Tips on maximizing yield in a small space.....

I'd like to get input from the experienced cab & micro growers on this topic. I have search functioned the shit out of it. Creeped through about every cab and micro grow thread on here and other forums. Gone so many pages deep on my google searches I swear I am accessing info off a abacus. Most of the information I can glean from all of this seems to be extremely generalized to the point that it sounds like a grower with all the room they need is just speculating on what would work in limited space or so spread out all over the place it takes oodles of time, imaginative searching and dumb luck to come across it. Was thinking it would be kind of nice to get a thread going where experience growers can lay some knowledge down for newer people like me to learn from.

All tips and info welcome. Things such as your opinions of good compact but high yielding plants for a small space. Mini SCROG tips and tricks. Advice on keeping plants that aren't genetically predisposed to staying small compact and healthy. Particularity interested in info on cab and micro growers who have perpetual grows going.

I know it's a little presumptuous of me to request this and even more so to hope this thread will compile enough useful and pertinent info to become stickied. But hell..... the Wright brothers were presumptuous enough to think they could fly....

or not......

Me too... I have a 4' (w) x 2' (d) x 2.5' (h) space available, and I am starting with a clean slate. Like the OP, I have been running around these forums like a headless chicken. Learned so many things, but still I'm feeling clueless. I want to go with some form of hydroponics. Maybe start with something simple - feminized autoflowering seeds - LED lighting - some dwarf variety (lowrider?)...

I'm still digging, lets see where I get...

https://www.rollitup.org/stealth-micro-cab-growing/513878-micro-bubbleponics-cab-69ws-2700k.html

try this, long but lots of pics with parts listed. good luck with your alls grows

when i first started growing in a pc case i thought id be limited to only short phenotype auto flowering w/e but i learned that you can grow almost any strain in any size grow area. I use 12/12 from seed and train early using LST scrogging and FIM techniques.

also read books on growing. as many as you can I'm always learning new shit.

Thank you both... the more info the merrier

I'm still waiting on my Jorge Cervantes Growing Bible in the mail...I don't know why I didn't just go buy it at the book store oh well but anyways like secretweapon had said LST training is your best friend when growing in the small case. I'm still working towards setting up my first grow but I've been doing my reading and watching videos online. Now I am assuming you are using a cab and not a pc which means you probably have a little more room. ScOG might also work for you depending on if you have a wide enough area. If its narrow then LST is what you will have to rely on. There are other methods of increasing yield that I think almost any experienced grower would tell you to do such as 'topping'. You can search and find plenty of how to videos on pruning tricks to increase yield but basically when topping you are cutting the middle portion of where your bud would actually grow out if in the cola. By doing this you can create 2 smaller colas and I think you can do it to those as well resulting in 4 colas. Fimming is basically the same thing as well but you are cutting the plant a little lower than if you topped it. From what I can tell the only difference is if you fimmed it would probably be bushier and shorter because you would be cutting lower. You'll need to do some reading or see some how to's to know where you'll have to cut though.

Another tip on keeping them small is restricting them to the smaller pots you will have to use in the small space. By restricting the roots you are restricting its ability to grow as tall as it would have. Not saying to make the pots smaller but just saying the smaller the pot the less room for it to grow. Hopefully I could help you out a bit, just make sure you looking up pruning methods because that, along with good soil, nutes, and strong light, will help you get those big juicy buds we all want.

Yes I am growing in a DIY cabinet. So I definitely have more room that the PC fellas.

I think you have FIMing and topping mixed up. When you FIM you just pinch or cut out the growing tip. Topping cut further down the main growing stem thus removing more of the plant. I fully intend on topping to control height, grow more bud sites and for using the cutting to clone. May use a combination of topping and FIMing in a LST or SCROG setup. I'll top to get more main branches and then when I am happy I may FIM those branches once just for shits and grins. Not looking for the fastest possible production times. I have all the time in the world to veg and flower... I'm in no rush. But if anybody has tips on fast growing and production please lay that wisdom on this thread.

Also interested in hearing about mini DWC/SOG experiences. I may get one of those going if I get a few clones off a couple plants all at once.

Hydroponics I use passive hempy buckets and always yield good in micro, just chopped a white widow she's looking to be about 3oz as an educated guess (that was in a 10l pot), and am currently upgrading to proper DWC buckets.


(this is my most recent super stealth micro cab built into the wall, 120cm wide x 90cm high x 40cm deep)

My other 2 girls in hempy's are the Sour Candy and Amnesia Lemon and they are looking to be about 2oz each roughly (both are in 2 litre cola bottle pots) so I'm hoping for a total yield of 5-7oz's from 1, 250w HPS that's (hopefully) 0.8g per watt. All grown using a dished ScrOG screen to use the arc of the light, AND if I used 3, 10l pots I could have rougly averaged 3oz+ a plant which would be a nice 1.008gpw lol


You'll notice how the dished screen utilizes the spread of the light a lot more than a flat screen, you also get a good couple of sq/ft extra surface area on the screen giving you a fair few extra holes for budsites (which are easily filled : )


(this was an under vegged screen, needed a few more weeks before flower, still yielded a touch under 3oz's)

I also run a perpetual 6-12 week cycle now I have a mother plant to clone from, the mother needs minimal light and is usually strong enough to be abused so if she gets too tall, chop the shit out of her etc keep the mum as small as possible. I root 2 clones, veg for 3 weeks, top both of them, veg for another 2 weeks then flower. All the while training them into a shiny dished ScrOG.

Mini DWC/SOG (I assume you mean sog using dwc buckets?) is generally not wise unless you have a lot of floor space for at least 5-10l buckets, this is because of how much the PH fluctuates in a small root environment which in hydro causes havoc on your plants, maybe if you developed some sort of 2 litre cola bottle Re-circulating DWC the PH's would be a lot more stable and you could probably get 8 buckets in a 4ft wide by 1ft deep cab, just root clone then flower straight away.

You can grow any strain micro so long as you have the height management techniques down i.e ScrOG (so far I've only needed to top each plant once after 3-4 weeks give it a week to recover then flower), I've managed a Super Lemon Haze plant previously in an old micro setup, and I'm currently doing an Amnesia Lemon, 2 very sativa dominant plants.


(Amnesia Lemon - Nice and short : )

The last and hardest part I find is finding the best yielding/all round strain to keep as a mother which involves a lot of trial and error, a lot of seeds and a lot of time picking through the runts, flowering out etc, etc. I've been lucky so far and have only really had good phenotypes (except for 1 of my SLH's) so I haven't had to do much hunting, the strains do exactly as they say on the tin, but this is an important process, unfortunately micro growers don't tend to have the space to try lots of strains and get the perfect phenotype, but if you have the time and patience it's definitely an exercise worth considering.

Basically the moral of the story is, if you want to yield big using micro, you want at least 10l buckets, preferably some kind of hydro, and ScrOG to keep the plants low. Also in my experience so far you want to keep the plant numbers down to a minimum say 1 plant for every 1ft x 1.5ft of floorspace (so roughly 3 plants in a 4ft x 1.5ft cab) and grow them a bit bigger than you would when doing SOG.

I hope that minor essay is useful

Stay Frosty!
(edit: added pics)

I'd +rep you Matchbox.... but I have to spread the love around more first. Stop being so awesome!!!!!

"Mini DWC/SOG (I assume you mean sog using dwc buckets?)"
Sort of.... I am meaning a large(ish) reservoir like rectangular tote that can accommodate 6 to 8 smaller net pots. The plants would all be clones only left in veg long enough to establish a decent root structure and then put into flower.

Ah I see, still I wouldn't recommend it, there's too much hassle of the roots tangling and the plants competing for nutes/root space, it's just like when you plant 6 or so plants in soil in 1 tote just with bigger roots Unless you could section the root systems apart but that's more hassle than it's worth. Maybe 4 plants in 1 large'ish res but they'd still tangle and compete.

Those systems work well for veg when they are taken out quite quickly, and very well for cloning, but not much else XD (as far as I've seen, not many people do it for flowering)

Just a thought, a micro flood and drain system would work perfectly! I made one that held 8, 1.5l Airpots which were filled with Hydroton and seeds/clones would be put in rockwool. The airpots stop the roots from escaping their confines and tangling up as well as air pruning the roots

I have 20 two gallon "root pouches" on order. Gonna give DWC and ebb & flow a shot before I settle on a process. I know I am using hydro. Just not dialed in on which.

PS. Root Pouches are a knock off of Smart Pots......

Ive been growing in a small space for a couple of years now (closet grow, divided into veg chamber and flower chamber above) and used cfl until recently. The issue with small spaces is always going to be controlling heat and I was able to get up to 470w of cfl 2700k and maintain manageable temps (uk climate means that growing between may and september can be difficult indoors)

Personally I top plants and then use the top for a clone, rough up the stem with a blade, dip it in some rooting hormone and get it in a propagator, produces a workable clone 9 times out of 10. I also take clones from lower branches, but am not fixated on this as many growing guides would suggest I should be.

I have 750mm x 1000mm of space on the shelf and that gives me either 3 or 4 plants in a cycle of pulling one out every 2-3 weeks, on a constant cycle (each time a plant is chopped I move the largest up from the veg cabinet and take a fresh couple of cuttings, keeping the strong and discarding the weak). When out of the propagator they get 1-2 weeks in a small pot under a bottle, then move up to a larger air pruning pot, where they get 2-4 weeks befor moving to 5l flowering pot for a week or so beforemoving up. The difficulty can be that, to maintain the cycle, it is occasionally necessary to put plants into flower earlier andntherefore get less bud.

I use LST using string, whilst also training branches with a pinch and a bend to get an even canopy.

I grow in soil btw, as I currently produce about the right amount of weed for my needs and see no reason to fix what ain't broke.

See my grow in sig for examples of my plants.

That's really interesting using the top as your clone. I've never heard of anyone doing that but I will have to consider that. How long is the top when you usually do this though? I imagine they are really small.

I do it all the time as well

It can be very small, but if you just let the plant grow a bit taller before actually topping you have a nice tall stem to root XD

i have a 30in h x 18in w x 24in d hydro cab with the light and the reservoir i only have 19in od grow height. i acquired some lowryde r#2 from a buddy. i had to move the lr's to my tent because come chop time they where 26in tall.

I just read Nugbuckets entire "lab" thread and he has one up today on "mainlining". I think this is going to allow me to get more use out of all the space in my cab as possible. Never considered training my ladies branches to bend over the edge of the planter back down to the shelf.... I'll regain a goodly portion of the vertical room lost to the planter.