First grow in 8 years

Hey y'all, this is going to be my 2nd ever grow. I'm starting off small and working my way up as i go. I do have plans to end up with everything in tents by the time i get to the flowering stage. As of right now i have 4 babies under fluorescent lights in my closet until my 32"x32"x72" tent gets here. These 4 came from bagseed and were germinated in folded up, wet paper towel. After they sprouted they were all 4 put in a small planter and set up in the kitchen window til they popped out of the soil. After 2 weeks they were transplanted into coffee containers and put under fluorescent light. I plan on vegging for atleast 8 weeks or until they are about 18"-22" tall, so i have a little bit of time to get things ready.

As far as lighting goes, i've been looking into full spectrum led lights. I really like the GalaxyHydro 300w Full Spectrum lights. I'm up in the air between trying to led lights or just going HID. I would like to stay as close to 1gpw as possible, so i'm leaning heavily towards led. I will post what pics i have so far as soon as the site will let me. It keeps telling me the upload failed because of something to do with security missing... guess i'm still too new.

the 1g/w is not something that i have ever achieved with regular HPS lighting and frankly, i don't see it being achieved with the growers that i encounter. I have seen one vertical grower who claimed to achieve like 2G/w, it was a fantastic setup, still i didn't believe it. It might be that LED can achieve that or more, since it is claimed to have double or more the efficiency of HPS and i sure have achieved more than 0.5g/w with HPS so with those assumed numbers, it makes sense that it is possible, BUT, I am still looking for LED growers who are trying this, and yet have to see a trial with weight/watt calculations.

zem said:

the 1g/w is not something that i have ever achieved with regular HPS lighting and frankly, i don't see it being achieved with the growers that i encounter. I have seen one vertical grower who claimed to achieve like 2G/w, it was a fantastic setup, still i didn't believe it. It might be that LED can achieve that or more, since it is claimed to have double or more the efficiency of HPS and i sure have achieved more than 0.5g/w with HPS so with those assumed numbers, it makes sense that it is possible, BUT, I am still looking for LED growers who are trying this, and yet have to see a trial with weight/watt calculations.

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From what I've read, you are correct. I'm leaning towards led lighting but hps is tried and true. In the end as long as i end up with .5gpw - 1gpw i'll be happy. My first grow was extremely low yield due to not having near enough lumens and i didnt let them grow long enough in the veg stage. Now that I'm older and more patient, i wanna make sure i do it right so it pays off in the end.

Fair play mike . Never give up! There's always a new strain or technique to learn .

I do not believe that a single 300w LED is going to be enough for a 32 x 32 tent. Keep in mind that the actual draw is approx. 50% of the total wattage of the fixture. In addition, LEDs need to be kept usually about 18-24" away from the canopy, so a height of 6' could give you problems with LED. I am not trying to discourage you from using LEDs--I am running them for the first time myself. However, you are not going to be able to adequately cover 7 sq ft with a single 300W Galaxy unit (which is actually only 150W or so) and you will need to keep them short. Those familiar with LEDs will also tell you that good LEDs are not cheap and cheap LEDs are not good. I also have found that they do not run as cool as I had been led to believe. While they are cooler than HPS, they still produce a fair amount of heat and you will still need a good quality exhaust fan.

Try not to worry too much about yield--you are probably not going to get .5 grams per watt when starting out. Yield will come as you learn more and get your space dialed in and learn what your plants want. However, like zem said, 1 g per watt is going to be difficult and not a lot of growers actually reach these numbers.

Because of height restrictions, I think that you will probably find that an 8 week veg is tool long, but it will depend partly on strain.

Be cautious using bagseed. A huge majority of bagseed is the result of the plant selfing--an undesirable thing. Plants grown from seed that is the result of selfing are far more prone to hermying. Another problem with bagseed is that you have absolutely no idea how it will grow, how large it will get, and how long it takes to flower. These are very important things when growing in restricted spaces. If you have sativa dominant seeds, you will outgrow your space and there will be little you can do. I would like to encourage you to get some quality genetics that you will know the growing characteristics of. Not only that, you can pick a strain that gives you the kind of high that you want.

I agree with zem and THG, 1g/w is ambitious the most ive got out of my 600w in my small space was 380-something grams. Use SCROG to maximise the small area IMO and I reckon you could get a 600w hps if you get a cool tube

I plan on getting the 300w and 600w marshydro leds, i figure that'll be a good start. If i decide i dont like the led lights, i have a friend that will buy them. The seeds im using were pulled from some mid grade that was virtually seedless so i figure i should be ok. I understand that almost no one achieves 1gpw but theres nothing wrong with shooting for the moon lol. I may end up getting a hps light if the leds dont work well. Just getting back into this and trying to see what i can do with a limited budget while staying as efficient as possible. Thanks for the feedback, im always open to suggestions.

this was the most impressive vertical grow that i have seen to date http://www.wietforum.nl/topic/53631-heaths-flooded-tube-vertical/
thats some dutch mj forum, and it is posted elsewhere, he claims to have achieved over 2g/w... a 600w in the middle of a colleseum 4ft in diameter, i later dropped the idea, it was a pain to build all that, looking back at it, makes me want to build it again lol

XJmike said:

I plan on getting the 300w and 600w marshydro leds, i figure that'll be a good start. If i decide i dont like the led lights, i have a friend that will buy them. The seeds im using were pulled from some mid grade that was virtually seedless so i figure i should be ok. I understand that almost no one achieves 1gpw but theres nothing wrong with shooting for the moon lol. I may end up getting a hps light if the leds dont work well. Just getting back into this and trying to see what i can do with a limited budget while staying as efficient as possible. Thanks for the feedback, im always open to suggestions.

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I am going to try and talk you into buying some good know genetics. When a bag of weed has a few seeds, it is almost certainly a result of the plant selfing. This makes the hermy gene a dominant gene and highly increases the chances of getting a hermy and ruining your entire crop with worthless seeds. And if it is not the result of the plant selfing, then it could have been pollinated by ditch weed. Remember that you are only certain of 1/2 of the genetics of the plant. And why would you want to grow mids? This is a four month process, for goodness sakes, invest $50 or less for some quality genetics--something that you know will not outgrow your tent. And something worth spending 4 months tending.

As mentioned before, a height of 6' will be a real handicap if using LEDs. You will need a strain that stays shorter and/or you will need to do some real training to keep them short.

I looked at vertical grows a long time ago, but decided against it, for many reasons.

The Hemp Goddess said:

I am going to try and talk you into buying some good know genetics. When a bag of weed has a few seeds, it is almost certainly a result of the plant selfing. This makes the hermy gene a dominant gene and highly increases the chances of getting a hermy and ruining your entire crop with worthless seeds. And if it is not the result of the plant selfing, then it could have been pollinated by ditch weed. Remember that you are only certain of 1/2 of the genetics of the plant. And why would you want to grow mids? This is a four month process, for goodness sakes, invest $50 or less for some quality genetics--something that you know will not outgrow your tent. And something worth spending 4 months tending.

As mentioned before, a height of 6' will be a real handicap if using LEDs. You will need a strain that stays shorter and/or you will need to do some real training to keep them short.

I looked at vertical grows a long time ago, but decided against it, for many reasons.

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I agree with you, and im getting some seeds from a friend who ordered some white widow feminised. I wanted to do a side by side comparison with the two different groups. So far the bagseed group is doing well. I have been strategically topping them to attempt to keep the shorter and bushy to promote as many bud sites as possible without compromising light penetration. I will upload pics later today.