Most Efficient Commercial Grow Methods

collective gardener

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
frogster said:
Yep,,, verticle , sog grow, stadium style... Heath Robinson... havnt seen any thing close to yield per watt&sq ft... I believe that was without co2! But Lumen do matter,,, just need the right spectrum,,, 100,000 lumen doesnt mean anything if its the complete wrong spectrum, its a combo that counts... A hortilux blue 80,000 lumen bulb will outperform a 140,000 lumen bulb that doesnt have a great spectrum (par) Thats why the 400watt CMH, plasma etc lights are so good... great spectrum... So, everyone is kinda right, and everyone is kinda wrong.... Lumen and par combined are very important... Marijuananation posted a truck that was taken away,,and the fact you can trade a kilo of mmj for a kilo of blow is ignorant in several ways, 1. you cant 2. why would you, cocaine is a horrible drug, imo 3. we are all trying to get mmj fully legalized on a federal level, and comments like that are just not helping the cause. , no idea why that was posted...? Also keep your "PRIDE" to a minimum,ie. look at my baddass truck that I once had,,,really, get a life buddy... No reason to come on here posting crap like that..It didnt impress anyone here , im sure, if anything I think less of you for being so foolish, keep it to cultivating fine MMJ and you will gain my respect...
Click to expand...
Well said, Frogster. Even mentioning coke, guns, or anything else associated with real crime has no place in a marijuans discussion. We have spent far too much time trying to convince the masses that cannabis is NOT like these other horrible things. And that truck! Give us a break. Once again, it perpetualizes (sp?) the stereotype of cash rich drug dealer buying expensive toys. Do what you want with your money...it's yours, afterall. But don't jam it down people's throat. I've seen your little peepee truck in several threads now. Like frogster said, we're impressed with your growing skills. You clearly know what you're doing and have much to offer the MMJ community.

Frogster, I've never used the Hortilux Daylight Blue. Is it worth the $$$? We currently use Pulse Start 6.4K. Our veg room has 8 lights. At $60.00 difference per light, it adds up. What effect on growth have you seen with the Daylight Blue?
 
frogster

frogster

Active Member
I have never used them (yet),,, I only have mh ballast so those would be the ideal bulb for me... Im trying out an old school type grow (early 70's)... using only mh through the entire grow,, the yield is suppose to suffer a bit , but the quality is suppose to be off the charts... Im also having fun with another grower,(legalyflying),, we are about to start a SCROG-OFF journal... Im using 1" chicken wire and he's using 2x2... we are both flipping 12/12 tuesday, I may wait 1 week behind, we will see... ...Pulse start mh.. google the model or better yet go to the manufacture, they usually have a spectrum chart... Pulse start... Hmm, it a 1000w? Venture bulb or a SYLVANIA, G.E? the cri index is around 65-68, not much of a complete spectrum, 6.4k is heavy on the veg only spectrum ,a 3400-4000k may have been a better choice for a complete grow... ,,, but they will work...The CMH are awesome, too bad they only come in 400watt.. maybe someday... Frogster
 
purrrrple

purrrrple

Well-Known Member
collective gardener said:
Frogster, I've never used the Hortilux Daylight Blue. Is it worth the $$$? We currently use Pulse Start 6.4K. Our veg room has 8 lights. At $60.00 difference per light, it adds up. What effect on growth have you seen with the Daylight Blue?
Click to expand...
I have used the SuperBlue Horts and I can assure you that they are GREAT bulbs. What is not so great however is the price. At some $250+ retail I would say you cannot justify the difference in price UNLESS you are running EXTREMELY long veg periods. They do produce a bushier, stockier, and overall larger/healthier plant but I can't seem to get past the price. We're in CO now but buying from a store in FL and getting the regular Hort MH bulbs for $55 and the Hort Blues for $150 singles. Case price is much better. PM me for the info on the store if your interested as I don't know if the owners would appreciate me posting their info online (as they are in FL).
 
S

STACKB

Active Member
Can we see a few pics of mothers/cloning rooms? And how are you commercial guys doing the actual cloning process? Anything special or just rockwool cubes in trays? Curious to see those setups , since its the first important half of the project.
 
Guile

Guile

Active Member
Efficiency is key... If you want to know how commercial greenhouses run at peak efficiency call one of their supply companies.. Tell the dudes you are getting set up to grow pot legally and they won't even question it (A sale is a sale to most of them). I have been toying with the idea of using 3-5 gallon buckets, filled with growing medium like expanded clay or crushed brick (look into all your reclaimed arrogate options crushed terracotta or other tile might work well too) set on top of milk crates and plumed to a large "stock tank" (for cattle, you get them at hardware stores) and ofcourse a pump. For greenhouse use, where light efficacy is less a concern this seems like a cheap/easy option that allows expansion and movement.

Indoor grows can be a little more tricky (not alot of good commercial referenced to draw from locally). Light is expensive and hard to evenly distribute over a large aria.
Its my impression that SOG is commonly used (focusing on the main cola) to make the most efficient usage of light (without a huge investment in maintenance). I personally use an ebb n flow system because it allows me to recycle my growing medium (expanded clay pellets) and the ease of dealing with ph and nutrient adjustments (I use the "Lucas formula" too, to recycle nutrients, but its common practice in large greenhouses anyway).

Climate control can be kept efficient by using active ventilation to help maintain reasonable temperatures and humidity, using propane heaters only to warm the environment when temperatures drop below average desired room temperatures (by which time your fans should have been shut down by its management system). This is obviously little more than an individual perspective but my garden is biased on this thinking and though I never flower more than my local limit I feel its as applicable on larger scales..
 
S

STACKB

Active Member
For those running 20 flood tables , how many mothers is going to produce all those clones? We're talking in the thousands of clones
 
A

archimedeze88

Member
Way to go Marijuananation. Almost every word from your post was plagiarized. (Except for your random rant about buying a big nice truck. What an interesting story! I wish I could be as cool as you.) Lol.
In the future you should give credit to an author when you rip off an entire chapter of their book instead of implying you wrote it.


"...... Here is my decsription of SOG METHOD.

SOG is the theory of harvesting lots of small plants, matured early to get the fastest production of buds available......"
 
TheDuder

TheDuder

Active Member
I have dozens. Ebb & Flow commercially. Organic soil for medicine. On the scale you're hinting at, manually or hand feeding each plants medium or res. is to time-consuming, labor intensive, imprecise, etc... Ebb & Flow reduces many of these problems and allows greater automation of control functions. No burners, co2 or the like for me. The commercial side has such an incredible ventilation system that fresh outside air serves its natural purpose and design.

There is only one secret to indoors: Mimic the Earth and Sun, and treat them as if they were in Eden.

-The Dude
 
igothydrotoneverywhere

igothydrotoneverywhere

Well-Known Member
our warehouse is 60k watts, we are running coco, we hand water almost everyday (until the owners want to invest in drip system), we harvest 10 lbs a week with 3.5 full time employees. that includes all trimming and hashmaking. we are expanding to a full 100k watts and will only be adding another trimmer or 2. commercial seems to be best running drain to waste coco either hand watered or drip irrigated if you got the skills and the $. we have a simple scrog and veg all our plants for a month, we top them once and flower them at 18" roughly depending on strain with about 6 " of undertrim.
drain to waste coco is the most effiecient and profitable indoor grow method thus far created by man, under 1000 watt lights.
you cannot run SOG as a legal bigtime grower anywhere in america, thought i would throw that out there. the plant counts are limited by the law.
as a legal grower for a real dispensary i would like to say that the more moving parts there are in my system the less efficent it is. also, soil yields and grow times are not worth it. we will crush you, 10 lbs a week no bullshit. we run a slightly modified lucas formula, so all them that say its the nutes are crazy.
its all about GENETICS AND DISTANCE FROM THE LIGHT when it comes to indoor growing for $
our veg room is only 13k watts that includes mothers and cloning.
we throw away our root balls and buy fresh coco mix everytime, we have to rewash all our pots, and make sure the drain system is clean. any other form of hydro is way too much work and maintenence. you should mixing fresh nutes everytime you water, that takes ALOT OF THE BS OUT OF HYDRO, ebb and flow is flawed like a mother fucker each time it ebbs it changes the resevoir, not good always requires maintenence and the ppm and ph change each time it floods. so you nutrients get weaker and stankier each time. LAME
also these guys that say 600 watt is the way to grow are forgetting a couple of things, number one, spill over light, the light that carries off the sides of a 1000 watt light feeds the rows to the sides. secondly as the light diminishes by the inverse square, at just one foot from the bulb the 1000 watt is putting off alot more lumens vs the 600 which means rock hard dense buds and weight at the top and bottom of the plant.
for the record SOG may straight up be a slight bit more productive, but its ALOT of repetition, and you have to account for MAN HOURS as you factor the large scale commercial quotient and that means inconsistency and money. every single one of our plants has to labeled with a patients registry number and harvested in a registry online with waste, bud and trim weights. alot of work given the contstraints of the current colorado law.
 
L

Lucius Vorenus

Well-Known Member
igothydrotoneverywhere said:
our warehouse is 60k watts, we are running coco, we hand water almost everyday (until the owners want to invest in drip system), we harvest 10 lbs a week with 3.5 full time employees. that includes all trimming and hashmaking. we are expanding to a full 100k watts and will only be adding another trimmer or 2. commercial seems to be best running drain to waste coco either hand watered or drip irrigated if you got the skills and the $. we have a simple scrog and veg all our plants for a month, we top them once and flower them at 18" roughly depending on strain with about 6 " of undertrim.
drain to waste coco is the most effiecient and profitable indoor grow method thus far created by man, under 1000 watt lights.
you cannot run SOG as a legal bigtime grower anywhere in america, thought i would throw that out there. the plant counts are limited by the law.
as a legal grower for a real dispensary i would like to say that the more moving parts there are in my system the less efficent it is. also, soil yields and grow times are not worth it. we will crush you, 10 lbs a week no bullshit. we run a slightly modified lucas formula, so all them that say its the nutes are crazy.
its all about GENETICS AND DISTANCE FROM THE LIGHT when it comes to indoor growing for $
our veg room is only 13k watts that includes mothers and cloning.
we throw away our root balls and buy fresh coco mix everytime, we have to rewash all our pots, and make sure the drain system is clean. any other form of hydro is way too much work and maintenence. you should mixing fresh nutes everytime you water, that takes ALOT OF THE BS OUT OF HYDRO, ebb and flow is flawed like a mother fucker each time it ebbs it changes the resevoir, not good always requires maintenence and the ppm and ph change each time it floods. so you nutrients get weaker and stankier each time. LAME
also these guys that say 600 watt is the way to grow are forgetting a couple of things, number one, spill over light, the light that carries off the sides of a 1000 watt light feeds the rows to the sides. secondly as the light diminishes by the inverse square, at just one foot from the bulb the 1000 watt is putting off alot more lumens vs the 600 which means rock hard dense buds and weight at the top and bottom of the plant.
for the record SOG may straight up be a slight bit more productive, but its ALOT of repetition, and you have to account for MAN HOURS as you factor the large scale commercial quotient and that means inconsistency and money. every single one of our plants has to labeled with a patients registry number and harvested in a registry online with waste, bud and trim weights. alot of work given the contstraints of the current colorado law.
Click to expand...
I am in 100% agreement here with you.

A couple of questions


1. What method do you use to drain?

2. How do you flush and how often?

3. Scroggin seems time consuming commercially, care to share a tip?
 
Uncle Ben

Uncle Ben

Well-Known Member
igothydrotoneverywhere said:
our warehouse is 60k watts, we are running coco, we hand water almost everyday (until the owners want to invest in drip system), we harvest 10 lbs a week with 3.5 full time employees. that includes all trimming and hashmaking. we are expanding to a full 100k watts and will only be adding another trimmer or 2. commercial seems to be best running drain to waste coco either hand watered or drip irrigated if you got the skills and the $. we have a simple scrog and veg all our plants for a month, we top them once and flower them at 18" roughly depending on strain with about 6 " of undertrim.
drain to waste coco is the most effiecient and profitable indoor grow method thus far created by man, under 1000 watt lights.
you cannot run SOG as a legal bigtime grower anywhere in america, thought i would throw that out there. the plant counts are limited by the law.
as a legal grower for a real dispensary i would like to say that the more moving parts there are in my system the less efficent it is. also, soil yields and grow times are not worth it. we will crush you, 10 lbs a week no bullshit. we run a slightly modified lucas formula, so all them that say its the nutes are crazy.
its all about GENETICS AND DISTANCE FROM THE LIGHT when it comes to indoor growing for $
our veg room is only 13k watts that includes mothers and cloning.
we throw away our root balls and buy fresh coco mix everytime, we have to rewash all our pots, and make sure the drain system is clean. any other form of hydro is way too much work and maintenence. you should mixing fresh nutes everytime you water, that takes ALOT OF THE BS OUT OF HYDRO, ebb and flow is flawed like a mother fucker each time it ebbs it changes the resevoir, not good always requires maintenence and the ppm and ph change each time it floods. so you nutrients get weaker and stankier each time. LAME
also these guys that say 600 watt is the way to grow are forgetting a couple of things, number one, spill over light, the light that carries off the sides of a 1000 watt light feeds the rows to the sides. secondly as the light diminishes by the inverse square, at just one foot from the bulb the 1000 watt is putting off alot more lumens vs the 600 which means rock hard dense buds and weight at the top and bottom of the plant.
for the record SOG may straight up be a slight bit more productive, but its ALOT of repetition, and you have to account for MAN HOURS as you factor the large scale commercial quotient and that means inconsistency and money. every single one of our plants has to labeled with a patients registry number and harvested in a registry online with waste, bud and trim weights. alot of work given the contstraints of the current colorado law.
Click to expand...
Sounds like someone is a slave to their plants.

Got any pix?
 
P

phishtank

Well-Known Member
The one question I have...for those that are doing these huge SOG grows...how the fuck do you water the plants in the middle? A hose?
 
igothydrotoneverywhere

igothydrotoneverywhere

Well-Known Member
we have large 4' x 16' flood tables that are slanted at a 15% angle down so they drain. At the end of the table there is a shower drain that reduces to a 1/2" nipple. these all gravity feed to a drain in the floor, with the exception of the ones that are connected to an ebb and gro brain bucket, these are set on "drain" all the time. when the float valve pops up from watering the pumps kick on.

We dont flush til the end, a part of using fresh water every day enables you skip that step during growth, i dont see the point of it anyway. the roots get fresh oxygen everyday. no stale water in the root ball, ever. so for just a week or so at the end of harvest.

We have large 4 x 16 foot tables with 4 foot 2x4s every 4 feet. we use a heavy duty nylon trellis. as the plants stretch we train them during the watering chore. they dont need more than one or two trainings if you top your plants and bend them when you flower them, we usually top once. When they are put into flower we bend outwards to open up light to the center of the plant. then strongest/main shoots away from center.
 
igothydrotoneverywhere

igothydrotoneverywhere

Well-Known Member
phishtank said:
The one question I have...for those that are doing these huge SOG grows...how the fuck do you water the plants in the middle? A hose?
Click to expand...
we have a Mondi sump pump and a goodyear hose, we give the plants a 3 second(half gal) or 5 second(gal) count depending on the day/conditions/treatment the scrog we have is not a sog, way less plants and maintenence, we do between 4 and 6 plants per light and they are on giant 4' x 16' flood tables that drain at an angle, they are all on heavy duty casters so we can roll them around.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top