How is the Yield of an Indoor Plant Measured??

J

JabbaTheBlunt

Member
everything online measures the yield in grams per meters squared. what is that exactly?? is that a 1 meter tall plant or is that as many plants as you can fit in a meter squared?? i have no idea. can someone please explain this to me?!?
 
Thedillestpickle

Thedillestpickle

Well-Known Member
first of all I think they just make the number up

theoretically the number is usually calculated by how much 1 plant would yield if you gave it 1 square meter, vegged it to the max and put a 1000w bulb over it

You can't expect that number to reflect exactly how much you will get, it depends on nutes used, medium used, how much co2 venting, and all that other stuff
 
Illegal Smile

Illegal Smile

Well-Known Member
It means 1 sq meter done in SOG.

IMO, you raise a good question because that is not a particularly good measure. Recently, grams per watt has caught on and it does seem to capture a lot of variables. Indoors if you get a half gram per watt that's OK and a gram a watt is super.
 
Thedillestpickle

Thedillestpickle

Well-Known Member
GreatwhiteNorth said:
Scrog - Super soil - no Co2.
Click to expand...
nice

still doesnt beat heath robinson with his 3GPW

sorry I think Illegal smile was right about it being SOG, I said it was for 1 plant but I was confused because sometimes they do give a value of grams per plant as well(Ive seen it mainly done with autos)

GPW is always a good thing, but then you also have to be growing certain strains to expect high GPW. Beating the advertized "indoor yield" would make a nice goal though! My strain is only a 300-400 gram strain so I cant be expecting 1GPW, but I could still try for .5GPW
 
GreatwhiteNorth

GreatwhiteNorth

Global Moderator
Staff member
I'm sure if I had tried to maximize my weight I would have easily surpassed the 1 GPW mark. Since I don't sell & I grow more than I really need I can afford to be very picky about what goes into the Bud bucket. 8)
 
Total Head

Total Head

Well-Known Member
i think both grams per watt and grams per square meter are just guidelines to refer to a certain amount of harvest based on setup.

most people don't calculate anything but the light itself in the gram per watt measurement. so if me and you both use a 400w hps and each get exactly 400 grams, but you used more fans and filters than me, i did better than you, even though we both hit the gram per watt mark as far as the light is concerned.

as far as the gram per square meter measurement, i don't even fuss with that one. i run a semi-perpetual setup, and my flower room isn't always as full as it could be, so i obviously wouldn't hit whatever the mark is supposed to be.

the way i measure an indoor harvest is to look at the cost:return ratio. how much did i spend to grow it compared to how much i would have spent to buy it on the street? if i spent a hundred bucks a month over a 3 month period, how much more herb do i end up with than if i spent the 300 on a sack?

my personal goal is to spend no more than $1.50/gram to produce it. this is a bit harder with a smaller light and fewer plants but i usually shatter that goal so i don't much give a shit how much i yielded as long as i have enough stash until the next harvest. if i was growing commercially for a profit my standards would be a lot higher.
 
silverserf

silverserf

Well-Known Member
I like your thinking Total Head. I also take the nutes and medium into account. I grow DWC so can reuse the hydroton which i do, but when i bought it they only had 50lbs bags so in 3 years i've used like 1% of it...lol. I also ignore instructions about changing res water once a week...sounds like a good way to pour nutes down the drain to me. I change the water when it NEEDS to be changed. If i'm adding a gallon a day to a 5 gallon rez....after a week is there a point in changing it? If i'm adding a gallon a day for a week and then it goes to 1/2 a gallona day...ya change the water. I grew aquatic plants for years and changing the water seems...wrong somehow, i guess cause the fish would croak if you did that to them :)

I also only grow for personal use, my main concern is not running out between harvests. Even with a couple of disapointing grows i haven't had to buy anything for over a year. Which is good, cause i'm not sure if i know anyone who could set me up anymore. It's way cheaper to grow it myself anyway.

Cheers,
SilverSerf
 
Thedillestpickle

Thedillestpickle

Well-Known Member
Yea the GPW is really just a way for people to feel good about their yield, if your hit 1 gpw under a 1000watt light, your gunna feel good cause you got yourself a KILO of BUD!
but it doesnt take into account all the other power being used and it doesnt take into account the veg time, and all the extra light burned in veg. Look at people doing 12/12 from veg, they may not get the highers GPW but they didnt burn lights for 2 months while the plant was vegging either.

Ive already completely lost track of how many hundreds of dollars Ive spent on this grow. I think I will be lucky if it doesnt cost me 10 $ a gram! haha but its my first time so everything is being bought brand new
 
Thedillestpickle

Thedillestpickle

Well-Known Member
I think to summarize to make the answer to the OP really easy, You could look at it this way, if the "indoor Yield" says 500-600 grams
then you can expect if your a pretty good grower to yield about .5 to .6 GPW.

I think that makes it nice and simple, even if its not fully accurate
 
L

lamboking

Member
​
  • hello riu i have these clones under a 120watt led and 1 plant in flowering under 600 watt hps 1 plant in a 2ft by 4ft ebb&flow table heres what i do

    my plant is 2ft 5inch topped 1 time i gotseeds from thseeds lambo strain

    i flood 2 times aday sometimes 3

    ph stays around 5.8 6.0 ph rises every day sometimes changes by the hour i ph down allmost everytime before i flood the table do to ph riseing i have to ph down


    my PPM was around 800 i felt like it was getting a little nute burn so i brought it down to 550 500 ppm

    i never spray leafs during flowering

    i change out the rez every 7 days

    ihave a 400 cfm outake and a 190 cfm intake fan intake fan runs 24/7 my exaust turns on every hour for 15min because i run co2 in my closet i dont run exaust 24hrs

    here is the nute i use
    cal-mag
    silica blast
    flora bloom
    rapid root acc. gh
    koolbloom


    if any 1 can tell me how much of these nutes i need to use after i flush my 1 in flower would be great how much nutes should i use in a gallon in my nute line up and or if i need to get rid of one
    heres my plant i dont know whats wrong with it the leafs are ugly and crispy when i touch or bend a leaf it snaps crispy like no moist i dont thinkits heat stress but what do think my temps stay between 85 and 89 rarely hits 89 and 67 to 80 at night

    basicly if you see anything i should be doing for the last 2week of this plants life let me know​


    ​
 

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fxbane

Active Member
I think the GPW is pure propaganda on behalf of the seed companies, just to suck those greedy folks in. I'm guilty of it myself a few times until I realised it was for the most part, bullshit. I still calculate the grams per watt though, simply as testament to my geekdom. Sometimes I go under, sometimes I go over but I stopped worrying about it; I'd rather have quality than quantity. Still a quantity of quality isn't too bad.
Seed companies should just say something along the lines of 'Heavy Yielder', 'Medium' and 'Small', I'd be happy with that.
 
L

lamboking

Member
if you ask me i mean im no pro but its to many things you have to consider to realy say how much you yield per meter or watt i say grow and learn your strain and the possibility are endless

and again im no pro
 
Illegal Smile

Illegal Smile

Well-Known Member
I don't think the idea is to use "per watt" as an economic measurement but as a measure of basic scale. In other words, if someone says they have a 1000w grow and someone else says they have a 400w grow, we have a pretty good idea of either. If someone says they have a 1000w grow and only got three ounces, we know something is wrong. If someone says they have a 400w grow and got two pounds, we know (IMO) they are lying. I think of a gram per watt as a kind of goal, like a 4 minute mile.
 
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