help with medical output...

Hi all!

been lurking here for quite some time and finally stepping out of the shadows.

i am pretty new to growing, been at it for a little more then a year but have a LOT of sort of strange expereince with product/distribution though sort of hard to get into all of that... lol

i am a heavy medical user, 100g/wk smoked top shelf is what i need to be stable, my goal is to cut back on smoking but oral requires even more product.

i am finially getting into the relm of true top shelf quality, meaning top shelf california dispensary quality, but no where near the volume that i need.

i do not live in the usa and things where i live are VERY different, the technology you guys use is simply not available to me, also things cost 2-5x as much.

right now my flower room is running 3x600w, i just added co2 but the tank is on the small side and again price is killing me.

i have singel turbine air intake, turbine for exhuast that now recirculates air to cool my lights, ac and a standard fan for air movement.

we do not have access to the nice nutrients that you use, the stuff available in grow shops is very poor quality adn super expensive.

i am using nutes for hydro even though i grow in soil, with this my plants look great, no noticable difficincies based on leaf color. my problem relaly is i just am not getting close to the numbers i need to live stable and healthy.

i have played with more plants and less plants, i seem to do better with less plants that are bigger. right now i am using 30 liter buckets but next batch will go into 55s.

room is about 4 square meters
have 10 plants in total in 9 pots, 2 doubled up.

each grow i do better but still im so far from what i need.

im getting better at timing, before this was a bit of an issue. i need a continuous grow and need to chop a min of 1kg ever 2 months or similar equivelent.

i have talked to friends in cali who grow professionally and sell to dispensaries but we live in such different worlds. everyone i know there uses 1k watt lights, my electricion and i are kind of scared to as the old wiring may not support them, my setup is about as big as anyone has ever seen here and i feel like its a kids bike with training wheels. nothing close to what i want but its what i have to work with.

i veg with leds have 240watts which do a nice job but again so small.

anyone have suggestions as to what i can do?

really suffering with what i have.

thank you in advance!

The first couple things that pop into my mind are hydro and high plant counts in a sog/scrog. I know there are some tree growers here that are killing it, lets hope they chime in as to how to maximize yield off large plants.

If you used 600 for veg and the other 2 600s for flowering you should be able to hit 1lb per 30 days.

Are you vegging under 240 then flowering those plants under the 6's? 3 x 600 in flowering would need 900w of veg to fill the space entirely.

Got pics?

Brother/Sister, first and foremost welcome to IC!

I'm glad you've found relief in the plant, this is also your community now, take your time, it's like a cosy, but big chatty bar eheh.


Now, as others have stated Sea of Green and/or and high plant count with nets (kinda like Screen of Green) is Usually the way to beat your probs, even before addin' the CO2. Low plant count wins if you don't have your clone game on point/ want less fuss, but your turnaround is slower and/or you would need more electricity being spent most of times. In cloning/propagation most of the times that comes up to right environment and/or cleanliness, so use a heating pad with thermosthat, and keeping your utensils clean are all that's needed, I cannot emphasize this enough (I've had to pee on the electricity fence several times on this one lol). You can still use your setup as is, or take a new config, but don't expect with your learning curve to change a number of things at once, and things going just as planned. It's really difficult being dependent like that, but a little confession, I actually was on that place in the beginnings, tough in a blink of an eye, here I am tryin to give advice lol.

Also, 400w/600w in the usual horizontal setup don't have the penetrating power of canopy of a 1000 watter, so another thing to take into consideration of the tree or SOG thing. Again, just giving bread, you choose the spread and how to put it

If you found a way of feeding accordingly, as you seem to state, you don't need a brandname to change your game right?

If you're not from the US, don't feel down, it's still cannabis, we're still humans, ya dig? It still seems you've found what you need, so when ya feel overwhelmed try to take it from another stance and/or puff one, the solutions usually come easier when we're not thinking of the problems in a certain tricky kinda way.

To end, you can do it "cheap", organic/hydro/indoor/outdoor, and quality and quantity, please believe, this plant doesn't get frowns when the new XYZ nutrient line is launched, it's been here for thousands of years growin' around wherever we go with us, some just "tought" of allying with her...

Good luck on your Journey
Cheers

thank you all for the warm welcome and taking the time to respond!
i really appreciate it!

this little project in theory was supposed to be a dream come true but really what a challange! lol

i have made huge progress over the past yeat, i just hope it continues.

this plant has been a life changing medicine for me for more then 15 years, and i guess as old as it makes me sound ive been smoking for around 25 years.

in that time i have seen so many changes, i am from the states but moved around so much i never had the chance to grow. i guess you could say i sort "worked" in the industry for a long time. i even participated in changing the laws in one state and got to meet a lot of great ppl doing that. i work with alternative health and spent as many hours as i could speaking with a few of the most respected scientist in the world on this subject. i will say i am very sad/disapointed over "legalization as it has unfolded. where i live now is an easy 20 years behind in all of this. 10 years ago you couldnt even buy nonpressed bud, still pretty scarce these days.

this subject is very important to me and always happy to do anything i can to help others, i really appreciate the help you all offer!

in the past year i have had to change my growing location 4 times, which means 4 new and different environments.

being familiar with high end work i never had any interest in using less then 1k watt bulbs, unfortunately just gotta work with what we can in some cases.

you all seem to echo most of the suggestions i have gotten so far, more plants, smaller plants less time vegging.

that was the original idea, given to me from a professional grower in uruguay.
unfortunately he was more interested in money then actually helping me accomplish a goal. also why i have these damn LEDs. lol

in theory i could switch them out and veg under 1-2 400-600s. i have space in the veg tent for 2 600s. what is now the veg tent was actually the flower tent 2 encarnations ago. effective use of money has been the big thing, recenlty im hurting from the amount spent on all of this in the past year. so i guess my first survey question is do you all think making that switch would be a major change? each led cost more then 600w light/hood/ballest, just gotta see if i could sell/trade them.

cloning...
i seem to be getting worse at this as time goes on.
in my last 2 attemps i have lost more then half each time.
ironically i had much better results in cold winter weather then in warmer weather, i think though it was because i was using one of the leds in a small tent so it heatd up nicely and i just mist/spray the whole setup 3x ed.

i have gotten better results from cuttings of flowering plants then vegging plants, no real idea why.

current clones are under 300w cfl.
cant find t5s
thoughts on this?

i have no cloner, just using plactic boxes in a 1sq meter tent.
recently i figured too much light is getting through so got some foam rubber to make better seels.

is a cloner worth it or, old school diy ok in this case?

i have been very bad at timing. i guess partially as i had to break things down and set them up again so many times.

switching to hydro would be kind of problematic in the current place.
in order to do it right i would have to build out an entirely new set up which would be quite expensive. not sure i can stomach that right now.

coco choir is just becoming available and is stupid expensive as are most other hydro mediums.

all the grow shops charge insane markups and are only really geared toward the occasional smoker. there is no large scale commercial production here, i basically buy ppls entire crops and even that doesnt support me.

i have gone back n forth with lower n higher plant counts.

my first was 25 or so in 2sq meter tent. with 2x600.
turned out terrible, high heat, poor genetics and bad nutes all came into play.
next, same environment, but only 3 plants and got over a qp per plant.

last crop which flowered in current spot was 24 plants i think.
no idea actual amt as i was speed drying n smoking just to have meds but lasted less then 2 months and i 100g of out door left over. dont even think i netted an lb of good bud.

of course the clones of my best plants didnt make it

my best plants however were very small. less then 50g each. various types of kush.

i have been working hard to learn how to top them right to try to increase size, in this case each had 5-6 branches of equalish size.

right now 8 plants basically take up the entire room, which is actually a bit bigger then 4sq meter. they are big and bushy. 2 small kush stuck in the corners. again the 2 kushes are not gona total 100g.

i have some kens kush vegging now, 2 look really nice and are female, 2 other i think are male but not sure. the girls are scheduled to go into 55 liter pots this weekend. they will have another month or so of vegging. 2 chocalope of which one is nice n chritmas tree like and 4 peyotee purples have yet to show sex.

i have 30 15-20 liter pots that i didnt like as i felt they were too small, and could use those to run another sog with single colas. i have some bungee nets too. i just feel a little scared from my previous results. you all think thats the best way to go?

much appreciate the help!

hope you all enjoyed some turkey for me!

thank you!

A PPK system might meet your needs.
Runs on standard commercial nutrients.
Sounds like you could manage 5 600s which work out well.
You may want to look through the current thread which is"Something Wicked This Way Comes": https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=336515