How Much Does It Cost To Grow, Harvest, And Cure To Perfection?

four ounces of the finest herb imaginable?

Some interpret cost in various ways, others consider it a labor of love.

Some say the only reason they steal electricity is because the cops forced them to stay in hiding away from the sun.

Others believe sunlight prods dwellers of Darkness to follow their shadows.

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Woodstock.Hippie said:

four ounces of the finest herb imaginable?

Some interpret cost in various ways.

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They way I go about it the most expensive add on is the electricity at 40-80 dollars a month.

But as far as one series of plants from start to finish it costs me maybe 10-20 dollars a month for a harvest so if your going from clone thats maybe 80 dollars total for lights, food, circulation, water.

And it is easily done to get 4 ounces from one single plant no taller than 3ft tall. I like to grow a single plant with a meter squared canopy and it yields sometimes 18 ounces and I only use powdered nutes. Read the bottles of any non organic nutrient provider and they all have the same stuff(cept foxfarm and advanced nutrients have 90 percent water)

1000's or hardly anything- indoor or outdoor I guess, correct me if I'm wrong..

Straight up G said:

1000's or hardly anything- indoor or outdoor I guess, correct me if I'm wrong..

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Indoor the best results is a 600 watt HPS its HID providing High lumens but usually not as much heat as a thousand.

Its tremendous the vegitative and floral growth you can get from an HPS, I do have a 1000 watt in my flower room but when it conks i'm going to straight 600's. like my veg room

medcaniman said:

Indoor the best results is a 600 watt HPS its HID providing High lumens but usually not as much heat as a thousand.

Its tremendous the vegitative and floral growth you can get from an HPS, I do have a 1000 watt in my flower room but when it conks i'm going to straight 600's. like my veg room

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i totally agree with you on that one!!!

Medcaniman, I believe Straight up G was referring to $1000's, not watts.

I believe 75 cents per gram is pretty good for indoor because you provide free labor of love.

What would a good outdoor greenhouse cost be?

What happens to marijuana crime when the lights are turned on and the shutters opened?

What happens to marijuana crime when the lights are turned off and the shutters opened?

Ok, lets look at it the way an accountant for a business would, assuming a 6 plant grow.

First you have your fixed costs- What did all your basic equipment cost you (lights, pots, fans, hydro stuff (if you use hydro),etc). Lets say $750 (my own basic system was about $100 less with a 400w light). What did your clones/seeds cost? Let's say $75 for 6 clones ($15/each). Next, what is your electricity going to run. You can figure out what your local company charges per kilowatt hour from your bill, and then use this formula to figure your elecrtric bill in advance: (light wattage output / 1000) x electricity cost per kilowatt hour = Operating cost per hour. In my case I use a 400 w light and my KW charge per hour is .107, so it costs me $04.28 per hour to run my light. For 30 days flowering at 18/6 it will cost $23.12, and for 30 days at 12/12 it will cost
$15.40 , for a total of $53.92 for a 13 week grow.
Add it all together and your fixed costs are $278.92 (you could also figure the rent, insurance, etc for the space your growing in, but there's no point going into that unless you're growing commercially).

Now what about variable costs? Other then your labor the only real variable costs your going to have are your nutes, soils, insecticides, etc. You have to estimate you're usage to figure out your costs here (if you used 1/2 of a bottle of nutes that cost $15 your actual cost for the grow was $7.50). This varies a lot depending on what you use and how your growing, so I'm just going to assume you grow in soil and use a half a bottle of each of the fox farm three pack and about 10% of each of the 4 pack supplements. (I'm probably seriously overstimating, but it's better to overestimate costs initially and be surprised when you spend less then you planned on). Based on online and local prices that means another $22.50 for the three pack and $8.95 for the four pack, for a total of $31.45. Just to make it even, lets say your insecticides and other variables (charcoal filters, etc) bring it up to $40. From personal experience I know that it costs about $3 each to plant them in 3 gallon pots using Fox Farm soil, so there is another $18. That puts your variable (non labor) costs are around $58.

That gives you a total cost for the grow of $336.92 over the three month grow period. Now, assuming your plants all survive and you are able to harvest 3 oz from each plant your looking at a total of 18 oz. $336.92/18= $18.71 per ounce. This is a very basic breakdown, but for anyone that's just growing for personal use I think it makes it obvious that you can grow it yourself for far less then you can buy it at the dispensary.

Woodstock.Hippie said:

four ounces of the finest herb imaginable?

Some interpret cost in various ways, others consider it a labor of love.

Some say the only reason they steal electricity is because the cops forced them to stay in hiding away from the sun.

Others believe sunlight prods dwellers of Darkness to follow their shadows.

.

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I've always wanted to calculate the cost. I'm not organized or motivated enough to do it though. I can tell you this. It's way cheaper than buying it and definitely rewarding. It's a sense of accomplishment when you are 8-9 weeks into flowering and you know that you are about to have a lot of high quality herb to smoke. It can be a lot of work at times and there's always the rippers and law dogs to worry about.

Doc,

Figuring out the costs really isn't all that hard to do. It just takes a few minutes now and then to do the record keeping and then another few minutes with a calculator. The nice thing is that you only need to figure out your fixed costs once. They won't vary from grow to grow unless you want them to (longer veg stage, for example will increase fixed electric costs), so the only variables you have to figure in each time are the cost of your nutrients and labor. Total cost/ total yield will always tell you your cost per ounce, gram, or whatever you want to figure it by.

EdGreyfox said:

Doc,

Figuring out the costs really isn't all that hard to do. It just takes a few minutes now and then to do the record keeping and then another few minutes with a calculator. The nice thing is that you only need to figure out your fixed costs once. They won't vary from grow to grow unless you want them to (longer veg stage, for example will increase fixed electric costs), so the only variables you have to figure in each time are the cost of your nutrients and labor. Total cost/ total yield will always tell you your cost per ounce, gram, or whatever you want to figure it by.

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I know it wouldn't be hard. I have never even weighed my final harvest to see exactly what I end up with. It isn't until it's been cured for a few weeks in jars that I weigh any of it up at all and by that time I've usuall smoked a good deal, hehe! I don't really need to figure it but it would be nice to know I guess. I only grow for my own purposes and a few family and friends.

4 oz of the finest herb imaginable could probably be grown under a 400w, but 600w would be better.

5 hybrid seeds, Lights, electric, 3 part nutes, CO2, ventilation, and cooling will easily put you over the $1000 mark, but there are many variables.

You should still be able to do it for the same price as if you went out an bought 4 oz of the finest herb imaginable @ $400 - $600 per oz.

EdGreyfox said:

Ok, lets look at it the way an accountant for a business would, assuming a 6 plant grow.

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Great post!

Thanks orange. I'm may still have a lot to learn when it comes to growing, but I'm very good with the accounting part of things (probably because I'm an accountant).

Green, I think you're overestimating when it comes to pricing unless you're talking about buying top of the line stuff or setting up multiple lights. You can get a 600W HPS/MH light from ebay for $250. You can get a 3 pack of the fox farms nutes for $45, and the supplements pack runs $90. Thing is, you're not going to go through anywhere near a whole bottle of either type of nutes in 1 grow, so you can't count the whole cost as being for that grow. You can pick up a fan for $25, and if you really need ventilation and air filtering you can pick up a fan w/inline carbon filter for $150. Say another $25 for exhaust tubing and various hardware to hook everything up.

My total costs to date are less then $700, and that includes the costs for my doctors visit, MMJ registration fee, pots, clones, etc. True, I'm only doing a small grow of 6 plants and have plenty of space so odor and exhaust aren't as big an issue as they would be for a dorm or apartment dweller, but the point is that you don't need to spend $1000+ to get started if you're just growing for yourself. The best advice i've been given by any grower I know personally was to start off small and worry about bigger grows/more equipment once my existing set up had grown enough medicine to pay for itself.

EdGreyfox said:

Thanks orange. I'm may still have a lot to learn when it comes to growing, but I'm very good with the accounting part of things (probably because I'm an accountant).

Green, I think you're overestimating when it comes to pricing unless you're talking about buying top of the line stuff or setting up multiple lights. You can get a 600W HPS/MH light from ebay for $250. You can get a 3 pack of the fox farms nutes for $45, and the supplements pack runs $90. Thing is, you're not going to go through anywhere near a whole bottle of either type of nutes in 1 grow, so you can't count the whole cost as being for that grow. You can pick up a fan for $25, and if you really need ventilation and air filtering you can pick up a fan w/inline carbon filter for $150. Say another $25 for exhaust tubing and various hardware to hook everything up.

My total costs to date are less then $700, and that includes the costs for my doctors visit, MMJ registration fee, pots, clones, etc. True, I'm only doing a small grow of 6 plants and have plenty of space so odor and exhaust aren't as big an issue as they would be for a dorm or apartment dweller, but the point is that you don't need to spend $1000+ to get started if you're just growing for yourself. The best advice i've been given by any grower I know personally was to start off small and worry about bigger grows/more equipment once my existing set up had grown enough medicine to pay for itself.

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With having medical permission is it even necessary to care about the smell? I need to have it controlled because we don't have medical marijuana where I live and thus I don't want any evidence of a grow. If the grow was legal though I wouldn't care if my entire house smelled all the time because I've grown to love the smell of weed. Also, I'd be showing off my plants to just about everyone.

Green Cross said:

You should still be able to do it for the same price as if you went out an bought 4 oz of the finest herb imaginable @ $400 - $600 per oz.

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People pay that much for weed? Where? I need to get there.

DSM- That what the dispensaries locally charge for the top shelf stuff, which is why i started growing my own.

Orange,

Yes, i have MMJ license, but I really don't want to advertise the fact I'm growing to the neighborhood. I don't need a couple teenagers busting out a window and making off with my crop while I'm gone at work one of these days. Just because I don't have to worry about the cops doesn't mean I don't have to be at least a little paranoid about other users.

At this point I've got a whole bedroom to use for only 6 plants and the smell isn't an issue, but if they start getting really stinky in the flowering phase I may have to consider putting in carbon scrubbers to filter out the smell and put in an exhaust system that runs up into my attic and vents out one of the air pipes on the roof (I don't want to run a vent out a window because it would be easy to spot on my place).

That's crazy. You can't give it away here.

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