Converting A 30X40 Pole Barn Into A Grow. Starting With Only 24 Plants. In Need Of Help With Dimensions For Rooms.

[MajorGrindage]

I just bought a new house with a 30x40 pole barn, and i want to start off by converting it to be able to grow 24 plants, and have the room to expand to more plants in the future when me and my buddy gain more growing skills.

I am going to have the barn completely sealed, and I know a clean room/changing room is needed, a veg room, flower room, dry/cure room. But i only want to build rooms big enough for the 24 plants at first, and cant decide on the dimensions.

My Question is:

1. I know the flower room must be a little bit bigger than the veg room, but am not sure on what specific dimensions i should go for with each room. If you guys can help me figure out how big to make each room for a 24 plant grow within this 30x40 pole parn, leaving room for expansion once we start becoming better growers, i would be incredibly grateful.

My buddy and i have the motivation to start growing/learning, but just need some help from some knowledgable people like you guys.

We have a meeting with a construction company soon to start drawing up some ideas, but i am really hoping to gain some more knowledge from you guys first.

Im very curious to see what you have to say! Thank you!

 

[Creeperpark]

I just bought a new house with a 30x40 pole barn, and i want to start off by converting it to be able to grow 24 plants, and have the room to expand to more plants in the future when me and my buddy gain more growing skills.

I am going to have the barn completely sealed, and I know a clean room/changing room is needed, a veg room, flower room, dry/cure room. But i only want to build rooms big enough for the 24 plants at first, and cant decide on the dimensions.

My Question is:

1. I know the flower room must be a little bit bigger than the veg room, but am not sure on what specific dimensions i should go for with each room. If you guys can help me figure out how big to make each room for a 24 plant grow within this 30x40 pole parn, leaving room for expansion once we start becoming better growers, i would be incredibly grateful.

My buddy and i have the motivation to start growing/learning, but just need some help from some knowledgable people like you guys.

We have a meeting with a construction company soon to start drawing up some ideas, but i am really hoping to gain some more knowledge from you guys first.

Im very curious to see what you have to say! Thank you!

Thanks for the question friend. It is going to depend on how much light wattage you are going to use in each area. What type of lighting HPS, MH, or LEDs How many amps you will need or have to work with? Also what kind of substrate do you plan to use? What your water source will be and what fertilizers? Are you planning on auto or manual water systems and so on? Post some photos so we can get an idea of what you have to work with.

 

[MajorGrindage]

Thanks for the question friend. It is going to depend on how much light wattage you are going to use in each area. What type of lighting HPS, MH, or LEDs How many amps you will need or have to work with? Also what kind of substrate do you plan to use? What your water source will be and what fertilizers? Are you planning on auto or manual water systems and so on? Post some photos so we can get an idea of what you have to work with.

Thank you so much for your willingness to help. It is incredibly appreciated.

I only have a picture from outside of the barn right now, but it is 30x40, and i dont have an exact height but the ceilings are quite high. The interior is basically just completely empty, and i am working with a construction company that says they can build out whatever i need. They will be using anti microbial materials and all of that, and will be completely sealing off the barn from outside light/weather/etc. They said they can build as many rooms as i need, with different climates for each room. I will attach the picture that i have of it to this comment for now, and next time im out there will get interior pictures.

I will be using LED lights, specifically HLG Scorpion Diablo LED's. I am lucky enough to have a fairly large budget, and can order as many lights and other equipment as needed.

I will be using Organic Soil. Roots Organic brand to be exact, and i may also experiment with Build A Soil 3.0 brand.

I have well water at the house, as well as a softener, but the water is very high in PPM so im thinking i will be installing an RO system for the plants.

Right now im planning on keeping it simple for the first grow and only using a few fertilizers while hopefully still achieving some very quality flower. After researching ive decided to feed compost teas and use "Roots Organic Terp Tea Grow/Bloom", and "Roots Organic Buddha Grow/Bloom" For Nutrients.
The plan ive come up with is:

• 1.Dont feed During Seed/Clone, and then during the first 2 weeks of veg feed only Compost Tea and Roots Organic Buddha Grow.
  • 2.After those 2 weeks, begin top dressing with Roots Organic Terp Tea Grow every 2 weeks.
    • 3. When ready to flip to flower, top dress every week and switch to Roots Organic Buddha Bloom.
      • 4. Throughout this whole process I will feed compost tea once or twice a week. I will attach a picture of the recipe i found for compost tea below. If there is anything you would change please let me know.

We are planning on hand watering at first since i will be working with a partner, and only plan on building out the barn to grow 24 plants for now. In the future i may install an automated system, especially for short periods of time when we go on vacation, or when we expand to the entire barn and have a high plant count.

If theres any other info i can provide please let me know! This has been a dream of ours since my friend and i have been children, and we want to make sure we do this as proper as possible. We have a meeting with the construction company this Wednesday so im really hoping to get a better idea of how big each room should be/how many rooms i need/etc by then so we can get a blue print drawn up.

The main thing to keep in mind is we want to build it to initially grow 24 plants, but to leave room to eventually expand to the entire barn in the future as we become better growers and have a higher plant count.

Thanks again for reaching out! Without people like you i would never be able to pull something like this off. You are appreciated, and i look forward to hearing from you!

 

[alvin88]

Lots of variables here. I think a question to ask would be what is your goal for harvest weight? Or how much electricity are you willing to run??

24 plants could easily be under 1 light. Or you could do 24 lights with 1 huge plant each. And then any configuration there in-between. You see?

Personally I think if you were running the plants in 5 gal buckets, a 10x20 area would be quite sufficient. I usually size my veg area to about 1/3 of the flower area.

 

[Itsmychoice]

For 24 plants i would do two 4 light flower rooms. That way you can run one at night and one during the day, it helps keep things warm and you harvest every month. Make them 10x10 at least but really just divide it as big as you would want it in the future. Metal roofing for drain tables, 3’ tables is all you need to have 5’ at the canopy. Veg on bakers racks with hlg 65s in square pots. Take twice as many clones as you need and throw out anything that isn’t perfect. Whatever size your canopy is you will need half of that square footage to dry it in your dry area. Make the dry area dark and easy to maintain 60f and 60% humidity with a slight breeze. Having this barn will be the best thing you have ever done.

 

[MajorGrindage]

For 24 plants i would do two 4 light flower rooms. That way you can run one at night and one during the day, it helps keep things warm and you harvest every month. Make them 10x10 at least but really just divide it as big as you would want it in the future. Metal roofing for drain tables, 3’ tables is all you need to have 5’ at the canopy. Veg on bakers racks with hlg 65s in square pots. Take twice as many clones as you need and throw out anything that isn’t perfect. Whatever size your canopy is you will need half of that square footage to dry it in your dry area. Make the dry area dark and easy to maintain 60f and 60% humidity with a slight breeze. Having this barn will be the best thing you have ever done.

Thank you so much! This is more helpful than you can imagine!

So just to make sure im understanding, would you use two 4 light flower rooms, and also veg in those same rooms? Or if theres room in the barn would you have seperate veg rooms, and if so what dimensions would you make the veg rooms in relation to the flower rooms?

Also, if i just "divide it as big as you would want it in the future", wouldn't i run into problems only filling the rooms with 24 plants in the meantime? Or could i just make the rooms as large as possible, and only have plants/lights where the 24 plants are growing, while leaving the rest of the room empty/dark?

Also, we have considered a clean room to change clothes/shoes when first entering, and possibly a bathroom. Do you think these are necessary/would be helpful? And any other rooms im not thinking of?

I am going to bring this quote in with me to the meeting to show to my partner/the construction company. You have seriously been a major help.

Thank you so much, and if you celebrate the holidays, happy holidays!

 

[MajorGrindage]

Lots of variables here. I think a question to ask would be what is your goal for harvest weight? Or how much electricity are you willing to run??

24 plants could easily be under 1 light. Or you could do 24 lights with 1 huge plant each. And then any configuration there in-between. You see?

Personally I think if you were running the plants in 5 gal buckets, a 10x20 area would be quite sufficient. I usually size my veg area to about 1/3 of the flower area.

I have honestly not thought about the goal harvest weight, because my partner and i are not worried about making money off these harvests and are going for strictly quality.

We are willing to run however much electricity is necessary. We are lucky enough to have a fairly large budget.

The way you put it makes a lot of sense. I can see how there are endless configurations.

So just to make sure i understand correctly, if i run 5 gal buckets and do a 10x20 flower room, you would recommend a room that is 1/3 the size of that to veg in, which would be 8x8?

Also, we have considered a clean room to change clothes/shoes when first entering, and possibly a bathroom. Do you think these are necessary/would be helpful? And any other rooms im not thinking of?

Thank you so much for the help! This is going to play a major role in how i build this barn. I appreciate you!!

 

[Itsmychoice]

A clean room would be great but not a necessity. Your best bet is to establish an ipm strategy that will take care of the plants regardless. Its basic, pick 5 or so insecticides/fungicides and rotate spraying/fogging the plants every 3-4 days until week 3 of flower. Deciding Co2 will be a big decision. Its either fresh air from the outside replacing the volume of the rooms every 2 or 3 minutes, propane burner or rent a tank. If its sealed and you are using a tank or burner then ac is the next decision. You want 12k btu per every 5k watts of light. Split units with heat in every room is the best bet. I built my place a couple years ago and there are pics. After ac i would be thinking drainage. I veg on bakers racks and then move them under cmh 315s for a couple weeks. Veg is the same size as one flower room. You want two flower rooms for sure to divide the harvest/trimming. Be thinking of how to raise and lower the lights, its a must with leds. Look at trolmaster for the environmental/light and irrigation controls. It will be worth doing irrigation. It lets you focus on caring for the plants instead of spending all your time watering. Its easy and if you can have wifi out there it will be worth it to monitor everything.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Clean room: maybe not need a room but you do need a space where you can change clothes and especially shoes if your access to the grow is from the outside.

Water: would you be able to collect rainwater? This is so much easier than RO but you may need RO as a backup. Its a really good idea to think thru the plumbing before you make walls and rooms. Youd also need a bit of space for deposits/water tanks.

Lights: diablo scorpion is a very nice light, especially if youre in the US with easy access to their after sales. We run DIY and in euro so diablo isnt very convenient for us. The only other light id compare with diablo are these boards from growlights australia:

High Light 420 'Gen3' LED Panel - Grow Lights Australia

The most efficient “true” full spectrum LED grow light with UVA and Far Red on one channel. Beats Quantum Boards, HPS and CMH. (390-780nm)

growlightsaustralia.com

Diablo has a little bit better efficiency but the GLA boards come with a lot of extras that HLG dont have: real full spectrum all the way from UV to Far red with very high amount of reds, boards are sealed and waterproof using a very good seal with world leading transparency. Top diodes from Nichia, they test the same as Samsungs top diodes. Imho UV and far red is very important for bud quality.
@Prawn Connery is close to the company and can give more info.
The draw back is that they are somewhat pricey (although not as pricey as they seem, you have to convert from Aus dollars and there are several possible discounts) and you would have to import them. You may wanna source heatsinks and drivers locally, its probably cheaper.

Environment: you need to be able to control environment really well with led, but generally heat is much less of an issue, led plants grow better with 81-84F, dont use HPS environment advice. And read up on Vapour Pressure Deficit/VPD; this is key to get your plants to transpire happily. You also need to be able to both raise and lower humidity; quest climate are the best brand.

 

[MajorGrindage]

A clean room would be great but not a necessity. Your best bet is to establish an ipm strategy that will take care of the plants regardless. Its basic, pick 5 or so insecticides/fungicides and rotate spraying/fogging the plants every 3-4 days until week 3 of flower. Deciding Co2 will be a big decision. Its either fresh air from the outside replacing the volume of the rooms every 2 or 3 minutes, propane burner or rent a tank. If its sealed and you are using a tank or burner then ac is the next decision. You want 12k btu per every 5k watts of light. Split units with heat in every room is the best bet. I built my place a couple years ago and there are pics. After ac i would be thinking drainage. I veg on bakers racks and then move them under cmh 315s for a couple weeks. Veg is the same size as one flower room. You want two flower rooms for sure to divide the harvest/trimming. Be thinking of how to raise and lower the lights, its a must with leds. Look at trolmaster for the environmental/light and irrigation controls. It will be worth doing irrigation. It lets you focus on caring for the plants instead of spending all your time watering. Its easy and if you can have wifi out there it will be worth it to monitor everything.

Since i have the room for it im thinking i will go with the clean room.

And i am happy you mentioned that. My buddy who grows actually sent me over his ipm strategy the other day, and i am curious if you think it is sufficient. I will attach a picture of it below.

Honestly c02 is one of the areas i have researched the least, but i know how important it can be. If this were your barn, and you had a decent budget, is there a certain method of introducing c02 that you would personally use?

The AC company im using already mentioned doing split units, so im glad you mentioned that being a good move.

So just to make sure i understand correctly, you have 1 veg room in your grow, and 2 flower rooms, and all of the rooms are equal size? So 3 rooms total, all equal size.

I am going to begin researching the best methods for raising/lowering the lights. Is there a method/system that you would recommend, or would you need to see the inside of the barn to properly decide that?

I already decided on trolmaster, so im glad you think thats a good choice as well. Im thinking installing a irrigation system is probably worth it like you mentioned. Is there a brand that you would recommend for a sprinkler/drip system?

Thank you SO MUCH for the help. I honestly cant not thank you enough. This is a dream come true for my friend and I, and making sure we do it right is KEY. You are a major help, and incredibly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[MajorGrindage]

Clean room: maybe not need a room but you do need a space where you can change clothes and especially shoes if your access to the grow is from the outside.

Water: would you be able to collect rainwater? This is so much easier than RO but you may need RO as a backup. Its a really good idea to think thru the plumbing before you make walls and rooms. Youd also need a bit of space for deposits/water tanks.

Lights: diablo scorpion is a very nice light, especially if youre in the US with easy access to their after sales. We run DIY and in euro so diablo isnt very convenient for us. The only other light id compare with diablo are these boards from growlights australia:

High Light 420 'Gen3' LED Panel - Grow Lights Australia

The most efficient “true” full spectrum LED grow light with UVA and Far Red on one channel. Beats Quantum Boards, HPS and CMH. (390-780nm)

growlightsaustralia.com

Diablo has a little bit better efficiency but the GLA boards come with a lot of extras that HLG dont have: real full spectrum all the way from UV to Far red with very high amount of reds, boards are sealed and waterproof using a very good seal with world leading transparency. Top diodes from Nichia, they test the same as Samsungs top diodes. Imho UV and far red is very important for bud quality.
@Prawn Connery is close to the company and can give more info.
The draw back is that they are somewhat pricey (although not as pricey as they seem, you have to convert from Aus dollars and there are several possible discounts) and you would have to import them. You may wanna source heatsinks and drivers locally, its probably cheaper.

Environment: you need to be able to control environment really well with led, but generally heat is much less of an issue, led plants grow better with 81-84F, dont use HPS environment advice. And read up on Vapour Pressure Deficit/VPD; this is key to get your plants to transpire happily. You also need to be able to both raise and lower humidity; quest climate are the best brand.

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. It is incredibly appreciated!

My access to the grow is from the outside, so i think i am going to do as you suggest and have a cubby area to at least change clothes and shoes, and possibly even put on tyvek.

I havent looked into rain water, but that is a great idea and something i will definitely bring up at the next meeting. If its not possible then i am glad RO is still a good option.

Thank you for all of the info on the lights! Im so glad that you think the Scorpion diablo is a great light. I did a lot of research before deciding on them.

Also thank you for the recommendation on researching VPD. I have done a little research on it, but not nearly enough. I am going to make sure to really study it before getting this grow going. I also may be able to get quest equipment for a slight deal, so im glad you think they are the best brand.

** Is there a specific amount of veg/flower rooms, and specific dimensions you would build each room considering my situation with the 30x40 pole barn, and wanting to start with 24 plants but eventually expand in the future? Im also curious what dimensions you would make the dry/cure room?
The barn has very high ceilings and is completely empty on the inside.I will be having it sealed, and all surfaces covered in antimicrobial/easy to clean materials, but other than that the build is completely open to our imagination.

Thanks again for the help. It is BEYOND appreciated. All of you people on this forum have helped me gain so much knowledge its incredible. You are very appreciated!

 

[Itsmychoice]

Ipm recommendation looks good. To lower and raise lights i use a small 120v winch. The easy way is hanging each row of lights on strut and use cable through pulleys mounted on the ceiling. For irrigation use open tubes, rainbird stuff is cheap and easy. Put 2-3 tubes in each pot and put each row on a solenoid valve. Put veg on shelves or racks so its two layers. The easiest way for co2 is a tank if its an option. For 30x40, i would do 2 15x24 flower rooms, a 15x15 veg and 15x15 storage/reservoir/irrigation and trimming/drying. Dry on hangers on bars 3 levels high if you have the ceiling height. Put a front porch on it for a clean sitting/smoking area.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. It is incredibly appreciated!

My access to the grow is from the outside, so i think i am going to do as you suggest and have a cubby area to at least change clothes and shoes, and possibly even put on tyvek.

I havent looked into rain water, but that is a great idea and something i will definitely bring up at the next meeting. If its not possible then i am glad RO is still a good option.

Thank you for all of the info on the lights! Im so glad that you think the Scorpion diablo is a great light. I did a lot of research before deciding on them.

Also thank you for the recommendation on researching VPD. I have done a little research on it, but not nearly enough. I am going to make sure to really study it before getting this grow going. I also may be able to get quest equipment for a slight deal, so im glad you think they are the best brand.

** Is there a specific amount of veg/flower rooms, and specific dimensions you would build each room considering my situation with the 30x40 pole barn, and wanting to start with 24 plants but eventually expand in the future? Im also curious what dimensions you would make the dry/cure room?
The barn has very high ceilings and is completely empty on the inside.I will be having it sealed, and all surfaces covered in antimicrobial/easy to clean materials, but other than that the build is completely open to our imagination.

Thanks again for the help. It is BEYOND appreciated. All of you people on this forum have helped me gain so much knowledge its incredible. You are very appreciated!

24 plants per flower room or total over the 2 flowering spaces? Do you have any plant count limit?
When sizing the rooms and lights remember to add space in between flower sites for access, fans etc. 4x scorpions give you 4x 5x5 footprints, plan around that. Id probably go with 2x 10x5 aisles and add some space around each aisle.

Your plan is really detailed but it seems this is your the first large grow you design. Make sure theres someone onsite who has some experience of this size and type of grow cause its impossible to see all the details for us here at the forum; its easy for design and reality not to cooperate and locking you into a situation that isnt optimal. Every grow we are changing something, so many details of our fairly similar size grow thats adjustable and adjusted every run. Getting locked into one plan is probably not the best idea. Make sure as many things as possible are flexible, even

Veg: youll want at least part of your veg space tiered in several floors for when plants are still small. Make sure you have someway to pass hepa filtered air from your flowerspaces into your veg space to save on heating. Your staggering the flower spaces so one space harvest per month, right? Since youre using large plants your final vegging stage will take up a lot of space, unless you wanna finish vegg in the flower space for a week or so. At least 75% of the space you flower per run.

IPM: we mainly do predator mites and similar for bugs and use sulfur for mold and pm. One thing though if you use sulfur you want to either cover the lights or have diodes sealed in some way, sulfur messes with the diodes. This is part of the reason i rec GLA boards, they are sealed, spray/water proof.
Another way for to handle pm is with an ozone generator.

Before designing the space look carefully at where sun the sun hits the walls and ceiling and design accordingly: this where you will have most heat so factor it in but remember that heat is usually your friend when growing with leds, our ac is on heating for almost half of the year.

THis is going to be costly, both initial investments and running costs and generate a lot of bud, hopefully. If youre already thinking about unloading some you really need to check what the market is like and find someone(s!) to take it off you.

You should probably also look into security. If youre already a team behind this there is likely someone with a big mouth talking too much; building a grow is a fun exiting thing and people tend to talk about it. Even if its legal it may still be attractive to someone outside to robb. Even if theres no money theres still a lot of value in that grow.

Between you and your team you need to have setup responsibilities for everyone; someone needs to be there EVERY day and wont get to go on holidays EVER. You may have an idea about taking turns and dividing chores but thinking that this will work all the time and forever is a bit utopic: whoever is your main responsible will end up with more skill than any replacement; leaving the grow to someone less skilled means the grow will suffer and interpersonal relations may suffer; there will be fingers pointing, blaming etc. you need to have that structure figured out; how to deal with someone leaving the team, how to kick someone out of the team etc. its like any business venture (even if its for own consumption) managing the interpersonal is hard...

Irrigation: id start with just hand watering and figure out irrigation little by little.
Ive never done drip but many subtrates work better with flooding the pot and getting some run off.

You need to identify what measuring equipment you want: EC/ph meter, temps/rh may be best to have on some kind of wireless thing centralized somewhere so you dont have to go into a room to know the environment. Bluelabs is good for ec/ph. And really push for some rain collection; RO wastes loads of water and is an expense.

This kind of grows runs on machines and people working together, if you miss size your equipment its very hard to make it work. Miss size your space and youll end up spending too much power on climate, heating is a bitch on the amps. How many watts have you got available? Make sure you got enough and then more.

Meanwhile in the planning stage, if youve havent done it before, set up a tent and grow a bit in order to get some experience (assuming youve not done this very much before) but realise that a tent and a medium sized open space is quite different.

 

[MajorGrindage]

Ipm recommendation looks good. To lower and raise lights i use a small 120v winch. The easy way is hanging each row of lights on strut and use cable through pulleys mounted on the ceiling. For irrigation use open tubes, rainbird stuff is cheap and easy. Put 2-3 tubes in each pot and put each row on a solenoid valve. Put veg on shelves or racks so its two layers. The easiest way for co2 is a tank if its an option. For 30x40, i would do 2 15x24 flower rooms, a 15x15 veg and 15x15 storage/reservoir/irrigation and trimming/drying. Dry on hangers on bars 3 levels high if you have the ceiling height. Put a front porch on it for a clean sitting/smoking area.

Awesome youre the first person ive ran the ipm strategy by so im glad you think itll work out.

And i appreciate the recommendation. Im going to mention a 120v winch and the pulley system you mentioned at the meeting and see what everyone thinks.

2 15x24 flower rooms, and a 15x15 veg room with two layers of shelves sounds like a solid plan.
Do you know roughly how many plants id be able to grow with this setup? My partner and i are only trying to grow 24 plants for the first round or 2 at least, so could we just fill the 15x24's with 24 plants in the meantime and add more plants in the future?

Or would all that empty space in the room cause an issue, since 24 plants spread across 2 15x24 flower rooms will probably leave a lot of empty space. Or is it completely fine if i have large rooms and only do a small plant count for now? Im sorry if its a stupid question, i just want to make sure i cover all of my bases.

Thanks again for all of the help. The meeting is tomorrow and ive been putting together a list of what you and everyone else has said, and its been a major help. Its much appreciated!

 

[MajorGrindage]

24 plants per flower room or total over the 2 flowering spaces? Do you have any plant count limit?
When sizing the rooms and lights remember to add space in between flower sites for access, fans etc. 4x scorpions give you 4x 5x5 footprints, plan around that. Id probably go with 2x 10x5 aisles and add some space around each aisle.

Your plan is really detailed but it seems this is your the first large grow you design. Make sure theres someone onsite who has some experience of this size and type of grow cause its impossible to see all the details for us here at the forum; its easy for design and reality not to cooperate and locking you into a situation that isnt optimal. Every grow we are changing something, so many details of our fairly similar size grow thats adjustable and adjusted every run. Getting locked into one plan is probably not the best idea. Make sure as many things as possible are flexible, even

Veg: youll want at least part of your veg space tiered in several floors for when plants are still small. Make sure you have someway to pass hepa filtered air from your flowerspaces into your veg space to save on heating. Your staggering the flower spaces so one space harvest per month, right? Since youre using large plants your final vegging stage will take up a lot of space, unless you wanna finish vegg in the flower space for a week or so. At least 75% of the space you flower per run.

IPM: we mainly do predator mites and similar for bugs and use sulfur for mold and pm. One thing though if you use sulfur you want to either cover the lights or have diodes sealed in some way, sulfur messes with the diodes. This is part of the reason i rec GLA boards, they are sealed, spray/water proof.
Another way for to handle pm is with an ozone generator.

Before designing the space look carefully at where sun the sun hits the walls and ceiling and design accordingly: this where you will have most heat so factor it in but remember that heat is usually your friend when growing with leds, our ac is on heating for almost half of the year.

THis is going to be costly, both initial investments and running costs and generate a lot of bud, hopefully. If youre already thinking about unloading some you really need to check what the market is like and find someone(s!) to take it off you.

You should probably also look into security. If youre already a team behind this there is likely someone with a big mouth talking too much; building a grow is a fun exiting thing and people tend to talk about it. Even if its legal it may still be attractive to someone outside to robb. Even if theres no money theres still a lot of value in that grow.

Between you and your team you need to have setup responsibilities for everyone; someone needs to be there EVERY day and wont get to go on holidays EVER. You may have an idea about taking turns and dividing chores but thinking that this will work all the time and forever is a bit utopic: whoever is your main responsible will end up with more skill than any replacement; leaving the grow to someone less skilled means the grow will suffer and interpersonal relations may suffer; there will be fingers pointing, blaming etc. you need to have that structure figured out; how to deal with someone leaving the team, how to kick someone out of the team etc. its like any business venture (even if its for own consumption) managing the interpersonal is hard...

Irrigation: id start with just hand watering and figure out irrigation little by little.
Ive never done drip but many subtrates work better with flooding the pot and getting some run off.

You need to identify what measuring equipment you want: EC/ph meter, temps/rh may be best to have on some kind of wireless thing centralized somewhere so you dont have to go into a room to know the environment. Bluelabs is good for ec/ph. And really push for some rain collection; RO wastes loads of water and is an expense.

This kind of grows runs on machines and people working together, if you miss size your equipment its very hard to make it work. Miss size your space and youll end up spending too much power on climate, heating is a bitch on the amps. How many watts have you got available? Make sure you got enough and then more.

Meanwhile in the planning stage, if youve havent done it before, set up a tent and grow a bit in order to get some experience (assuming youve not done this very much before) but realise that a tent and a medium sized open space is quite different.

Right now were looking to just do 24 plants total, because we are beginner growers and dont want to overwhelm ourselves too much. Eventually as we gain some more skill, we plan to completely fill the barn.

With that in mind, are there dimensions you would recommend for veg/flower/dry rooms for the 24 plants, keeping in mind that we want to eventually expand in the future. It may be a couple years before we expand though, it really just depends on how quickly we learn and gain skills growing. We are in no rush to make money/have high yields, and are really just focused on producing as quality flower as possible.

This is our first grow period, and luckily we do have some people that we can have on site that have some larger grow experience. For the most part it will just be me and my partner that have been planning this since we were children though.

I appreciate the recommendation to make sure as many things as possible are flexible. That is definitely a good thought to keep in mind.

Im not sure exactly how many watts are available, but i have had my electrician over that ive worked with for a while, and he doesnt seem to think i will have any problem electricity wise.

Its funny you mention that. We had actually bought a couple 5x5 tents and all the equipment for them right before finding and buying this house/barn, so we definitely might use those in the meantime to begin learning.

Thank you so much for all of the help/info. I appreciate it more than you know!

 

[Rocket Soul]

Ipm recommendation looks good. To lower and raise lights i use a small 120v winch. The easy way is hanging each row of lights on strut and use cable through pulleys mounted on the ceiling. For irrigation use open tubes, rainbird stuff is cheap and easy. Put 2-3 tubes in each pot and put each row on a solenoid valve. Put veg on shelves or racks so its two layers. The easiest way for co2 is a tank if its an option. For 30x40, i would do 2 15x24 flower rooms, a 15x15 veg and 15x15 storage/reservoir/irrigation and trimming/drying. Dry on hangers on bars 3 levels high if you have the ceiling height. Put a front porch on it for a clean sitting/smoking area.

Ipm recommendation looks good. To lower and raise lights i use a small 120v winch. The easy way is hanging each row of lights on strut and use cable through pulleys mounted on the ceiling. For irrigation use open tubes, rainbird stuff is cheap and easy. Put 2-3 tubes in each pot and put each row on a solenoid valve. Put veg on shelves or racks so its two layers. The easiest way for co2 is a tank if its an option. For 30x40, i would do 2 15x24 flower rooms, a 15x15 veg and 15x15 storage/reservoir/irrigation and trimming/drying. Dry on hangers on bars 3 levels high if you have the ceiling height. Put a front porch on it for a clean sitting/smoking area.

Love the front porch idea, the kinda thing you forget but is real nice and such a good idea. Very nice and clean lloking grow, props.

OP: think of how to attach thing to the ceiling; both having enough strength to hold the lights but also some solid pieces of wood coming down around your grow areas in order to hang/stretch trellis netting.

For height: as much as you can. We have about 3 feet at the bottom which is taken up by run off collectors, trays and pots and allways about 1.5 feet of just stalks, no leaves or branches, you want to be able to move the air under the cannopy.

Man, if you already have tents then go get growing, thats the best way to get some questions answered, wet your toes but most importantly see what are your next questions the surface.

Dimensions, hard to say without being theres so many factors. As per previous reply:
Start with your light foot print, then add some space around. If you want 5x5 light footprint id suggest aisles of 5x10. Youd need a bit of space around each aisle, at least to fit in a step ladder, have a rotating fan mounted on the wall, like 2 feet at least on each side to walk around.
24 plants, 12 plants per flowering space seems very few plants to me, have to grow them really big in veg. We do about 9 per 5x3.5 in 3 gallons pots of coco. Have you decided on what substrate to use?
Big plant grows seems quite popular in the us but not over here in spain so hard for me to comment on.

 

[Itsmychoice]

The room size won’t hurt to be big. You can put 1 plant per light the first run or you could do 9, its decided by how long the veg is. 6-8 week veg and you could do 9 in a 5x5. 12+week veg and you could do 1. What you produce will be decided by how many watts of lights you are flowering under but the more plants under each light the more flower with very little difference if any in quality. Look up treetroit_city on ig, he does one plant per light. Lots to decide. If you hang a bunch of lights you are going to have your hands full, it’s always something and great flower is the only way it’s worth the effort. You can do it though, just be ready to be busy.

 

[Rocket Soul]

If you wanna veg for a large and wide plant make sure the plants have plenty of space and leaves and branches dont touch. When they start touching eachother they tend to start stretch and compete for light

 

[MajorGrindage]

The room size won’t hurt to be big. You can put 1 plant per light the first run or you could do 9, its decided by how long the veg is. 6-8 week veg and you could do 9 in a 5x5. 12+week veg and you could do 1. What you produce will be decided by how many watts of lights you are flowering under but the more plants under each light the more flower with very little difference if any in quality. Look up treetroit_city on ig, he does one plant per light. Lots to decide. If you hang a bunch of lights you are going to have your hands full, it’s always something and great flower is the only way it’s worth the effort. You can do it though, just be ready to be busy.

Alright perfect. We may go with your idea of two 15x24 flower rooms, a 15x15 veg and 15x15 storage/reservoir/irrigation and trimming/drying then, and just do a small number of large plants, so that it is more managable as beginner growers. And then as we expand, we could increase plant count, and do a large number of smaller plants. This way i wont have to change the structure at all in the future. Im thinking this sounds like a pretty solid plan.

I looked into treetroit breifly and his stuff looks fire. Third coast actually sounds very familiar. If they are in Michigan i think i may have tried their flower before and it was pretty fire. The way they have one plant per light looks awesome, and definitely like something we may consider.

Thank you so much for all of the help. I think i have a much better idea of how to build out this grow, and have a lot of new info to bring to the table at tomorrows meeting. I think with all of this new knowledge and having everyone together tomorrow, we should hopefully be able to draw up a blueprint. Thank you!!

 

[MajorGrindage]

Love the front porch idea, the kinda thing you forget but is real nice and such a good idea. Very nice and clean lloking grow, props.

OP: think of how to attach thing to the ceiling; both having enough strength to hold the lights but also some solid pieces of wood coming down around your grow areas in order to hang/stretch trellis netting.

For height: as much as you can. We have about 3 feet at the bottom which is taken up by run off collectors, trays and pots and allways about 1.5 feet of just stalks, no leaves or branches, you want to be able to move the air under the cannopy.

Man, if you already have tents then go get growing, thats the best way to get some questions answered, wet your toes but most importantly see what are your next questions the surface.

Dimensions, hard to say without being theres so many factors. As per previous reply:
Start with your light foot print, then add some space around. If you want 5x5 light footprint id suggest aisles of 5x10. Youd need a bit of space around each aisle, at least to fit in a step ladder, have a rotating fan mounted on the wall, like 2 feet at least on each side to walk around.
24 plants, 12 plants per flowering space seems very few plants to me, have to grow them really big in veg. We do about 9 per 5x3.5 in 3 gallons pots of coco. Have you decided on what substrate to use?
Big plant grows seems quite popular in the us but not over here in spain so hard for me to comment on.

The front porch idea is a great idea. I definitely may have to consider that.

The head of the construction crew will be at the meeting tomorrow, so ill be sure to bring up everything you mentioned about the ceilings. Thank you so much for mentioning that, otherwise i probably would not have thought to bring that up tomorrow.

Keeping the 5x5 footprint in mind with the HLG Scorpions is definitely an easier way to think about it. Im going to bring up your idea of aisles of 5x10 at the meeting tomorrow nad see what everyone thinks.

It is a very small amount of plants, but our thought behind it is just to not overwhelm ourselves since this is our first grow. We want to grow the maximum amount of plants we can grow, while avoiding being overwhelmed, so that we can produce the best quality possible.

Do you think we could do more than 24 plants, considering it will only be 2 people working at this grow and we are both beginners?

We have decided on Organic soil for our first grow. Roots Organic brand to be exact, and possibly experiment with some Build A Soil 3.0 as well.

Thanks again for all of the help. I feel much more prepared going into this meeting after having talked to all of you on this post. I appreciate it!