Starting a New Grow - cannot decide | Options Included!

I use a 4x4 and if you power it correctly with quality lighting and have skill growing you'll grow way too much weed for personal use. I like it. I give it away all the time. It's fun. I roll like 25 joints for big parties and pass them out to people I don't really know. It gets the party rolling so to speak.. =)

A 4x4 is about 24oz's average every 2 1/2 months. I have got up to 32 with the right strains and conditions.

 

No.. heh. You need two lights to fill a 4x4 for bloom and you need more then a single HLG100 to veg a 4x4. I was talking about the perfect setup for two 3x3 areas.

I you went with two 4x4 areas. You could get a 4x8 tent and split it in half like me. It's cheaper then buying two 4x4s. You just have to white poly the center like you can see in my pics over the center support and add a 2" wide strip of 3m industrial velcro to the doors to seal off the bud side during lights off.

For a 4x4 you want 2 qb260's for flower and probably two HLG100's for veg. There's other options for veg you could run a single qb260 and dim it down for young plants. 4-5k for veg is best. You'll get more stretch from 3k and two rooms is a long veg time.

 

I use 4 HLG 65's to veg my 4x4. Then I can unplug one or two like I said and get the spread I want by moving around where they are hung. The 65's are $99 on growers lights or amazon. The 100's are $150.

 

The least I would veg a 4x4 with is 3 HLG65's. I hardly use my 4th one. Two 100's is more power then 3 HLG65's by about 20 watts. Either setup would veg fine.

 

I don't think Kind has anything on these lights at the end of the grow. I've had much more expensive lights like that and for one the white light is much easier to work under. Watt for watt they're not outperforming HLG.

 

I would go for the v2 in 3k before the v1 in 3500k. The 288v2 uses 8 less watts to make 8% more light then the v1. It has a special coating on the board to increase reflection among other improvements. It's worth it IMO.

 

HeY HippieGooD LucK with Your GroW!

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3k is good for flower but it might cause you too much stretch in veg depending on if you like growing sativas or indicas.

 

Indica short branchy plants veg fine on 3k but some plants get wild and the 4k-5k lights help settle them down. Building a plant with tight spaced nodes in veg is the traditional way to go that's why higher K more blue leaning lights like MH are used for veg. You put that tight node plant in a red leaning light in flower to get the most out of it. Red gives more overall growth. After you've built that tight node structure with the more blue light it give you more filled in colas in flower with less stem in between making keeping correct light distance to the majority of the canopy easier. That's key to high yields. You have to learn to shape an even canopy of tops the correct thickness for good light penetration and air circulation.

My favorite training method is supercropping. I use only that. That's all I used on any of the pics I posted. There's no string or nets, no topping.

Supercropping and lollipopping from the bottom up about twice a grow.
Super Cropping Marijuana: Simple Secret to Bigger Yields | Grow Weed Easy

 

I'm using a combination of pure chemically sourced and organically sourced nutrients. When you say organic nutrients you sort of have to explain what that means. Most people are talking about soil amendments. Natural compounds like composts, minerals, and waste products.

When you're talking about those type of organic nutrients then yes they are essentially in a locked form chemically. A plant can only use pure chemicals. That's where the rub against pure chemical fertilizers doesn't make a lot of sense. Even if you're using dirt with chicken shit in it the plant is growing off of the same pure sources of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and iron as if you were feeding it from a bottle.

The difference is with the chicken shit microbes and fungus in the soil must process and break down those compounds into pure chemical form before the plant can use it. It's almost like a trickle feed. That's why organicly grown stuff usually doesn't burn the plant. The problem with pure chemical sourced nutrients is that they are in a form the plant can uptake and use. It's quite easy to feed too much and burn them if you don't know how to measure.

Actually pure chemical sourced nutrients are much cleaner and more free of bad chemicals and bugs/heavy metals.

Aside from that there is also organically sourced nutrients that are in a form ready to take up by the plant. That's sort of what the nectar for the gods line is. Also the General Hydroponics Go box products. Those are pure chemical nutrients that are derived from organic compounds instead of pure chemical sources or reactions. Most of them have a higher micronutrient/enzyme count then their more purely sourced counterparts. That said I haven't seen that much success with the Gobox. I prefer GH flora micro/bloom with the lucas method mostly for NPK then I add other products to that.

I try to feed very comprehensively. I think there's much missing in modern plant science as far as all the micro nutrient processes happening inside of the plant and the various enzymes/chemicals that speed up growth. If I feed both chemical and organically sourced nutrients with lots of variety of sources I'm able to include more of that stuff.

Bucket DWC is probably the easiest way to do hydro but I would consider starting with promix/perlite in smart pots. That's what I'm growing with now. I've done DWC also for years but I decided to try just promix. It has already proven to me that it can rival DWC in yield. It's much less work. You feed it about the same as a DWC plant. I use the same nutrients and feed every watering. Very similar to coco growing.

 

I don't notice any difference in flavor comparing promix to dwc. Hydro methods will probably result in similar taste no matter what medium you use if you use the same nutrients.

There's some good prices on hydro kits at HTG supply. This is the DWC kit I bought. The only thing I've replaced is the air pump in 3 years. I got mine for $99. I don't think you can source the parts separate cheaper. Those are nice black food grade buckets and really nice net pots. Most people I know who home make their DWC systems don't have as nice of parts. The 3.5gallon buckets are much better then 5 for keeping headroom.
Bubble Brothers 6 Pot DWC System | HTG Supply

They also have great prices on other types of hydro setups. Great for starting and learning the system.
https://www.htgsupply.com/categories/hydroponics/hydroponic-systems

 

You can easily later convert that to RDWC. Bucket DWC takes more work but each plant has a res like that so you can have more individual control.