Winter greenhouse seed run?

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Asterisk101

Well-Known Member
Hi all,

Hoping to hear from folks with experience growing through winter in greenhouses.

I'm looking to make some seeds, and instead of juggling males in summer, I thought it may be possible to to run them off season from late autumn in a poly tunnel.

In my particular sitch I can't run supplemental lighting. So I'm basically just interested to see if this is possible. My major concern being the quality of the seed.

I'm in Australia but for reference to you guys in the US, we have v similar climate to LA.

Asterisk.
 
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Tim1987

Well-Known Member
How cold is it during the nights? A friend used to use one but had to heat it.
Also where i live we get about a week per year of 12/12 right around winter solstice. He had to cover then to get 2-3 grows out of it in a year.
Probably all i really know about greenhouses to answer your question, sorry.
I hope it was helpful
Take it easy. :bigjoint:
 
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Asterisk101

Well-Known Member
Winter days average 15c 60f and frost is super rare. Solstice daylight gets down to about 10 hours.
How did your buddies flowers turn out? The winter greenhouse flower I have seen from other growers was real fluffy and light weight
 
SchmoeJoe

SchmoeJoe

Well-Known Member
The winter greenhouse flower I have seen from other growers was real fluffy and light weight[/QUOTE]

Regardless of day length winter sunlight is really weak compared to the regular season. Fluffy and light weight is all you'll get from budding in a winter greenhouse without decent supplemental lighting.

As far as seed production goes I'm not sure how the weak light would effect it.
 
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Tim1987

Well-Known Member
Asterisk101 said:
Winter days average 15c 60f and frost is super rare. Solstice daylight gets down to about 10 hours.
How did your buddies flowers turn out? The winter greenhouse flower I have seen from other growers was real fluffy and light weight
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He left about a month - 6 weeks out in the dead of winter. Usually started back up around early - mid august and he usually got in 2 decent ones. Though i have to say schmoejoe raises a good point. The best weed he grew ironically, definately was around now.
 
SchmoeJoe

SchmoeJoe

Well-Known Member
Asterisk101 said:
True. Schmoejoe you do bring up a good point. There's probably a good reason we don't see peeps doing this.
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The truth is the most efficient system is an advanced hybrid building type light dep greenhouse with supplemental lighting for the typical off season. The big thing is that a good design is really expensive.

Done right the quality is right there with the best and the cost of operation is the best roi you can get. It's the initial start up that scares people off.

This is the kind of energy efficient year round hybrid building I'm talking about. Below is my backyard light dep. I can still get 2-3 crops in a normal season by using the 30 amp extension cord I built to run off my drier outlet to power three 1k hps lights for the early planting. It's nowhere near efficient enough to control temp and humidity through the winter. The hybrid design with passive systems is so efficient the cost of production is easily around 1/10 of indoor. This particular one is a stock photo from Ceres greenhouses out of Colorado. They have these running at near 10,000 feet in Colorado, in Alaska and the Middle East.


IMG_1837.JPG 20160520_181632.jpg
 
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Asterisk101

Well-Known Member
Nice one schmoejoe, inspiring stuff.
Utilising passive design is the right way to go. Obviously for efficiency but also for quality, I believe. We hear from Kevin Jodrey that sunlight is an important element in revitalizing old clones. Point being, there's some magic to the sun we can't currently replicate.

Man I'm dreaming now, lol. I love the idea of high tech solutions gently enhancing primitive tech foundations. Incorporation of thermal mass to buffer temp changes might be something worth investigating too.
 
SchmoeJoe

SchmoeJoe

Well-Known Member
Man I'm dreaming now, lol. I love the idea of high tech solutions gently enhancing primitive tech foundations. Incorporation of thermal mass to buffer temp changes might be something worth investigating too.[/QUOTE]


Take a look at the Ground to Air Heat Transfer (GHAT) systems that the Ceres and EZGro greenhouses use.
 
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Tim1987

Well-Known Member
SchmoeJoe said:
The truth is the most efficient system is an advanced hybrid building type light dep greenhouse with supplemental lighting for the typical off season. The big thing is that a good design is really expensive.

Done right the quality is right there with the best and the cost of operation is the best roi you can get. It's the initial start up that scares people off.

This is the kind of energy efficient year round hybrid building I'm talking about. Below is my backyard light dep. I can still get 2-3 crops in a normal season by using the 30 amp extension cord I built to run off my drier outlet to power three 1k hps lights for the early planting. It's nowhere near efficient enough to control temp and humidity through the winter. The hybrid design with passive systems is so efficient the cost of production is easily around 1/10 of indoor. This particular one is a stock photo from Ceres greenhouses out of Colorado. They have these running at near 10,000 feet in Colorado, in Alaska and the Middle East.


View attachment 4100429 View attachment 4100430
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Very cool. Very cool indeed :hump::hump::hump::hump::hump::hump::hump::hump:
 
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