300 plants need help designing the set up? lighting?

so we've got a 300 plant card and are new to growing we have a few going now we're planning on using as mothers that are doing great. I've got a fairly large area but they MUST be in tents. I've been reading about scrog grows with 1 plant/sq ft that pull aprox 2-2.5oz/sqft with a short veg time. does that sound right? so here's what i'm thinking..... 3 10x10 tents apporx 100 plants ea in 3 gal bags on a slightly slanted table to drain. is that good plan? would you do it differently? and how many lights/watts would I need per tent? I've got a ton of cords and 65w cfl's i can randomly hang around to enhance the lighting and would like to purchase as few new lights as possible thanks for any ideas/input

shit, I might have 72 and there is no way those 3 tents will fit them all my advice is to lease a warehouse, go in with some body , the start up cost for 300 plants doing it right is 25 grand, what state allows you to do 300 ? any thing over 99 is 10 years in prison if the feds walk in.

300 plant card.. how the hell did you get that?

You should really re-think the whole idea. 300 plants in 3 tents! Your just asking for problems. One square foot of area can only produce so much no matter how crowded you make it. You will have a lot of issues with heat and moisture, environmental control will be the real issue. You would be better off with a perpetual grow with the numbers you speak of. Hanging cfl's around the room will only cost you money, unless those cfl's are an inch away they are pretty much a waste of energy. I have a 49 plant count that produces 1 3/4 to 2 lbs. a week in a perpetual. I run 20 plants in flower and the rest is cycling through veg. Good Luck

in BC my 300 are legal. I've been reading about scrog and you "could" do 9 in solo cups in 1 sq ft if it's indica dominant with no veg time and pull aprox 2 oz/sq ft. most suggest 1 plant/sq ft with a short veg time and pull 2-2.5 oz. dose anyone reading do this?? how many lights and how many watts would be sufficient with extra 65w (300w equivalent) cfl's throughout?

i was planning on doing it all in one cycle. i don't think i could fit another tent. maybe i should split it up like you said. i have another area for mothers and clones maybe i should flower 120 (?) at a time in the 3 tents and have the rest in veg/mothers in my other area and have shorter cycles??

I did a 99 plant grow with 8 1000w HPS. That was perfect. We pulled 14 lbs for my first grow ever, thats not bad.. I would say at 4 1000w in each tent if you can fit them

No offense, but this is all a GIANT disaster waiting to happen. Slow down and learn to do things right before you dive into a 300 plant grow. IMHO.

so you had aprox 50 plants/4 1000w lights how much floor space/veg time? if i only did 120 plants/cycle would 2 tents with 4 1000w/tent and 60 plants/tent sound good?

I've got quite a bit of gardening experience and the plants i have now are doing great. the card 300 expires in march so we want to do as much as possible before then

avoid tents if possible.... 300 is insane to flower at once ...alot of space.... plus you know how much power 20+ hps will pull? not to mention fans..acs....dehumdifiers.... etc

and dont concern yours self with yeild.. way to many things go into that outcome that it is impossible to say if you do this you will get this.... you need to find a set up that fits your needs, time, etc and work on it.....


or go rent a house and fill every room as you want....

unfortunately I can't avoid tents. I can have them vented out and draw outside air in and could also open them up during the 12 hr light cycle if that would be beneficial.. so if I flower 120 in 2 10x10 tents with 60 plants each, shorter veg cycle, scrog for even canopy and light distribution with 4 1000w lights/tent does that sound like a good plan?? would 3 lights per tent be enough? mothers and clones done elsewhere for a continuous cycle. sounds ambitious for new grower I know but does that sound like it could potentially work good? any different suggestions?

My suggestion with this type of grow is forget SCROG.

With SCROG you would need to be unemployed in order to do this as a full time job.


It would take serious man hours.


My advice if you plan to do this is cover a 4x4 footprint with each 1000w light.

This gives you wiggle room to get in your tents and water.

Look at SOG if you plan to fill these tents.

You do realise how much money this is going to cost per month to run right?


You're going to be burning
4x1000w lights in each tent. That's 4kwh of electricity per hour per tent.

48kwh per tent for a 12hour flowering day.

48x3=124kwh of electricity per day for 3 tents.

Then with that many lights you're going to need a serious AC unit to cope along with fans etc.

You could be talking upwards of 200Kwh per day.


200x your kwh price = add your number here.

If it were me doing this in the uk it would run me. £58 per day to run this setup in the UK.

£406 a week.

£21,112 per year.

That's fucking insane.


But if you have the funds to do this then hydroponics and a massive reservoir would be the least time consuming on you. Along with flowering just rooted clones to get small lollypop sticks of buds.

But then a 1000w light is wasted in a SOG style setup.


J

Wow. You are definitely biting off more than you can chew. Fill those tents up and you are going to be kicking yourself in the ass when you are trying to gain access to your gardens. You will literally have no room to work and no room for your plants to develop properly. It would be better if you had 10-20 tents for this task.

Sorry figured new to growing meant everything. I dont doubt your plants are doing well. In my experience its when you start adding (many) more plants to the equation. Trust me. Problems you never had before arise with more plants. I wish you luck man. IMO 60 plants per tent is far too many. I've had 60 in a 15 x15' room and it was VERY tight. .02

I don't see how this could possibly end well.

You have said you don't want to spend much on lighting.
Well your going to have to, you cant do a grow that large with CFL's.

Have you even gone as far as to calculate how much nutrients are going to run per week for hundreds of plants?
If you haven't do so, then after you change your pants and come back we can talk about the other equipment your going to need.

most pro growers only have up to 4 plants under one thousand watt bulb. so to be successful and cover that electric cost you will need 75 !!!!!!!!! 1 thousand watt bulbs running and god a fuck tun of ac units , other fans, I would say 10 30 thousand btu units will do it, so the electric will be pulling, plus 5 or 10 dehumidifiers so that only pulling 115000 watts an hour ! 15 dollars an hour ! and for 12 hours a day 30 days a month, total 180 a day and 5400 a month, that's on a very low side, prob not realistic its more then likely would be double , the way I would do it bring an easy 4, to 10 ounces a plant, so say 6 average times 300 1800 ounces, average 160 dollars fast sale, 288000 thousand dollars, this is what you would pull from a ware house grow with experience, and for got all the wireing and you will also need 2 extra wires run to the ware house 3 different meters. should cost you 5 grand just for that, your not even going to cover your electric that high number with cfl . don't bother, and what size pots are you using slurpee cups ? hydro ? might get lucky get 3 grams per plant, at the most 30 ounces of 300 plants, wont cover the soil bill ,

It's funny how people think they can go big but have no clue on what their really doing

if you are going to try it, i dont recommend you too, but you didn't ask me if i recommended you too do it or not, simply asked how you could pull it off.

Try
8 x 1000 watts under the largest raptor hoods
(4 in each tent)
2 10x10 Tents with 2 4x8 trays in them.
(in two trays you can fit 120+ 1 gallon Pots)
so if you use all the space in the trays you could do 480+
or just the 300, your call.
each 1000 watt will cover a 4x4 space and 60 plants
place a 16,000 btu portable ac or the largest one you can find in each. or construct a box to fit around the back part of the largest window ac you can get and cut out a hole from the box hook up to exhaust fan and vent out. (if you cant fit it you might have to cut into tent)
If you can get two portable acs in each then you will have no heat problems.
rule of thumb, have about 5000 btu per 1000 watt light.
get a 10" or 12" fan for exhaust. for each tent
get 2 275 IBC totes (you will need a lot of water)
also recommend getting separate water res for each room, better control.
get 50 pound co2 tanks for each room. generators will produce too much heat.

Why come here to ask when you could go to Sam Mellace's site and ask the man who had his card issued in 2010 for 292 plants? Seems like a pretty knowledgable source with such a high number that he's already figured out how to do.