Growroom design with “keeping a few mothers (and dads?) around” in mind...

You might be able to keep 4" x4" bonzai moms. For me it's to much maintenance trying to keep a plant that small.
T5 lighting probably changes allot also. I bet plants would grow allot slower with just t5

To keep genetics alive and in tip top shape.. my vote goes for bonzai moms (and dads). Takes time and space but hey.. what are hobbies for ?


cloning and keeping clones in stasis or in near stagnated growth has few risks involved. However small the risk of genetic mutations is .. it is there and the risk compounds with each generation. Each generation also involves some risk of failure (in cloning) so this has to be addressed.

White Beard said:

@ 6/sqft, you’ll have still over 200, which seems mighty respectable to me.

My plant-count allowed is zero, so....

Click to expand...

The maintenance is the killer there. You’re looking at pruning every two to four weeks, and doing a root trim at least three or four times a year - for each plant. I suspect that would get old fast!

Hold the three mothers you asked about in your first post that way, though, and you’re golden. Graft as many plants as you like on them - it’s just as easy. Many pros - and it’s literally easier than cloning. FWIW.

Example mom (and dad):

3.5” pot, 9” x 18” footprint, 9 varieties, ready for several more grafts and/or pruning to maintain low vert.

Thanks for refocusing, I’d been thinking about the possibilities in such numbers, but you’re right: even resizing and transplanting one every fifteen minutes, 100 would take days. Hundreds would be consuming.

Still, the idea of having such a range of plants and genetics remains dazzling...

I’m sure there are excellent tutorials here for cloning and grafting, I haven’t made it that far yet, but for all my work with plants, I’ve never done nor seen done either of those.

My thinking has been running toward enabling focused experiments over the usual veg’n’flower rooms. I can easily imagine wanting separate ‘areas’ in which to work on training this one, revegging that, pollinating those, experiments with lighting. I confess, in my head it’s kind of like a research institute - there are SO MANY QUESTIONS, and I want to look and see.

This is the reason I “begin” with an unrealistically large undifferentiated space: I need to be thinking about keeping mums’n’dads, I need to be thinking about breeding, I need to be thinking about range of selection.

What would really help is time spent working on someone else’s grow. I learn best from observing and doing, and it would allow me to ballpark things more effectively. Next best thing is to bring it to the hive-mind/brain-trust that is IC.

I’m currently considering using that 30’x40’ space like so: divide grow from living into two “ends”, 16’x30’ grow and 24’x30’ living. In the back, 4 rooms, 5’x5’x8’, two each on opposite sides and coming forward from the back wall, leaving a large central area of 16’x19’ for general working around and storage. It also leaves room for another two 5x5 rooms.

Each room with its own fixture, fused power, carbon filter, particulate filters, vents collected for exhaust, etc, thermo/hygro installed, waterproof floors.

are you building a house and doing a design to implement growrooms to design?

Might look into tents while you’re learning what layout works for you. They’d allow you to reconfigure the space on the fly, as often as you like.

IAmNumber: yes, more or less - a retirement cottage for myself with grow facilities planned for and built in, to the best of my abilities.

Zif: I’ve been figuring tent sizes and light footprints and watts per square foot for months, and pretty sure I’m settled on the room size (I have a plan for using *less* than an entire room), but it will take a minute to get to the grow construction phase, so I will be starting with a single light and a 30”x30” tent.

With four rooms, I’ll have space for a nursery, a sea of green, a pollination space, and a production room. The design will allow for another two 5’x5’ spaces as well.

Once I start, I have no plans to stop. It will take me awhile, I know that, but hoping to lay the foundation, deck and exterior walls come spring, and have the roof on well before next October (‘19).

Yes, it sounds like a lot for an old man, but I’m strong, flexible, and in good health, I’m highly motivated, have one hell of a work ethic, and once I start I plan to do little else until it’s weathered in.

As a person who’s had a long history of thinking out loud, I find that putting my thoughts in here serves a similar purpose - makes me think for real about what will be an enormous change for me, inspires me to be clear. This may never be of any use to anyone else, but it’s already been a huge help to me.

To everyone who checks in, makes suggestions, paints a different picture, tips me off to my ignorance, or just enjoys the ride while this endeavor takes flight, thank you, I welcome your company!

All of this is up for change, too: the tent/room thing, for example.

When I first started trying to size up a from-scratch installation, I considered all the different sizes, but realized I needed to look at lights first. MH/HPS I was familiar with from years before but had never used them, and I knew some folks were using LEDs, but CMH was totally new to me.

The more I read, the more I looked, the more CMH seemed like the sweet spot for a dedicated medicine grower like me, rather than wrangling both of the old formats. That choice led me to the tyranny of watts per square foot: a single CMH lamp has a lightprint 30” square, and the multiplication holds as you add lamps to the equation (52w/sq.ft.). Given the codger and sole proprietor nature of things, I figure I won’t need a space larger than five by five/four lamps, but I might need a second one. Add to that a touch of claustrophobia, and the fact that I’m tall, and the result is I’d rather work in a larger space than a smaller one, and better if I can stand up in it. The rest sorta happened, idea-wise.

The reason for so many is that I’ve already thought of more than five things that one of these rooms would be (in my humble ignorance) perfect for, such as growing out males, for pollination, for a sea of green, for a hareem/stable, for photo-period experiments, for general veg, for general flower, for mad science.

Will of course begin with one light, one space, with the intent to succeed and grow into the space as success permits. The space will be adjusted by reflective white panels to match the lightprint.

Thanks again, all y’all...every time I post in here, it turns into a brainstorming session. I love that. Don’t be afraid to tell me where I’m getting it wrong, either.

Hey mr white beard I like your style. Make sure you build so that everything is easily accessible at waist height. You don’t want to be bending over or reaching up all the time, it takes its toll.

Good luck mate!

Indeed it does - love your handle, btw...hoping to bring some satori onboard!

Thanks for dropping in!

A 315 cmh can cover a wider area then 3x3 for keeping moms. 4x4 is no problem and will still provide healthy growth.

Good to know. I may start with CFL for the moms & dads, but a well-populated nursery/stable under a 315 is in my plan. IIRC, a single 315 would only give ~20w/sqft in a 4’x4’ space, I’d love to hear more about how that works out for you.

I go into it with the intent that I will not discard male plants out-of-hand. The thought of the old lines that have died out because the males all got trashed upfront just...rubs me the wrong way. Male inheritance is not negligible.

No, I don’t have particular plans to create the Ultimate Weed, or to create particular crosses, or to preserve every plant, but I do plan to keep male plants, either as collected pollen, or as bonsai.

Why am I thinking about such things before I even know if my deal goes down? One of the freebies I got from CVS is 5 Cookie Wreck regulars. The others I got are all fem, so I might well find a big, strong, glossy, stinky male of the sativa/Trainwreck pheno, in which case he will pollinate whatever fems I have flowering at the time, and I’ll tuck him away. And there will be seeds. I used to smoke seeded bud all the time, used to think it was pretty good, but at the very least it should be good for pressing and extraction; so I should have meds while the fems re-veg.

And if not, I’ll have much good pot and no seeds.

Just for the sake of asking present company: I know that fems are made by flipping gender on a female branch to get pollen, does the same hold true for males, too? If I flip gender on a male branch, will I get female flowers, and seeds at the end?

I don't keep anything inside anymore.. But the last time i did, it was just some short plants under a 315 in a 4x4 and it had super healthy growth. Healthier then t5 with a higher wattage per sqft. Maybe not the fastest but healthy. 50w per sq ft is flower numbers.

You can reverse males but it really ain't easy... And i believe all the seeds will end up being male. I could be mistaken.

Look up “ethephon” here for reversing males. Oddly enough, self-pollinating a reversed male will make basically “regular” seeds, not male-only seeds.

If you really want to keep tons of plants, you might look into setting up a chilled room. Low wattage lighting and low temps can slow growth enough to dramatically reduce maintenance. If you’re simply “holding” plants for future use, production style growth and the required inputs are wasted.

SamS has posted details on holding plants for the long term, if you can find the post.

Remember - you can keep clones in a refrigerator for several months with no problems too

The point of having a low-intensity room for parent plants is not to “keep tons”:

My community needs medicine. We’ve had several die recently due to the lack. Different folks need different meds, that needs a better solution than reordering seeds every year. In addition to a pound or more for meds with every grow cycle, I’ll need my OWN meds and stash, and I intend to supply the larger community on a subscription basis. ALL meds will be provided free with costs underwritten by the community.

So the point is to keep meds my peeps need on hand, and provide better herb than what we end up getting ’round here.

Yes, a 5x5 is likely overkill, but I HATE having to jury-rig a workaround due to my own lack of foresight. I’d rather provide too big a space & grow into it over time.

Turns out ethephon is available from Amazon - thanks a ton, zif!

mandalasatori - never thought of keeping plants in the fridge...I imagine the dark and cold would drop them into stasis pretty quickly?

Some moms

Some moms

I have kept moms in good shape for several years in the past.

You can do well in a very small space with not a ton of lighting.
22x30ish cab with 196 watts of t-5 ho. Do regular root prunes and toppings and you will be golden.
It is fun to keep different strains. I like variety.
peace, negative.

CrushnYuba said:

I don't keep anything inside anymore.. But the last time i did, it was just some short plants under a 315 in a 4x4 and it had super healthy growth. Healthier then t5 with a higher wattage per sqft. Maybe not the fastest but healthy. 50w per sq ft is flower numbers.

You can reverse males but it really ain't easy... And i believe all the seeds will end up being male. I could be mistaken.

Click to expand...

Indeed: I won’t switch the green room to FULL STRENGTH CMH...my plan was to see if I could light the entire room sufficiently with a single CMH at the lowest-wattage setting the ballast provides. Until I figure that out, I’ll add CFLs as needed.

negative37dBA - beautiful plants! And a lovely space for them! Thanks for posting!

EVERYBODY: I’m out of rep again, so I’ll catch y’all up later - love the input, thanks!

WB I meant that you can keep unrooted cuttings refrigerated, not actual live plants.

Just thought it was worth mentioning under the circumstances