They tend to crowd each other trying to get that light and get stretchy, like whodair's above. No offense to him cause his plants are obviously way better than horizontal, but still not way more stretched out than they should be. This approach is why you are reading about people having to trim and shit.
lol!!!!!! awesome post brah!growing too much marijuana has been tough getting used to, once you adjust to increased yields you'll be alright !!
600w=21oz...1st time grower responsible for this mess of grass !!
big challenge for me was not laughing when i saw the pissed look on the hydro store guy's face when i told him all I use is a bare bulb with a $20 fan under it.
hydro store guys don't like growing anything that doesn't involve a hood
I believe you can't make blanket statements because everybody is dealing with different resources. If you are talking about unlimited resources, then that's not real is it?
I have been trying to plan a vertical in a 4'x5'x8'h space. I don't think the oval method would work for me because of my limited space. I think having a stadium type setup with 2x 4' levels would be ideal with maybe 2x 600 or 2x 400 (I'm very partial to the efficiency of a 600)?
So you are telling me you guys don't have to trim the backside? Because I could imagine the dark side of the plants gets some undesirable growth that it would be better to trim.
I'm working now to add vertical lighting to my veg space so that the plants are already adjusted and are producing growth to take advantage of the extra light.
Don't stack them. If you have multiple lights, the "circle" approach with lights stacked is not the best arrangement. The plants do not receive optimal lighting because they only get their little slice of the "pie" from the one central column of light, with light coming from only one angle. They tend to crowd each other trying to get that light and get stretchy, like whodair's above.
Let me stop you right there. It seems a lot of people in this thread just aren't "getting" what I'm saying. And that's understandable, because I don't have any pics to SHOW you.
A lot of people are doing things like you just did above, and thinking in terms of the whole grow, when in order to maximize the entire grow's efficiency, you really need to be thinking in terms of what each individual plant is seeing.
So while yes, while your light meter shows even and consistent lighting at each point in the 3d space of the grow, that doesn't tell the whole story. You also need to ask, what does each individual plant see? And the answer is, each plant is seeing light coming from only one direction. Because of that, in a one-bulb (or multiple bulbs stacked) circular setup, each plant has areas that are in shadow. Just look at the shadows in the very first pic posted in this thread, that shows exactly what I'm talking about. Each individual plant is somewhat in shadow, and is thus more prone to stretching, because there is far less surface area being exposed to light than it would be if each plant had multiple lights hitting it from multiple directions.
Understand that each individual plant in the grow is its own separate entity, and it really doesn't care what lighting conditions are like on the opposite side of the grow. It has no awareness of what's going on anywhere else in your grow. It is isn't comforted by the fact that other plants are receiving the exact same amount of light. All it cares is, am I receiving enough lumens to be drenched from top to the bottom, left to right, all around? Or am I receiving light from only one direction, with a large percentage of my stalk/leaves still remaining in shadow?
Yes, any vertical grow, even a single bulb circular setup, is better than horizontal. But remember that in nature, sunlight doesn't come in a V-shaped cone from a single point source. The sun is 93 million miles away and a billion times bigger than the earth, so when sunlight comes in, it's basically all in parallel lines, not in a V shape pattern expanding outwards like with a single bulb indoors. If we want to maximize efficiency, which comes from maximizing each individual plant's conditions, then we need to figure out a way to emulate the way the plant grows in nature--the conditions the plant wants and expects. When we are giving the plant less than what it expects, it will stretch and do other undesirable things in order to try and grab more light for itself.
Imagine if instead of a single point source, you had a plane of light. That's exactly what the square setup does--it produces a virtual plane of light, just like the way sunlight works...which ensures that all plants receive much more light, and shadows are basically eliminated. All individual plants will be functioning much closer to their optimum conditions, and the end result is stretch is gone. Trimming is unnecessary because none of the plants feel crowded or under-lit. The plant grows cola on all four sides that are damn near the same size all over the plant. You don't have to worry about the back sides not growing colas, because they are no longer in shadow and the colas back there grow in fine. They aren't AS large as the front light-facing colas, because they dont get AS much light due to the front side of the plant absorbing some of it, but it's damn close. The nodes are stacked one right on top of another and you don't have a lanky plant at all, even with sativas. I have grown Mexican sativas in my grow and the buds on the main stalk and individual branches grow damn near as compactly as the indicas do. You don't see any of the gangliness and stretchiness as pictured above.
When you optimize each of the individual plants, then the grow is a whole is optimized as well.
Does anyone get what I'm saying here? Like I said, hard to explain, but easy to show if I had pics.
And yes, I know all about growing in limited space. My system works in all but the smallest of spaces. I know all about 400W bulbs--I'm running two of them now. If you only have room for one bulb of a given wattage, then you are better off getting two bulbs of smaller capacity, always, because using multiple bulbs is what allows you to create the virtual plane of light I described, and thus put each and every plant into its sweet spot. Using multiple bulbs is the real key to efficiency of the stadium setup, but a square configuration is more efficient than the stadium, for the reason I have already explained.