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What Method Would You Choose If Limited To 16 Plants For Maximum Yield?

Olympian

New member
might be moving to colorado in the near future so i can finally grow again. my cousin is already a resident there so i can grow with him until i obtain residency. the discussion i'd like to have is on how you guys would maximize yield/cost efficiency with a 16 plant limit. i'm thinking scrogging some monsters would be best. but lets get down to specifics.

would you push past the standard of 50 watts/sq. ft.?
what type of hydro system would you use, or would you go soil?

looking forward to the discussion.
 

St. Phatty

Active member
might be moving to colorado in the near future so i can finally grow again. my cousin is already a resident there so i can grow with him until i obtain residency. the discussion i'd like to have is on how you guys would maximize yield/cost efficiency with a 16 plant limit. i'm thinking scrogging some monsters would be best. but lets get down to specifics.

would you push past the standard of 50 watts/sq. ft.?
what type of hydro system would you use, or would you go soil?

looking forward to the discussion.

One option is to copy Mr. Soul's set-up for a 16 plant 1 K light, though that was HPS and many years ago. I think he posted a picture where he showed 16 plants, 4x4, in hydro. Whether it was 16 square feet or a little bigger I don't remember.

One option is to use 1K Metal Halide for the first part of flowering, when the plant is mostly leaves. Then switch to HPS after about 3 weeks. HPS puts out a little more light, and at that point the plants will be bushy, and needing a little more space.

So then the footprint can change from 4x4 to 4x5 or 5x5.

Of course a person could always use a spotlight (even just a 10 watt warm LED) in the corners.

I think the soil/rockwool discussion depends a little on how well the situation tolerates DIRT (possibly everywhere).

So room-mates & pets need to be taken into consideration. I have a pet bird who headed for one of my larger house-plants this morning to dig in the dirt.

For media, I have done 6 inch rockwool cubes, cubic feet of shredded rockwool, and organic soil, store-bought and home-made.

Hydro involves getting into chemistry, e.g. pH. So does organic ... seems like there is a standard mistake we all make - too much nutes, turns the soil run-off acid, and nutrient uptake slows down. So a pH meter is helpful growing in soil too.
 
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