Perpetual Harvest Hydro

Can someone explain in layman's terms how you would do a perpetual grow in hydro? What's the logistics of the time frame in taking clones, rooting them, veg, and flowering without running out of space in the flowering room, and, being that it's a hydro setup, how are you going about transferring plants from one room to another?

start seeds/clone in veg tent, move to bloom tent, start new batch in veg tent, finish bloom tent, move veg tent to bloom tent.

wash, rinse, repeat.

rkymtnman said:

start seeds/clone in veg tent, move to bloom tent, start new batch in veg tent, finish bloom tent, move veg tent to bloom tent.

wash, rinse, repeat.

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Not exactly that simple... How long does it take you to clone? How long are you vegging? How long does it take you to flower? What Hydro method are you using? Are you moving, for example, DWC method plants/buckets from one room t the next? What issues, if any, are you coming across? Veg and clone time is shorter than flowering times, how are you not running out of space in the flowering room?

doniboy said:

Not exactly that simple...

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yeah it is. that's how i do it.

rkymtnman said:

yeah it is. that's how i do it.

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Yea... Kind of like someone asking how to change a thermostat in a car, and my response to them is to "take the old one out, and put the new one in..."

doniboy said:

Yea... Kind of like someone asking how to change a thermostat in a car, and my response to them is to "take the old one out, and put the new one in..."

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what part are you not understanding? you need 2 spaces to do a perpetual. unless you grow autos.

if you need 9 weeks to flower, how many weeks do you need to veg? are you doing multi strains?

are you starting with clones? are you starting from seed? are you topping the plants? do you plan to scrog?

rkymtnman said:

what part are you not understanding? you need 2 spaces to do a perpetual. unless you grow autos.

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How long does it take you to clone? How long are you vegging? How long does it take you to flower? What Hydro method are you using? Are you moving, for example, DWC method plants/buckets from one room t the next? What issues, if any, are you coming across? Veg and clone time is shorter than flowering times, how are you not running out of space in the flowering room?

I understand the bare basics. I'm asking for details beyond that.

There are several ways to do a perpetual.

You can Pick a modular system like a flood and drain pod set up or something and move vegging plants over to a flower room.

Or you can run multiple rooms/tents where each crop starts and finishes in the same space and you just change lighting hours and spectrum.

Either way you need to take lots more clones than needed and allow twice what you expect for them to root and stay well ahead of your needs.
You can keep rooted clones ticking over on low light until you need them for proper veg phase.

Its just a game of math and always allowing for things to take longer than you expect.

rkymtnman said:

if you need 9 weeks to flower, how many weeks do you need to veg? are you doing multi strains?

are you starting with clones? are you starting from seed? are you topping the plants? do you plan to scrog?

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I'm not doing anything yet. I'm asking for others who are currently doing to answer the questions you just asked me. When and for how long are you flowering, vegging, cloning, etc? What's the size of your room, and how many plants are you alternating between each? What method of hydro are you implementing? DWC, EBB and Flow, etc?

My old one went like this.

8x4 flower tent
4x4 veg tent
10 week flower time
7 week veg time from rooted clone.
2 stages of flowering plants giving 5 week gap between harvests.
That means I have to have 4 plants with 7 week veg and 4 plants with a couple of weeks veg ready to pot up as soon as the bigger 4 go into the flower tent and replace the ones I just potted up with clones already rooted.

Might take me 10-14 days to get roots but allow 20+days. By having enough for two batches and a couple spare you don't fall short.

That's cloning from plants about to go into flower.

You always have to be prepared for a delay in ripening.
You tend to mono crop more when running perpetual but don't have to.

In veg I top for 4 mains and grow them up so that I might be working with roughly 3x3 of a 4x4 and once moved to flower super crop those mains out to fill 2x2 with each plant.

This is in 5gal cloth pots with coco.

It's not hard to do but it depends on how often you want to harvest.. is it every month? Every 2?
If it's every 2, it's very simple to do.
Mothers aren't even needed to be kept.

Coco dtw, though I did have a few runs with a flood and drain pod set up I built which you could lift out the plant with roots and hydroton with the inner bucket and leave the res and outer bucket behind moving to the flower chamber.

doniboy said:

I'm not doing anything yet. I'm asking for others who are currently doing to answer the questions you just asked me. When and for how long are you flowering, vegging, cloning, etc? What's the size of your room, and how many plants are you alternating between each? What method of hydro are you implementing? DWC, EBB and Flow, etc?

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i start from seed. i grow them to roughly 18" tall, the put them in bloom room, they get harvested when trichomes are sightly amber. about halfway thru bloom on a 9 week strain, assuming it goes 9 week but if it takes 10.5 weeks then i have to adjust for that, then i start the next batch of seeds. if these are a 8 week strain, then i have to adjust when i start my next batch of seeds. if they are 12 week strain, then i have to adjust when i start my next batch of seeds.

i grow in waterfarms and start seeds in an aero unit. i start 2 plants and then 2 plants after the first batch gets to 18".

unless you have the exact same conditions and same exact genetics of somebody you'll be copying, you'll have to figure out the fine details in your own setup. and then you'll have to change those details if conditions change.

Just be sure to never get any bugs, pretty much impossible to eliminate in a perpetual unless you are willing to use toxic stuff on flowering plants.

Perpetual grows have too much trade off in my opinion. Lights have sweet spots and if you are moving plants into a flowering space they will not be in the sweet spot. But if you have 3 tents you can have a harvest every month and keep everything apart.

By having to tents/rooms, you can continuesly grow plants eg. from clones, have them in flower in 1 space, take cuttings from them in week 2 or week 3 of flower, no later, and then veg. these clones in space 2, they will then root in about 10-14 days and you can then veg. them for 25-35 days as then flower them, take cuts from them and the cycle can be repeated continuesly...

Mellow old School said:

By having to tents/rooms, you can continuesly grow plants eg. from clones, have them in flower in 1 space, take cuttings from them in week 2 or week 3 of flower, no later, and then veg. these clones in space 2, they will then root in about 10-14 days and you can then veg. them for 25-35 days as then flower them, take cuts from them and the cycle can be repeated continuesly...

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horrible advice. Taking clones in anything after flip will cause you horrible growth patterns and just slow everything down. You gotta take clones the day you want to flip.
People always get SO WORRIED they're clones will be cut too early. It's not a big deal. If your girls are getting too big for what you need, cut the Fuckers in half basically.

Taking clones in anything after flip will cause you horrible growth patterns and just slow everything down.

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No that simply isnt true!

You can do that with success, of course if you have the space and money for electricity, I would also take clones earlier, even have mothers, but if you dont have that luxury, you can as I mentioned take clones in flower without having bad and slow growth patterns and run this way continuesly.

You mention that people can then just cut the plants in half, well thats down right a waste of money, time and energy.'

A reason for me doing it like that back then was due to space and to the fact that a kilowatt costs 40 cents.

Mellow old School said:

No that simply isnt true!

You can do that with success, of course if you have the space and money for electricity, I would also take clones earlier, even have mothers, but if you dont have that luxury, you can as I mentioned take clones in flower without having bad and slow growth patterns and run this way continuesly.

You mention that people can then just cut the plants in half, well thats down right a waste of money, time and energy.'

A reason for me doing it like that back then was due to space and to the fact that a kilowatt costs 40 cents.

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No.
Avoid all of that and take your cuts BEFORE FLIP. If they get too big before you need them to, just straight up chop it down to size. Its no different than topping, but instead a "deep topping".