Over 2lbs from 400w in normal time frame, need a test pilot.

Anyone who is serious about trying this, pm me.

Please do not do this as your only grow. It would be very very easy to have something major screw it up.

There is ZERO breathing room for bugs or mold so bomb and spray preventatively when appropriate. 40% relative humidity may be vital.

It has to be taken on with expectations that there will need to be some trial and error.

You must stay within 7 to 10 grams a plant and not go over that. Plants will start shoving other plants off the table and choke eachother to death for sure, there would be a lot of loss in numbers and things just won't work out better that way I don't think.

You cannot use c02 or all those things people do for fat nugs.

About the only fancy thing that would be of real benefit would be a light mover, in fact maybe important to move manually if you don't have one. But don't use it like normal, don't use it to allow yourself to drop the light lower.

Oh yea, and we need some fans blowing down through the top of the canopy from overhead from every single corner maybe. Four fans, even some little 6" $5 clip on fans hanging off the corners of the light may be enough if each is only covering 4sf but more might be nice.

If it turns out no airflow is ruining it I have an idea for using air through numerous 1" pvc pipes layed over the top of the rockwool with holes drilled in it. As in a gas barbecue burner.

There would be a balancing act with the fans and drying the medium out of course.

I need to defer to those with more experience on strains to know what might grow well in this strange strange setup.

If it works at any point, after numerous kinks are probably worked out, I agree it will absolutely be insane FloJo. It would be completely unheard of pulling this kind of yield off a tiny light with no co2 or fancy stuff, making things a whole lot cheaper to grow pounds and require a whole lot less space.

Can you imagine, 12 pounds could be pulled from a bedroom sized grow for pennies.

If you are a small cabinet grower and just test a strain you think might work on a small scale even like I did, maybe 16 plants and see what it takes to get them to flower and finish in those weight and size limits crammed together with similar lumen levels that could really really really help work the kinks out for the guys willing to do more.

Peace, and viva la revolution

OregonMeds said:

This is not meant for crops from seed, only crops from clones.

Maybe you could get away with it, but seeds vary too much in growth and with things so close there's little tolerance for differences.

Click to expand...

This is quite true all right. I think maybe I'll do it on a smaller scale to begin with. Start with 50 to 60 female seeds maybe, 5 or 6 strains knows not to have much variation, I think even some netting over the top to keep them more secured in an even canopy. Not scrog, just to keep them in place. If there is someone in the position to do this full scale with clones that would be fantastic. If I end up with approx 10 grms per plant that is still 17 to 21 ounces, thats 1 pound 1 ounce or 1.3 pounds. Not too shabby.

Do you feel it important to stick with the 400W just to prove the point? The reason I ask is because I would suggest that the 400W will give very uneven coverage at that distance. There will be very little usable light at the edges of the canopy. IMO, (2) 4', 4 bulb T5s would give much better coverage and would still use just over 400w's of power.

http://www.texashydroponics.com/shop/product.php?productid=875&cat=50&page=1

I was thinking of doing 36 growwell inserts or 24 netpot inserts with a 600 watter

is that almost like what u guys are trying to accomplish? but a lil larger scale

id get this
http://www.texashydroponics.com/shop/product.php?productid=1795&cat=50&page=1

4x4 with a 1k light, good nutes, proper ventilation, growing in 4x4 rockwool cubes.. flower from clone, fill the tray, lolipop and you will pull at least 2lbs

Ok so. I have just chopped and trimmed my current grow. Very happy with the results. But it is now time to start preparing for this. I am going to do 60 plants(from seed), if any dont grow as uniform as we would like we can just pull em or put them to the side of the area. Hopefully no more than 10. This will leave 50 plants hopefully averaging 10 grms each. Coming out just over 17 ounces. I would now like to decide what strains to choose. I am going to try 5-6 different strains to see which will be best suited for this kind of operation for the future. If any of you have any strains which you think are serious contenders for this please specify in detail.

Were looking for short-ish, not too bushy, One cola, and huge producers. I was thinking to just stick with well known strains as they are more reliable in my opinion.

White Rhino.
AK 47.
Power Plant.
BlueBerry.

Any more suggestions are very welcome. You got any more input oregonmeds??

a few of my AK47xSSH are around 12"-18" high at 2 per pot with big ass buds, can't touch finger to thumb, they good and thick, gonna use the Mom's that produced them as my supper Mom's and flower the rest... just a suggestion....

Yea, stay away from huge producers. The plan will fail with fat buds, that's why the minimal light and forced lanky plants.
Get a layer of typical fat nugs going on top and death is going to occur down below.

I would think plants known to grow taller and thiner but still consistant and able to make the 7g limit in the time allotted and have a good high would be the ideal. Should such a thing exist in a shorter plant without the height and time frame of a sativa.

We want all the plants to just survive and give us a tiny bit of bud (well, as many as possible survive). If the 7 gram per plant is met with .25 lbs of loss it's still two pounds and a complete success.

I selected the 400 because they're as common as rocks and won't be laughed at like a flouro. Like I said in the post a few up there a light mover may be essential if you aren't moving the light or table around on a daily basis manually. Flouro's may work at some point who knows, but had I suggested THAT you can bet we probably wouldn't even be discussing it this far.

Even completely failed attempts as far as size goes are still likely to provide very high yields considering the equipment once the dead stuff is removed and they have more room. Only a catastrophic failure would result in nothing.

thats just kinda true

Xare said:

The max for a sog is 4 plants per square foot. So in a 4 x 4 space you should only squeeze in 64.

Also a 400 watt light is not good enough for a 4 x 4 space (27 watt per square foot), its better suited for a 3 x 3 (49 watt per square foot)

You could have two 3 x 3 trays under 2 400 watters and stagger the harvest getting about a pound a month.

The max number of plants for a 3 x 3 is 36

Another option for lighting would be to use a cooltubed 1000 to cover both 3 x 3 trays.

Click to expand...

I don't know why you are trying to put rules on this like a contest or something, but the idea of SOGs make the wheels start turning.

I think I had planned out in one of my notebooks a perpetual system that was a 4 section cabinet, each 2'x2' and lit by 250w HPS. Each section would be 2 weeks behind/ahead of the one adjacent. The plan used 9 clones per sq. foot. I use soil, so you could make up for the lack of length and width of the pots by getting deeper pots. That would be over a 63g per sq foot, and 9+/-oz every 2 weeks if you hit the 7g average mark. That would be 36 clones per box.

Change things to use 3'x3' boxes with a 400w, and the numbers jump to 20.25oz every two weeks. That uses 81 clones.

So say you don't want to go that large of scale, you don't want to keep a mother lying around, and of course you don't want to waste time.

What I would do, is use a single grow box and purchase feminized seeds. I would grow as many as cuttings I needed. I figure for a usual indica you can get 18 cuttings from one plant within a month, so I would grow as many as I needed until they have enough clones to be taken. Once as many clones were taking as possible, the mothers would be killed. Again, no room for mothers to be sitting around in a SOG this style.

I'm sure this method would take a good while to perfect, and would require a rather experienced grower, but if you can figure it out the rewards seem well worth the effort.

The rules are based on mathematics for optimum yield but break them if you like.

i grew nine pounds off one clone standing in a closet flicking a lighter.....who needs hid. lol

Try WhiteBerry from Attitudes pick n mix, good for sog and a fast finisher. I like your idea, but im worried about starting from seed just because they area going to veg regardless of 12/12 so you might get to much growth, but you could always set it up perpetual, that way they wouldnt take up so much space all at once, then you can go 16 per sq ft, good luck

smppro thank you for that. So this is a really skinny plant, you've grown it before yourself?

Any things we should know about it like really sensitive to nutrients or realy weak in terms of certain diseases etc?

Thanks a bunch man, a place to start, that's all it takes.

If this is ever figured out, even for a single pound per 3x3 table then the light mover can be set to cover two tables and drop the light to get the same lumen effect on both tables so you instantly double it. If there were such a thing as a light mover that covers an oval track, two 4x4 tables would not be impossible on a 400w light. A Pound per 100 watts with no expensive extra's other than a light mover. If they can finish short enough two levels of a grow like this might fit in one space using two sets of compact lights and light movers. Not counting what the right flouro's might do for the idea without a light mover.

One day far away from now when LED's actually work a few watts of power might do it and three levels could be possible in a home.

that wouldnt really work.. a light mover doesnt double the light. if you have a light mover that moves outside the table, or even from end to end you will actually lose its effectiveness, because a plant only recieves energy when the lights is over it and it is close.

once the light moves outside and the plant is not recieving direct light, it does not recieve energy. so if you had a light mover on an oval track, once it left effective range of the plant, the plant would start to suffer like it was in shade.

what you would end up with is instead of a 3x3 table with the yield you would have with one 400w light, you would have 2 tables with half of the yield of a 400w light totalling maybe a tad bit more than you would on a single table simply because of the excess plant material used.

also the buds would be light and wispy, with much leafier plants because they would be struggling to survive and get more light energy.

a light mover is used to make more uniform growth on a table, you are not even supposed to move them end to end really, just a few inches in the middle so that the hot spots in the middle of the lamp reach each respective side. you can have it going down the length of the track, which will allow it to cover a larger area, and have it closer to the lights since the plants will have less exposure to direct light, but you will end up with the same problem which is wispy buds, with a minimal gain in yield.

not only that but a 400w is hardly effective in covering a 4x4 space.. you would be getting 25 watts per square foot which (imo) is considered the absolute minimum. i have grown with a 600 on a 4x4 and it is still not very effective because it just does not have the intensity or the footprint to cover that area effectively.

to do this effectively the max with a 400 that i would do is a 3x4 maybe 3x5 area with a light mover that is only moving the middle of the lamp close proximity to the far edges of the garden.. anything more than that you are going to get diminished results and leafy wispy buds..

FLo

I see many of your points and agree with many. I think though that you can cover double the area with a light mover because you can get the light twice as close to the plants as without and huge gains are made by getting that light closer. It's more than double the light by halving the distance to the light.

No?

somewhat.. but if you double the area covered, and double the usable light received by moving it closer, you cancel out the effect you see?

because you are giving more usable light by moving it closer, but shortening the interval of direct light that the plant receives, thus taking away the advantage of moving it closer.

think of it like this. if you have a stationary light, the ones in the middle get the largest, and thickest because they receive the most intense, and direct light. the problem is that a plant can only get so big under certain conditions, and even adding more light on top of them will not increase production because they cannot use all of the light received without c02 to aid in photosynthesis.

when you add a light mover, the ones in the middle no longer get the biggest, because they do not receive as much direct light as often. the offset is that all of the other plants get more direct high intensity light, allowing them to reach more of their genetic potential thus spreading the weight out between all of the plants, and you end up with a more uniform crop.

the problem is that there is a tipping point, where you are canceling out the benefit of the mover, because you end up giving them less light than they could have otherwise used, making them unable to reach their genetic potential. this is where you get smaller plants, and airy buds.

the point is that you cannot INCREASE the amount of light you are using by using a mover, you are only using the light more efficiently.

in a more simplistic manner you can think of it like this. if you have one gallon of water (16 cups) and you have 16 one cup containers, you could try to pour two cups of water into each one cup container, but you will only end up with 8 full cups and 8 empty because half of the gallon is wasted as runoff.
on the other hand you could pour one cup of water into each one cup container, and end up with 16 full cups, and would be using the whole gallon, which would be the most efficient use of the one gallon of water.
you could also get 32 one cup containers, and pour one half of a cup of water into each one.. the result would be that you would have one gallon of water spread out over 32 containers.
the moral of the story is you can use your water (light) however you want but you cannot trick the containers (plants) into thinking you have more water than you actually do.. you still will end up with one gallon

hope this makes sense

FLo

Ok cool so we are in agreement. With this style SOg though we are not going for fat buds only keeping them alive enough to yield that minimum amount, so I think it may probably work out better with the mover, light twice as close, and double area.

If we just put all that light on one area at half the distance this plan wouldn't work in any form. (Other than pushing the limits of normal sog but not in 4" areas per plant it wouldn't.)

Even though it's an insane number of clones and you could yield the same with half the number in the same space, this way avoids veg time so it yields more with quicker turn around at the max GPW rather than using lots of light power to get bigger zero veg clones.

No?

i think you are missing the point...

for examples sake lets just say it is possible for 400w to pull 2lbs in a 4x4 area with a light mover, and each plant hits 7g a plant or whatever. if you double the area, you are halfing the light which means in a 4x8 area you will be getting 3.5 grams per plant because you are doubling the plants, but effectively giving each plant half the light even if you have them an inch away.

all you are doing is spreading the light out more and giving less to each individual.. thats what im trying to say is that there is a peak where no matter how far you spread it, you will never increase your yield, but if you keep spreading it far enough, you will end up losing yield.. not to mention it will be a bag of shake.

once the footprint of the light is off of the plant it is essentially not getting any energy, so the key is to spread the light just far enough to cause uniform growht and spread an optimum amount of energy over the canopy

I think we're just tripping up on details now not really that I'm not getting your points which have been very good and helped not mistakely think an oval mover would work.

I think confusion now comes from 400 not being enough for 4x4 because you proved the oval mover probably has no merit. 4x4 is oficially down and out, for now at least.

If we are talking all these same things and 3x3, where the light doesn't have to move at all to cover it, then add normal mover drop light half and use two trays doesn't it makes sense? That is the normal way to use a mover.

I'm not that thick I don't think... A bag of loose nugs weighing two pounds is more profitable than a bag of hard nugs weighing one pound anyway also.