming you're growing a semi-descent indica I'd say you can expect anywhere from 20 grams to 70 grams per plant depending on strain, nutrients, and lighting wattage/PAR. Also, if you're growing from seeds that are not feminized you are going to get males. Plan on this and start at least 4 seeds for every 2 plants you plant to flower