Having troubles increasing my yield

I've been wanting to increase my yields for some time now with no luck. I always manage to get between 1300 and 1500 grams per cycle but never any higher.

I'm running 4x1000 watt HPS in cool tubes. My room is 10x12. I am growing in 5 gal pots using Sunshine Mix4 as a medium. I use AN Micro Grow and Bloom, with Big Bud and Overdrive in flower. I mix according to the directions.

I've tried changing the number of plants up and down and it doesn't make a significant difference. I've gone as low as 12 and as high as 18 plants but the numbers stay the same. I guess a function of square footage in relation to lighting? I've tired several different strains including Northern Lights, AK-48, Cotton Candy Kush, Green Crack and Diesel Grapefruit. Strain doesn't seem to matter.

I average about 90 grams per plant, plus or minus. I clone from mothers, once rooted they stay in solo cups till they are about 10" tall, then go into the big pots until they are 24 inches tall before switching to 12/12.

I've tried manicuring, monster cropping and topping. No change in overall weight from when I just leave them alone. I've boosted the nutrient and PPM levels up to where its just starting to burn the tips, and I've also cut it back to half strength. I've played with a lot of the variables. I've tried changing the height of the lights but usually leave them about 12 inches from the plant canopy.

I hear of these people claiming a gram per watt and I'm wondering what world they are living in because its different than mine. I'm not even managing a half gram per watt. I also replace my lamps every 2-3 cycles.

Any ideas of what I can do to boost my production with the lighting and space I have available?

Yea you should pull a lb a light with ease. I do it with my 600s so a 1k should do it easy.

Have you tried a SOG approach? Like 30 a light or so. How long do you run them?

I have a legal limit. 20 would be my max in flowering. From clone to finish the cycle runs about 14 weeks +/1 depending on the strain.

Medicanman said:

I've been wanting to increase my yields for some time now with no luck. I always manage to get between 1300 and 1500 grams per cycle but never any higher.

I'm running 4x1000 watt HPS in cool tubes. My room is 10x12. I am growing in 5 gal pots using Sunshine Mix4 as a medium. I use AN Micro Grow and Bloom, with Big Bud and Overdrive in flower. I mix according to the directions.

I've tried changing the number of plants up and down and it doesn't make a significant difference. I've gone as low as 12 and as high as 18 plants but the numbers stay the same. I guess a function of square footage in relation to lighting? I've tired several different strains including Northern Lights, AK-48, Cotton Candy Kush, Green Crack and Diesel Grapefruit. Strain doesn't seem to matter.

I average about 90 grams per plant, plus or minus. I clone from mothers, once rooted they stay in solo cups till they are about 10" tall, then go into the big pots until they are 24 inches tall before switching to 12/12.

I've tried manicuring, monster cropping and topping. No change in overall weight from when I just leave them alone. I've boosted the nutrient and PPM levels up to where its just starting to burn the tips, and I've also cut it back to half strength. I've played with a lot of the variables. I've tried changing the height of the lights but usually leave them about 12 inches from the plant canopy.

I hear of these people claiming a gram per watt and I'm wondering what world they are living in because its different than mine. I'm not even managing a half gram per watt. I also replace my lamps every 2-3 cycles.

Any ideas of what I can do to boost my production with the lighting and space I have available?

Click to expand...

Lmao @ your avatar. But,
I'm looking at those strains you have listed, and don't get it. Pulling 2lbs a light with most those strains are absolutely doable for sure.
Lets try to figure this out.

I'm just gonna throw a couple things out at first, from what you've said about ur setup.
Ditch the bigbud and overdrive for now. The base nutes you got work great all by themselves. Very complete.
Each 1000w should be roughly 24" above the tops, and should be covering a 4'X4' area, 4.5'x4.5' max.

Is it possible your over-crowding? That can fuck up yields a bit.
If I'm rockin 5 gallon pots, my goto plant #'s are 9 per light. But you'll usually catch me growing in 7 gallons with 4 to 6 per light, depending on strain.
You are vegging "tall" enough, but, are you pinching tops? Most strains I grow, i've pinched tops 2-3 times before flower. Veg for roughly 5-6 weeks. They end up around 16" when ready to flower. I have a large veg room/s, my flower rooms are ALWAYS on 12/12.


Anyways, just a couple things. I'm hitting the sack soon. I've been trimming all day lol

How about the water source? Good pure RO water with a bit of mag? I would also suggest mastering and controlling the 16 elements the plants need. Read the back of every bottle you have and make sure all 16 are there. Be sure that any nutrient you are using in conjuction with another is not overloading on one element and neglecting another. I swear by the GH flora series for this very reason and wont touch anything from AN for the same. After you have that covered keep in mind the method of delivering these elements to your roots. It is always water and in this case coco as well. So how can we get these elements broken down and deliverd to the roots even faster? Mykos. Dont mess with the great white bs just get a big bag of mykos WP by plant success and throw it all in there they love the stuff. Oh yeah ph, temp/humidity , co2, light , and just generally doing the best you can possibly do will leave the big buds in the jars. Fulvic acid during bloom is fun too. Good luck

Maybe try a run using super soil and compost teas instead of the salt based nutrients. In my experience with a soil mix, dry mixing organic ammendments and using living compost teas beats salt fetilizers hands down.

chernobe said:

How about the water source? Good pure RO water with a bit of mag? I would also suggest mastering and controlling the 16 elements the plants need. Read the back of every bottle you have and make sure all 16 are there. Be sure that any nutrient you are using in conjuction with another is not overloading on one element and neglecting another. I swear by the GH flora series for this very reason and wont touch anything from AN for the same. After you have that covered keep in mind the method of delivering these elements to your roots. It is always water and in this case coco as well. So how can we get these elements broken down and deliverd to the roots even faster? Mykos. Dont mess with the great white bs just get a big bag of mykos WP by plant success and throw it all in there they love the stuff. Oh yeah ph, temp/humidity , co2, light , and just generally doing the best you can possibly do will leave the big buds in the jars. Fulvic acid during bloom is fun too. Good luck

Click to expand...

I'm usually a hater on AN also. But their 3part is just as good(it's a copy) as GH's flora-series. But cheaper.
I just got done using AN's(not the ph perfect) for about a year and a half? I started with GH's 20+ yrs ago. I feel I know it well

Try vegging longer, train your plants better and spend more time focusing on what they need instead of a strict regimen.

Medicanman said:

I've been wanting to increase my yields for some time now with no luck. I always manage to get between 1300 and 1500 grams per cycle but never any higher.

I'm running 4x1000 watt HPS in cool tubes. My room is 10x12. I am growing in 5 gal pots using Sunshine Mix4 as a medium. I use AN Micro Grow and Bloom, with Big Bud and Overdrive in flower. I mix according to the directions.

I've tried changing the number of plants up and down and it doesn't make a significant difference. I've gone as low as 12 and as high as 18 plants but the numbers stay the same. I guess a function of square footage in relation to lighting? I've tired several different strains including Northern Lights, AK-48, Cotton Candy Kush, Green Crack and Diesel Grapefruit. Strain doesn't seem to matter.

I average about 90 grams per plant, plus or minus. I clone from mothers, once rooted they stay in solo cups till they are about 10" tall, then go into the big pots until they are 24 inches tall before switching to 12/12.

I've tried manicuring, monster cropping and topping. No change in overall weight from when I just leave them alone. I've boosted the nutrient and PPM levels up to where its just starting to burn the tips, and I've also cut it back to half strength. I've played with a lot of the variables. I've tried changing the height of the lights but usually leave them about 12 inches from the plant canopy.

I hear of these people claiming a gram per watt and I'm wondering what world they are living in because its different than mine. I'm not even managing a half gram per watt. I also replace my lamps every 2-3 cycles.

Any ideas of what I can do to boost my production with the lighting and space I have available?

Click to expand...

I just re-read your post and realized you were talking 12-18 plants for the whole room. I would go max plants. If that is 20, do 20.
Yeah, veg those plants larger for sure! Not taller, but bushier. Again, I end up roughly 16" tall, but have pinched the shit out of them.
Pinch tops in veg. Supercrop through early flower.
I don't like going from party cup directly to a 5 gallon either. I mean it will work, but not ideal, IMO.
You should use a pot in the middle. And again, I prefer ending up in 7 gallon pots when growing that many plants per light.

The way the room is configured, I measure my light coverage area as a rectangle 7x9". The last grow I had the plants in a 4x4 plant square. This time I am going 4x5 for a total of 20. So 5 plants per light and its still pretty crowded. Plants are in tomato cages at definitely close to each other. It leaves me just enough room to move around the perimeter since the room is exactly 10.5x11.5. I need room for the fans, ballasts, dehumidifier, sump pit, res etc.

I run my humidity 65% in veg and start rolling it back to 45% towards the end of the flower cycle.

My water is from a well. At the tap its 135-150 ppm. Ph is 7.5 I always adjust to 6.5. I had it tested for hazards when I first moved here and it checked out well. I can't remember the mineral numbers.

I'm not running CO2. Air is currently drawn from the room with a 6 inch fan attached to a carbon filter, pushed through the cool tubes and pumped into my house upstairs to use the waste heat from the lamps. The intake is just a vent into the rest of the basement. There is no outside air intake because I've not figured out how to not freeze my house out bringing winter air in. Even a window cracked 2 inches makes the basement ice cold. At -10 or below the cold air intake cools the room faster than the lights can heat it.

I've never pinched tops. Usually top only once. I've been a little afraid to mess with it too much. I veg under these lights 3-4 weeks max and they are about 24 inches tall when I 12/12. Depending on the strain they can finish 36"- 48" tall yielding about 90g per plant dry.

I can round up some pictures if they can help.

Thanks for the replies so far.

C02 and lotsa love.Mine love punk rock too!!!!Super Soil.And btw 90 grams per plant are pretty fucking good if you ask me.Thats almost a qp per plant!!!!I think yer messing with us.

Medicanman said:

The way the room is configured, I measure my light coverage area as a rectangle 7x9". The last grow I had the plants in a 4x4 plant square. This time I am going 4x5 for a total of 20. So 5 plants per light and its still pretty crowded. Plants are in tomato cages at definitely close to each other. It leaves me just enough room to move around the perimeter since the room is exactly 10.5x11.5. I need room for the fans, ballasts, dehumidifier, sump pit, res etc.

I run my humidity 65% in veg and start rolling it back to 45% towards the end of the flower cycle.

My water is from a well. At the tap its 135-150 ppm. Ph is 7.5 I always adjust to 6.5. I had it tested for hazards when I first moved here and it checked out well. I can't remember the mineral numbers.

I'm not running CO2. Air is currently drawn from the room with a 6 inch fan attached to a carbon filter, pushed through the cool tubes and pumped into my house upstairs to use the waste heat from the lamps. The intake is just a vent into the rest of the basement. There is no outside air intake because I've not figured out how to not freeze my house out bringing winter air in. Even a window cracked 2 inches makes the basement ice cold. At -10 or below the cold air intake cools the room faster than the lights can heat it.

I've never pinched tops. Usually top only once. I've been a little afraid to mess with it too much. I veg under these lights 3-4 weeks max and they are about 24 inches tall when I 12/12. Depending on the strain they can finish 36"- 48" tall yielding about 90g per plant dry.

I can round up some pictures if they can help.

Thanks for the replies so far.

Click to expand...

i have my plants in a base ment room, put a 4 inch hole through the wall tooutside, put in a 4 inch inline fan on a thermastat to kick the fan on and off at ur temp preset.. i keep my room at a steady 65 w/ 2 4inch 200 cfm inlines brining outside air in.. but put a dryer filter on them, dont want to bring in bugs..

Aeroknow said:

I don't like going from party cup directly to a 5 gallon either. I mean it will work, but not ideal, IMO.
You should use a pot in the middle. And again, I prefer ending up in 7 gallon pots when growing that many plants per light.

Click to expand...

I'm wondering why not ideal? Less watering and/or feeding?

I go from a 4x4 inch cube straight into 5 gallon now after trying many other methods.I agree a next step is ideal when you have a lot of room to 3 stage veg,but most of us are limited to tents and whatnot.

Senca the Younger said:

I'm wondering why not ideal? Less watering and/or feeding?

Click to expand...

You can feed more in smaller pots. Large pots do take a longer time in between watering which is a good and bad thing. The faster your pot dries out the sooner you can add more nutrients/water/oxygen.. SMall pots small roots, large pot large root mass

Senca the Younger said:

I'm wondering why not ideal? Less watering and/or feeding?

Click to expand...

Some say it makes for a better root system, I agree.
Space. Think 20 small clones in party cups, compared to 20 small clones in 5 gallon pots. Waste of space and lighting. Not efficient.
The wet/dry cycle takes to long rite after transplant if you pot up into a larger than needed pot. Not ideal, especially on the smaller plants.

daybreaker said:

C02 and lotsa love.Mine love punk rock too!!!!Super Soil.And btw 90 grams per plant are pretty fucking good if you ask me.Thats almost a qp per plant!!!!I think yer messing with us.

Click to expand...

No man not messing with you. I agree 90g per plant is OK, but with the amount of light I have beaming down in here I think it should be more than that. Overall it still only gives me 1400g when I think I should be up around 2000g overall which would be .5 g per watt. I want to maximize my use of power for obvious reasons.

I would like to be able to go from small, to medium, to large pot but I didn't want the transplant shock to interfere to much with the grow cycle, so I eliminated one transplant step. It does irritate me that the plants take too long to dry out when they are small. So what I do is slightly underwater during my first two waterings until the plants get bigger. Instead of soaking the pot completely, I use about 1/2 the watering solution until the root system and plant develop. My theory is that less roots require less water and it forces the plant to drive out new roots if slightly underwatered. It can't be all bad since they go from being transplanted at 10" to 24" in the space of 3-4 weeks and ready to flip. Besides, my problem is in the flower cycle. My veg cycle flies by pretty quick and I've always been surprised how fast they grow in that stage.

Here is a photo of my room and a photo of a plant just before trimming on my last cycle.

Medicanman said:

Here is a photo of my room and a photo of a plant just before trimming on my last cycle.

Click to expand...

looks chunky.maybe you should look into different genetics if you want more.Bomb seeds has some monster strains.checkm out.

Medicanman said:

The way the room is configured, I measure my light coverage area as a rectangle 7x9". The last grow I had the plants in a 4x4 plant square. This time I am going 4x5 for a total of 20. So 5 plants per light and its still pretty crowded. Plants are in tomato cages at definitely close to each other. It leaves me just enough room to move around the perimeter since the room is exactly 10.5x11.5. I need room for the fans, ballasts, dehumidifier, sump pit, res etc.

I run my humidity 65% in veg and start rolling it back to 45% towards the end of the flower cycle.

My water is from a well. At the tap its 135-150 ppm. Ph is 7.5 I always adjust to 6.5. I had it tested for hazards when I first moved here and it checked out well. I can't remember the mineral numbers.

I'm not running CO2. Air is currently drawn from the room with a 6 inch fan attached to a carbon filter, pushed through the cool tubes and pumped into my house upstairs to use the waste heat from the lamps. The intake is just a vent into the rest of the basement. There is no outside air intake because I've not figured out how to not freeze my house out bringing winter air in. Even a window cracked 2 inches makes the basement ice cold. At -10 or below the cold air intake cools the room faster than the lights can heat it.

I've never pinched tops. Usually top only once. I've been a little afraid to mess with it too much. I veg under these lights 3-4 weeks max and they are about 24 inches tall when I 12/12. Depending on the strain they can finish 36"- 48" tall yielding about 90g per plant dry.

I can round up some pictures if they can help.

Thanks for the replies so far.

Click to expand...

You probably need to add a source of humic acid and carbs to feed the root bene's. I use Sugar Daddy by Techniflora, but i know there are cheaper alternatives, though since u are using AN i doubt u care about the cost .

Also, you need to train your plants better. Top every plant when it has formed its 2nd set of true 5 blade leaves. Make an even canopy across the entire light coverage area. When i had a room like yours i would stake every plant out with bamboo stakes and zip ties and pull the tallest branches down so that the plants were all even at the top. I also would only allow each plant 3-4 branches off the main trunk below the "top". Allow these 3-4 branches to branch forming the canopy removing all lower branches or bud sites that dont get adequate light.. By doing this you will end up with plants that have a flat top and the effect of a SCROG allowing equal light to every cola and allowing you plants to have more colas receiving 100% light. Using this technique i was pulling 1.5 lb's on average per 1000w HPS.of a mediocre yielding OG strain. I pulled 2lb a light easy with higher yielding pure indica's like GDP.