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Yield Metrics

Smith111

Member
Didn't know where to post this, but I figure this section has a good amount of professionals to help.


I am looking for the best way to quantify yields. Watts per gram is great, but doesn't help with outdoor or greenhouse. So I am thinking the best way to calculate yield is a simple equation.

Grams per cubic foot of canopy.

I have seen one guy in Canada who is on top of his game say 90 grams per sq ft in his fully pimped out greenhouses. Does anybody have a better way to calculate yields across all types of growing? What are peoples yields?

Thanks in advance everybody. :tiphat:
 
I would do it by square foot of floor space you are growing on or by wattage. Space and lighting seem to be the limiting factors in a grow. That or just grams per $ start up cost
 

MJPassion

Observer
ICMag Donor
Veteran
How is it done in other areas of agriculture?


What exactly are you looking for?
Do you want to know yield per area?
Yield per $$ input?
Yield per Watt?


If you define exactly what it is you want to see, it should be easy to come up with the calculations you need to get to the numbers you want.
 

Palindrome

King of Schwag
When I worked with regular greenhouse production, it would basicly be calculated by area(yeald)/cost.

Now it's very different from culture to culture, how it's grown and if it takes up more vertical or horizontal space. If you harvest a crop, or sell the whole plant for retail. And you have computers, that keep track on nutrient/water use and what not.

So for cannabis in greenhouse, I would calculate with Yeald per sqft/devided with your production cost for each culture (strain).
Meaning you need to keep track on what, and how much you feed each strain. If you don't have computer automatics, you just take note on it thru out the grow.

Outdoor feilds id guess would be the same, id maybe use something bigger then sqft.

90 gram dry trimmed buds per sqft, sounds like a very solid yeald indeed.
Id be satisfied with 50-60% of that in my indoor grow, where I pay for the light as well!

Im sure there are more exact ways to calculate it, if you want to make it more complicated.
 

Smith111

Member
When I worked with regular greenhouse production, it would basicly be calculated by area(yeald)/cost.

Now it's very different from culture to culture, how it's grown and if it takes up more vertical or horizontal space. If you harvest a crop, or sell the whole plant for retail. And you have computers, that keep track on nutrient/water use and what not.

So for cannabis in greenhouse, I would calculate with Yeald per sqft/devided with your production cost for each culture (strain).
Meaning you need to keep track on what, and how much you feed each strain. If you don't have computer automatics, you just take note on it thru out the grow.

Outdoor feilds id guess would be the same, id maybe use something bigger then sqft.

90 gram dry trimmed buds per sqft, sounds like a very solid yeald indeed.
Id be satisfied with 50-60% of that in my indoor grow, where I pay for the light as well!

Im sure there are more exact ways to calculate it, if you want to make it more complicated.

Thanks for the info. You are getting slightly too involved for my simple calculation here. I understand cost vs production and everything else you just described.

In the past growers would quantify yields with gram per watt, then if you want do divide by cost you can. However, growing in a greenhouse or outdoors you don't have the watt part of the equation like indoors does. It sounds like from your advice, you seem to agree with me, that a simple equation is the best way to quantify yields: grams per sq ft?
 
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Smith111

Member
How is it done in other areas of agriculture?


What exactly are you looking for?
Do you want to know yield per area?
Yield per $$ input?
Yield per Watt?


If you define exactly what it is you want to see, it should be easy to come up with the calculations you need to get to the numbers you want.


I am looking for the best way to quantify yields. Watts per gram is great, but doesn't help with outdoor or greenhouse. So I am thinking the best way to calculate yield is a simple equation.

Grams per cubic foot of canopy.

Does anybody have a better way to calculate yields across all types of growing? What are peoples yields?

Thanks in advance everybody. :tiphat:

:tiphat:
 

bsgospel

Bat Macumba
Thanks for the info. You are getting slightly too involved for my simple calculation here. I understand cost vs production and everything else you just described.

In the past growers would quantify yields with gram per watt, then if you want do divide by cost you can. However, growing in a greenhouse or outdoors you don't have the watt part of the equation like indoors does. It sounds like from your advice, you seem to agree with me, that a simple equation is the best way to quantify yields: grams per sq ft?

Be it greenhouse or indoor though, one would have a question about efficiency. And I'm speaking from the point of view of an ag class I'm taking online- so this has been taught to me by means of wheat and corn as examples but the principles are the same:

You can still measure the benefit of light delivered in a greenhouse the way you would light delivered by a light fixture. You can measure or quantify the amount produced per sq. ft but you would ideally know your worth by stacking each harvest against each other, right? It's how you would tell if you were making any progress.

So...
-If you have a potential yield established for optimum light, nutrition, sowing density rate, genetics

Then
-Measure against actual light delivered in season, grower decisions in nutrition, tillering, and placement, less any loss/error/deficiency...

And you have your real worth, harvest to harvest and a goal to achieve. Yield, yield efficiency, area, cost, gap between actual and potential and then.....units! Not every bowl is packed to exactly a gram and not every bowl is dumped out at the same rate. Your rate of use I think is important. Not every 1/8 sold is exactly an 1/8 in most cases and we tend to hook our buddies up. So with weight not always determining worth, amount of units produced does.

My take: Units per harvest.
 

MJPassion

Observer
ICMag Donor
Veteran
It seems that you answered your own question before the first reply.
(yield/Sq.Ft.) Yield/Cu.Ft would be a bit difficult to measure unless you were using simplified boxes to calculate Cu.Ft...


Just go with it.


No need to overthink this kind of shit.
If you want to figure out cost efficiency that can be done at a later date so long as you record exactly what your cost for each unit you are calculating for.
 

Smith111

Member
Be it greenhouse or indoor though, one would have a question about efficiency. And I'm speaking from the point of view of an ag class I'm taking online- so this has been taught to me by means of wheat and corn as examples but the principles are the same:

You can still measure the benefit of light delivered in a greenhouse the way you would light delivered by a light fixture. You can measure or quantify the amount produced per sq. ft but you would ideally know your worth by stacking each harvest against each other, right? It's how you would tell if you were making any progress.

So...
-If you have a potential yield established for optimum light, nutrition, sowing density rate, genetics

Then
-Measure against actual light delivered in season, grower decisions in nutrition, tillering, and placement, less any loss/error/deficiency...

And you have your real worth, harvest to harvest and a goal to achieve. Yield, yield efficiency, area, cost, gap between actual and potential and then.....units! Not every bowl is packed to exactly a gram and not every bowl is dumped out at the same rate. Your rate of use I think is important. Not every 1/8 sold is exactly an 1/8 in most cases and we tend to hook our buddies up. So with weight not always determining worth, amount of units produced does.

My take: Units per harvest.

Once again, a little too complicated for what I am asking, but all very important and great advice. Thank you.



Maybe I need to break this down even more simply......... I am trying to calculate possible yields for a 11k sq ft greenhouse, with climate controls, lights ext ext. The grow canopy will be 10k sq ft. How would one calculate the yields from such a crop? Ignoring time to grow, veg and flower. Ignoring cost of inputs.

The 90 grams per sq ft was quoted by the largest greenhouse producer of cannabis in Canada. From what I gather, he is the top yielder in the world. He quantifies his yields by the simple equation, grams per sq ft. Then he takes time, costs ext ext into account.



So the question is, how would one estimate yields from 10k sq ft of canopy?

What are people yielding with this metric?
 

bsgospel

Bat Macumba
Sorry, simple is not something we do in the advanced section.
You got a question about yield metrics, we're going Leng Tch'e on this bitch.
 

Smith111

Member
Sorry, simple is not something we do in the advanced section.
You got a question about yield metrics, we're going Leng Tch'e on this bitch.

Like I said, it's step one in a long process. Just trying to hammer down the first metric. Do you have an answer at least?

What you answered applies to a already established grow. I am talking about predicting yields on a brand new greenhouse.
 

Smith111

Member
My answer was literally in the post you quoted.

Like I just stated, your answer implied adding in many metrics that are not in place yet. I am just trying to estimate the total yields of a potential greenhouse. I understand that nutrients, light, genetics will all play a roll, but what is the average? What is a solid number one can go off of as a solid milestone?


Thanks for the help. :tiphat:
 

MJPassion

Observer
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Like I said, it's step one in a long process. Just trying to hammer down the first metric. Do you have an answer at least?

What you answered applies to a already established grow. I am talking about predicting yields on a brand new greenhouse.

Are you the grower or are you hiring help?
What is your experience growing anything?
What is the experience level of your help?

The answers to these questions could play a role in your yield expectations.

Other questions would be:
What varieties will you be running?
From seed or clone?
What size do you plan on getting the plants previous to flowering?
In what size containers?

There is not a simple answer to your question.
 

djonkoman

Active member
Veteran
I think what's missing is time. since vegtime can be varied, and different strains have different flowering times, I think adding time would give a better indication. so something like grams/square metre/month.

however, it would depend on what the question is you're using the yield-number for. the grams/watt makes sense if indoor and electricity is your main cost. in a greenhouse, you would get most light from the sun, so things like nutrients would be a bigger cost relative to electricity. so you could take the weight/total cost already mentioned.

or for finding optimal levels of different inputs you could use things like grams/kg N(or other nutrient). or grams/cost of kg N(looking at costs of one input, not total cost).

but, one other thing I think should be considered too, is how exactly is weight measured.
I think everyone here is assuming dry, trimmed buds, since that seems most obvious.
however, you still have some variables there:
-what is dry? for my study if we do this kind of calculations, usually dry matter(or DM) is used. this is achieved by putting the plant matter in a kind of oven(I think it's at something like 50 degrees celsius) for a day. the kind of dry you get after that is crumbly dry, drier as you would dry your weed. using dry weight of buds at the dryness we would usually dry them, it still has some moisture, and the exact % of water could vary between growers(and grows from the same grower). and water has weight, so more uncertaintity/variability in your data.
-what is trimmed? more/less leaf obviously has influence on the weight, but how close everyone trims is a variable that would obscure the grow-inputs you're actually interested in.
-do you include popcornbud you would usually throw in with the trimpile for hash? (or whatever, that is what I do with it as a hobbygrower, no idea what commercial ops do with trim and larfy buds)

another metric that could be used I think, depending if you're interested in it, is something like hash/square metre/month(so, extracted trichomeheads as 'product', instead of buds, that would also rule out strains with fat buds but low trichome coverage having really good yield numbers in your datasheet). or if you're selling (hash)oil, take oilyield/surface/time. although your extractionmethod would add an extra possible variable there, but could still be usefull, depending on what question you're trying to answer with your yieldnumbers.
 
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Palindrome

King of Schwag
Like I just stated, your answer implied adding in many metrics that are not in place yet. I am just trying to estimate the total yields of a potential greenhouse. I understand that nutrients, light, genetics will all play a roll, but what is the average? What is a solid number one can go off of as a solid milestone?


Thanks for the help. :tiphat:

Without any baseline, and info to go from. You can's estimate anything, you need to plan everything out first.

What kind of greenhouse, how much light do you get during your grow season.
Are you gonna grow large plants in the ground, or many small plants on tables. Law and location, have alot to say on how you cultivate.

Figure that out, and estimate with your bare minimum yeald per sqft is. How much you need, to keep the skin on your nose.

Come back, and I am sure you will be able to get some much more usefull help on this.
If your plan is realistic or not, and if not what you need to change to get there.

So find some paper, a pen and get started drawing up some plans.
 

Smith111

Member
Without any baseline, and info to go from. You can's estimate anything, you need to plan everything out first.

What kind of greenhouse, how much light do you get during your grow season.
Are you gonna grow large plants in the ground, or many small plants on tables. Law and location, have alot to say on how you cultivate.

Figure that out, and estimate with your bare minimum yeald per sqft is. How much you need, to keep the skin on your nose.

Come back, and I am sure you will be able to get some much more usefull help on this.
If your plan is realistic or not, and if not what you need to change to get there.

So find some paper, a pen and get started drawing up some plans.

Ok, lets dig deaper then.......

Genetics will be 20+ strains grown over an acre. So take your pick, blue dream all the way down to low yielding cookies.

The kind of greenhouse: It looks like I am going with the A1000 from Farmtek, with water walls, heat, CO2, HID lights. The entire acre will be concreted for easy clean up with drains. The acre will be divided up into four 10k sq ft greenhouses, three will have light dep options and one will be the veg greenhouse. Price per greenhouse before concrete and permits stands at 300k.

Light during grow season: We are talking full south facing sun exposure, with lights for the off season. Don't really want to speak on the location, but one of the best locations in the state to grow cannabis weather wise. If more info is needed here, i will post up something more detailed. Think similar weather to Calaveras county.

The grow system will be dirt, is smallish pots, on conveyor belts and tables.

As for estimated yields, I of course don't ask a question I don't know the answer to. I was asking you guys what metrics you use, and what numbers you guys are achieving. But I hope this helps. :tiphat:
 

Smith111

Member
Are you the grower or are you hiring help?
What is your experience growing anything?
What is the experience level of your help?

The answers to these questions could play a role in your yield expectations.

Other questions would be:
What varieties will you be running?
From seed or clone?
What size do you plan on getting the plants previous to flowering?
In what size containers?

There is not a simple answer to your question.


I guess I will go one by one here.....


Are you the grower or are you hiring help? I am the owner
What is your experience growing anything? Been growing cannabis for 20+ years, own and operate a non profit farm for 5 years, own a dispensary, opening up a farm, distribution and manufacturing facilities.
What is the experience level of your help? Best in the biz. Pulling farmers that have won the emerald cup.


Other questions would be:
What varieties will you be running? Name one, this is an acre grow. Blue dream, cookies, sherbet, gelato, og kush, ext ext
From seed or clone? both, mainly clone
What size do you plan on getting the plants previous to flowering? why would this matter when we are talking yields per sq ft?
In what size containers? 20 gal maybe
 
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Palindrome

King of Schwag
Ok, lets dig deaper then.......

Genetics will be 20+ strains grown over an acre. So take your pick, blue dream all the way down to low yielding cookies.

The kind of greenhouse: It looks like I am going with the A1000 from Farmtek, with water walls, heat, CO2, HID lights. The entire acre will be concreted for easy clean up with drains. The acre will be divided up into four 10k sq ft greenhouses, three will have light dep options and one will be the veg greenhouse. Price per greenhouse before concrete and permits stands at 300k.

Light during grow season: We are talking full south facing sun exposure, with lights for the off season. Don't really want to speak on the location, but one of the best locations in the state to grow cannabis weather wise. If more info is needed here, i will post up something more detailed. Think similar weather to Calaveras county.

The grow system will be dirt, is smallish pots, on conveyor belts and tables.

As for estimated yields, I of course don't ask a question I don't know the answer to. I was asking you guys what metrics you use, and what numbers you guys are achieving. But I hope this helps. :tiphat:

All right, didn't get the feeling you where this far in your project. Or that it was this lvl, but the math should be the same.
Sounds like a awesome setup, and can totaly understand you don't wanna disclose your location.

Great looking greenhouses, been working in simular greenhouses from Holland. Different roof, to make snow slide off. But same concept, where you can extend them in any direction. Lower the sides, to create airflow and dark-out curtins, to controll 12/12 for growing Euphorbia pulcherrima and other domestic short-day cultures.

From that I would expect the same numbers, as any well setup indoor grow. Clearly with a larger start-up cost, but in the long run your production cost should be much lower.

Would love to work at a place like that, as long it's not doing clones or trimming the weed :biggrin:
 
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