Biggest challenges with vert growing?

[gingerale]

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[Shcrews]

dude it still sounds like red's setup, with a square stadium and some plantas in the middle too

 

[gingerale]

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[gingerale]

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[whodair]

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.

that purple pheno was kinda stretchy, but its a haze, from seed, vegged using hps...all ingredients for lankiness !! this plant yield 2 3/4oz and had much better lower development than it would have using a reflector horiz...

below is the almost 5oz pheno, same haze strain from seed, vegg 600w hps, no training, a little trimming to around the base...

with only 5'7" celing height in this cellar, this strain woulda been a disaster grown horizontal !! she was able to grow them to the ceiling, without a reflector above...if your height is restricted, go verti !!

 

[fido]

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 !!

lol!!!!!! awesome post brah!
fido from philly

 

[Marlo]

One thing you must keep in mind Ginger Ale, situations vary greatly from grower to grower. I notice you mentioned 1k lights. Growing vert with a 1k is very different than 400's, which is what I use. Your battle with larf is not as extensive as mine bcus your penetration is greater with a 1k. Training and pruning allows you to get more of the plant in an optimal position to produce quality buds.

I'v done vscrog and also what you call "normal vert", as you can see from the pics I posted. Training and pruning was absolutely neccesary in both styles.

When you make blanket statements concerning a subject as big as vert growing, you are bound to be wrong on many levels. I'm sure your style works for you, but your style would fail miserably in many other growers setups, including mine. I'm interested to see how this works out for you. Looking forward to some visual proof. I still believe the extra work would benefit you at least 30% if not more.



MARLO

 

[dramamine]

Gingerale, I don't see any difference between your setup and Red's, except that he fills the brightly lit center square with plants. Why do you think this is too many plants, or inefficient? Just can't figure out exactly what you mean...

Yeah, time is money, but money is money, too. Extra bulbs and electricity and more square footage to simulate outdoor growing seems like a long way to go to avoid training and pruning. But I wouldn't argue that point, since I agree completely with Marlo: situations vary with everyone.

One thing I think about, though, is the fact that the plant evolved to best capture the only light source it had--sunlight. That doesn't mean that we can't provide an even more productive light source indoors( i.e. light saturation, as in your garden or training and pruning, as in mine--we're manipulating and controlling the enviro either way).

The plant's natural state (which has and will continue to change) is the best it can do in a given environment. That's why there can't really be a right or wrong. Nature's own law is try lots of things to see what works best and reproduces the most.

 

[organicsquirrel]

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.

 

[TruthOrLie]

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

 

[mrktwiz]

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

The look on my hydro (pimply kids) face was also priceless, I only wish I had my cell phone camera ready, it would have been my Avatar...he just couldn't get the whole vertical thinig and how I only wanted was a bulb and socket LOL LOL LOL.....no $200- 250 dollar hood needed thank you put that in MY pocket not yours.

 

[dramamine]

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.

For me, it depends on the strain. Look at Whodair's photos--sativas have a really open structure that allows light to penetrate more easily. Some bushier strains are better off when back branching is removed. Think of it as lollypopping, except the dark area isn't the bottom of the plant, but the back.

I'm not a fan of rotating the plants daily or any of that. It's just robbing light from one area to give it to another, leaving all sides underlit. Maybe some strains would benefit from it, but nothing too dense, I'd say.

This run, I trimmed all backside growth as it appeared in veg (vert bulb, too). After 6 weeks of veg, the plants' structure was established and not much had to be trimmed during or after the stretch. I threw individual rabbit fencing behind each plant and used that to tie the colas out of each other's way as they fattened up. This has worked well for me so far, although it'll be interesting to see if I do better than last run, which was without screens. And next run, the screens will be in front of the plants so I can compare results of these methods.

Any of them are better than horizontal lighting, though. By a mile...

 

[Bob Smith]

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.

This is just flat out wrong.

The top bulb was replaced to a standard HPS instead of a dual arc so now readings are virtually identical throughout my canopy area (avatar is system).

Took readings from 18" from the BULB (16" from the cooltube) from all four directions off of each bulb (at 90 degree angles, but directly perpendicular to the middle of the bulb), with four bulbs, for 16 total measurements.

^^^If this explanation is confusing, lemme know.

The bulbs (working from top to bottom) are dual arc, super hps, dual arc, and super hps (all used for <1 hour total).

The dual arcs put out 61K lumens and the HPS 90K, tested and verified bare bulbed with my light meter a week or two ago.

Location One (from top to bottom):
2340
3930
4050
3920

Location Two (same top to bottom):
2520
3770
3930
3840

Location Three:
2560
4210
3370
3850

Location Four:
2480
3650
3560
3810

Average:
Top Bulb (DA) - 2475
Second Bulb (HPS) - 3890
Third Bulb (DA) - 3727.5
Bottom Bulb (HPS) - 3855

Conclusion - without a doubt, swapping out the top dual arc for an HPS (and possibly the other dual arc as well, still undecided on that) - I just can't justify that amount of light loss for the top-most plants, regardless of how much better the spectrum may be - I'm not sure my canopy will even get to 18" from the bulbs (it prolly will, but it could stay in the low 20s easily as well), and 2500 foot candles ain't cutting it for me - I'll take 3500 foot candles and a shitty spectrum all day in that situation.

P.S. - don't forget to wear your welding goggles when dealing with vertical bulbs, people.

EDIT: I guess I could swap the top two bulbs and have the dual arcs in the middle and the HPS on the outsides - methinks that would give me the most even canopy lighting (as even bulbs will certainly favor the middle) as well as giving me a better chance to see the true "effect" of the dual arc spectrum on the plants in the middle vs. the plants on the perimeter when both sets are receiving a comparable number of footcandles..........thoughts?

 

[gingerale]

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[Maj.Cottonmouth]

The biggest challenge growing vertical has been that you must always wear eye protection in the room but it is a small trade off for the efficiency.

 

[Aerohead]

The biggest challenge of vertical growing is reading this thread!!

 

[Bob Smith]

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.

I fully understand what you're trying to say, but it's simply wrong - the amount of light you'd be losing would be monstrous - vertical growing gets more and more efficient the more bulbs you stack in a coliseum-type structure - period, end of discussion - it's very simply geometry.

FWIW, each plant in my system is getting light from four different bulbs, so if you can find a shadow anywhere in there, God bless ya.

As far as your comments about "not trimming", buds at the back of the plant being almost as large as plants at the front (huh?), you lose credibility (IMO) when you say such things.

 

[gardenbug]

I'm pretty sure they are not understanding what you mean, just use paint.
More angles of light is always good, this would be one way to do it. Same concept that the krusty style setups use with the plants getting light from multiple sides. Surrounding a plant with light will get better quality, but may be less efficient.

 

[gingerale]

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[gingerale]

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