Is Vertical really worth it?

[SuperConductor]

What about supplementing with 2 x 400 W(vertical), for example, in an 8' x 4' room with 2 x 600 (horizontal)? Put the verticals in the middle or at the ends of the room?

Check out Rosy Cheeks' threads he does something like that and grows some impressive colas alright

 

[Kootenay]

I dont think it is worth it....you have to trim 2X the amount of herb!...lol

Peace
Koot.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

I dont think it is worth it....you have to trim 2X the amount of herb!...lol

Peace
Koot.

I hate when that happens!

 

[VeticalGrowBot]

I dont think it is worth it....you have to trim 2X the amount of herb!...lol

Peace
Koot.

lolz

 

[illchemist]

Lol... Alright... I'm hooked. Is it best to hang the verts in the center of thre room?

How much will this affect heat issues? Temps are currently optimal.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

You can hang them like that with a fan blowing vertical directly under each, as long as you are extracting the air from the top of the room.
Or, hang them in cool tubes and run duct to small exhaust fans. You loose very slight PAR in my estimation, and all you need to do to gain it back is move them closer...which you can when they are tubed up.

 

[mr cheese]

not sure how to post the link bt have look at my home made vert, deff way to go...mrc

 

[whodi]

not sure how to post the link bt have look at my home made vert, deff way to go...mrc

http://icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=63024

that it cheese? looks like heath robinson style.. good stuff

 

[Brazilianfire]

I don't know if you've heard this yet, but take 1000 watts, that covers roughly 20 sq ft with 50 watts per square foot on a horizontal grow. Take the same 1000 watts, and cover 80 sq ft with 50 watts per square foot.

It's not the light being more efficient, it's the growing area being bigger.

I have a vertical i'm running right now, and I can tell you, the 1200 watts I'm running in there is putting out a WHOLE lot more than 1200 watts would on a traditional grow.

And using a reflector doesnt neccessarily amplify your wattage, as far as I can tell, you're still getting the same amount of lumens whether your light has a reflector on it or if it doesn't. The reflector just reflects the light that's already there onto a smaller area. If you grow on 4 walls, as opposed to 1 floor of the same area, it's not dividing the light into 4.

There's several colliseums that come ready with 500 total watts, and 1200 watts, but the square footage is unreal.

Yes, it's really that much more efficient...


Think of being in a concert. (i'm only using this analogy because light is like sound, travels in waves) The stage is in the middle of an arena, and there are speakers surrounding the stage. It doesn't matter if there is 10,000 people in the crowd, or just 3, when the band comes on stage, you will all hear the same amount of ear shattering rock. The only thing that will change it, is if you get further away from the stage... same with the vertical lighting... Every plant in the room gets the same amount of light, that doesn't change. It's the distance from the light that weakens it.

Now if you think that reflectors "double" the light by reflecting it back down onto the horizontally laid plants, that's fine (although untrue in so many ways), if you double the wattage of your vertical lights, you'll still be hitting twice as much growing space as you would if you doubled the lights in a horizontal setup.

But, don't take my word for it... As soon as H.G.4.2.0. comes back up, take a look at their vertical section. (sorry for mentioning a rival message board? but IC doesn't have a vertical board)

You have people pulling in steadily heavy amounts off of vertical grows. In sogs where you'd typically see .75 grams per watt, you'll see 2-3 grams per watt. In colliseum grows, even more. (the fiberglass colliseums are engineered to have the radius be the same as the footprint of a 1000w light)

Ever seen an omega garden in action? As far as I know it's the only horizontal vertical system in the world... Spins a big wheel around with a light in the center, everything facing the light... A guy was busted in Tacoma, WA with 4 of them running and he was pulling over 5 lbs each run off of each omega (i think he had them custom made locally, but still same concept).


I can't stress it enough, it's very little extra work, a lot more startup cash, but in the long run, it's much much much more efficient.

Right now I'm working on a 4x4 vertical room with 4" pvc filled with rockwool croutons, with a drip feeder... So far, the maintenance has been filling res and cleaning the filter... that's it. Just as easy as a regular drip system, minus the labor of building the vertical manifold and setting up the pump and filter. (those things were definately harder than a conventional drip system)


So as far as I'm concerned, flat grows are for squares, haha.

-- steve

Awesome explanation here! VERY true in all aspects. I expanded my 4x4 foot growing space with one 1000w hps with reflector to running a bare bulb vertical coliseum setup with 4 "walls" each 4x4 feet. Equals 3 times more in yield. A lot more clones are used in the vertical sog style that I converted to but I will never look back to traditional "square" gardening. Thanks and Cheers mate!