Haha nice to see you here. I've been off the forums for about a decade. Way back then you helped me a lot with my MPB setups. Time has changed and on to bigger and better things.
Its not 8sf.. its 4 feet by 24 feet. Actually that's just one row. I have 2 rooms, each 15'x28' with (3) rows, 4'x24' in each room... so total is 6 rows. Gonna run 12 or maybe even 15 Gavita 1k's per room.
I've settled on this layout... its gonna be 12 rows of 3 plants, per 4'x24' raceway table. Same spacing as the photo below. Photo was taken from Issack "8k coco grow". https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=343017
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He's running 24 plants over 16' and I'm doing 36 plants over 24', so same layout exactly.
I'm gonna run pure Canna Coco, Jack's, open 1/4 lines, multi-feeding.
Now, in the journal above Issac crushed it in 2 gallon pots. I'm going back and forth between 2 or 3 gallon pots for this setup. He's running fabric pots and I will be using hard pots.
So what you think... should I run 2 or 3 gallon pots? My gut is telling me go with 3's but my brain is telling me 2's.
3 columns will crowd you fast, and leave gaps on the rows
2 columns and 18 rows leaves you room both directions, plus no reaching
I don't have anything super helpful to add, but I do know cloth pots can wick up a lot more of the overflow water back into them if you are using any sort of drainage tray under them. The hard pots don't really do that.
Doesn't (18 rows of 2 plants = 1.3'L x 2'W footprint per pot) and (12 rows of 3 plants = 2'L x 1.3'W footprint) equal to the exact same SF per plant... just arranged differently?
My math says the numbers are the same... in theory it doesn't matter which of the two layouts I choose, so the question now comes down to pot size.
You're suggesting 3 gallon? My gut is telling me go with 3's too but I'm reading journals of members getting 8oz plants out off less than 2gal pots with multi-feeding.