Heaths latest tree grow

[LEDNewbie]

Billy, few quick questions before I rattle you with a bunch more

With this high flowing Hydro setup that you and heath have been using. What are the benefits and drawbacks of this system? Do you feel is produces a larger better plant over a Ebb system?

I read a post where DHT said this high flow system is good at producing but is a pain in the ass?? Care to elaborate?

Since you've been running this system for a while now what are your average yield sizes with this system? Are you able to obtain the magical 3# per plant? Thanks

 

[Billy Liar]

Hi led newbie

The benefits are accelerated growth and high yields. Also some of us just like big plants...

The drawbacks are mainly encountered in sub par conditions. High temperatures being the obvious...

Yields for me have been more often around the 30 oz mark.. different strains obviously have different results. I've always been happy around there...

More veg time can have a positive outcome...

Peace
BL

 

[LEDNewbie]

Hi led newbie

The benefits are accelerated growth and high yields. Also some of us just like big plants...

The drawbacks are mainly encountered in sub par conditions. High temperatures being the obvious...

Yields for me have been more often around the 30 oz mark.. different strains obviously have different results. I've always been happy around there...

More veg time can have a positive outcome...

Peace
BL

Thanks Billy, how long you veg for when producing 30 oz a plant wich is awesome by the way!!!

 

[Billy Liar]

4/5 weeks in the system...

Or a similar system for veg....

6 plus weeks would be plenty.....

Peace
BL

 

[kushedphantom]

Mr. Robinson, you are a complete inspiration. Thanks for all you do for the cannabis grow community.

 

[LEDNewbie]

4/5 weeks in the system...

Or a similar system for veg....

6 plus weeks would be plenty.....

Peace
BL

Wow that is a pretty fast veg considering how big these plants are!! So basically I would need to build a replica setup for my veg room. That way when they are ready for flower I can just grab the inner bucket and plop it into my flower setup correct?

What's your typical flowering cycle when using this grow setup? Still the normal 8 weeks?

 

[whodare]

Want big plants fast?

Veg under high wattage. Minimum 50 better yet 60-70 watts per square foot. Hands down best way. And it makes naturally branchier plants.

 

[LEDNewbie]

Want big plants fast?

Veg under high wattage. Minimum 50 better yet 60-70 watts per square foot. Hands down best way. And it makes naturally branchier plants.

very true, but when I go this route I wanna do it "Heath" style with minimal wattage. Wattage can't be everything as he has grown more yield per plant than anyone I know of or heard of with only 2400-3000 watts per 4 trees in a 12x10 room. That works out to only 25 watts per sq ft!!!!

 

[LEDNewbie]

One thing maybe someone could also explain, it doesn't really seem like Heath has a very many oscillating fans in his room?? How do you keep mold and such from happening on such large plants? How do you get air movement on all sides of the plant?

 

[ItsGrowTime]

re: humidity/air circ/mold

I have a single large wall fan in each of my rooms that runs constantly, along with big 8" standalone scrubbers that circulate lots of air around the rooms. I use those expensive atomizing humidifiers that bump humidity during early and mid flowering on a mechanical timer. I adjust back the amount of time the humidifiers are on as the colas get fatter (30 days or so) and never run them during lights out, especially after day 30 or so. The vertical lights burn off lots of humidity if no additional humidity is supplied so it's pretty easy to keep mold to a minimum even on a heavy indica strain.

fwiw, Ive been growing for almost 2 years in a dialed-in system like heath's and if I can be honest, I think most of the legends about his yields are exaggerated. You can yield very well but 4 pounds on a single plant surrounded by 3000w? yeah ok. got a bridge to sell ya if you believe that.

 

[LEDNewbie]

I actually don't think it's exaggerated at all. His trees are 5-6 ft talk and 6 ft wide!!!! Pics don't lie, full of huge big buds. I honestly don't see why others have such trouble achieving these numbers?? Look at Ghettogrow. He got 3+ pounds out of each of his big trees and he struggled to maintain 20% humidity!!! Just imagine if be had perfect humidity that run! 3.5-4 pounds I'm sure he would have achieved. Also the strain you run is very important.

There's guys outdoors that have got 5-8 pounds off one tree!!! So why can't someone get half that number indoors??? Especially with a dialed in hydro setup? You running a high flow recirculating setup?

 

[Stonefree69]

very true, but when I go this route I wanna do it "Heath" style with minimal wattage. Wattage can't be everything as he has grown more yield per plant than anyone I know of or heard of with only 2400-3000 watts per 4 trees in a 12x10 room. That works out to only 25 watts per sq ft!!!!

I know Heath's recommended a minimum of 50 w/sf before.

 

[redbudduckfoot]

true, but for his tree grows he flips his lights on and off every six hours, so it works out to 25w psqft. only two corners of the "X" are on at a time, while the center light is always on.
love me some heath grows.

rbdf

 

[LEDNewbie]

Hey billy. Do you run top feed as well as the high flow circulating water at the bottom? I noticed some run top feed and some don't like I belive GhettoGrow doesn't run top feed and seems to have great success. What are the benefits of top feed?

If running top feed do you aim at the stem or away?? Thanks.

 

[farmari]

To me one benefit of top feed is creation of dissolved oxygen from the waterfall effect. I also like top feed because it only needs one drain pipe, and is less likely to clog a drain line or damage the roots because the amount of water going through the drain is far lower than a UC style system. I would avoid the stem... IMO that's creating a real risk of killing your plant with stem rot.

Regarding Heath's yields... they seem legit to me. It's all the little details, as he says... a lack of doing things wrong rather than some magic trick. Plus I think one should give benefit of the doubt to low and high yields because actual yield can vary greatly depending on ones style of trimming and how dry the final product is.

If I recall right, Gettogro has a waterfall in the reservoir.

 

[St3ve]

very true, but when I go this route I wanna do it "Heath" style with minimal wattage. Wattage can't be everything as he has grown more yield per plant than anyone I know of or heard of with only 2400-3000 watts per 4 trees in a 12x10 room. That works out to only 25 watts per sq ft!!!!

Whodare does have a valid point, sure you can do it with less wattage and more veg time, but he was talking about a faster veg time.

 

[LEDNewbie]

Ok here are a few of my plans which might give you a clue as to how the recycling system works, it is a very simple system. The first drawing shows the level in the grow bucket set by a external rez, this is useful if you want to drain your system as it simply drains to the rez by gravity.

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And the second plan shows a system which is easier to set up as the liquid hight in the bucket is set by the return pipe from the rez, the system is slightly less versatile than the system above because you cannot change the liquid level in the tank and its a little more difficult to drain for cleaning etc but performance wise its identical.

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Ok here are some pics of me building a tank ready to take a tree. Im just going to thank Billy Liar again for pointing out these storage tanks to me, billy uses the smaller version which would probably be more suited for most tree growing but I like the bigger size because it has a inspection hole built into it.

Ok this first two pics are of the tank I am going to use, obviously you can use whatever tank you like.


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Here is the 4 gallon header tank I am going to use as the inner pot (the one the plant goes in).

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The left hand hole is the one I have cut to take the 4 gallon tank.

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4 gallon tank drilled.

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And dropped into the hole I cut earlier.

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Next measure from the bottom of the 4 gallon tank to the bottom of the Large tank, in this case its 6 1/2"

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Then get a hole cutter

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Now we need to cut a hole in the side of the bottom tub this will be for the return to the rez. Earlier we took a measurement that was 6 1/2" to the bottom of the inner tub so wee need for the bottom of the hole to be 6 1/2" so the water level will touch the bottom of the 4 gallon tub. (If the height of water is to be set using a ballcock in the external rez then simply drill this hole at the bottom)

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Then fit the 1 1/2" (or whatever you can get hold of) tank connector.

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Like this.

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view of tank connector from inside the bottom tank.

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Return Pipe fitted to 1 1/2" return to rez.

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And here is a simple feed to the top just a simple open pipe running 24/7 its a very easy way of introducing Dissolved Oxygen without any real effort as it becomes part of the recirculating system adding DO as it falls through the pebbles and into the bottom tub.

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This might interest some of you its the root system from my flip flop SOG grow, using the same recirculating system I use in the tree grows, in the second, third and fourth pic you can still see the recirculating feed running.

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I hope that helps I will be posting up the latest tree grows over the next few days I hope you will like and if you have any questions fire away and I will try answer them.

cheers

Heath

OK, someone please help clear this up for me... I've been looking at allot of recirculating hydro setups, the DWC one in particular and it has a water in on one side of the bucket and a water out on the other side of the bucket..... Wich is like how GhettoGrow has his. And it's how I thought Heath Robinson had his as well??? But looking at the pics above of the sketches he drew and of the large black tank he built it looks to me like there is only one hole in the bucket for return to the rez....?? So is the level of water in the bucket only being maintained by the top feed in Heath's setup?? Or is there a in feed as well that I'm not seeing? Is his setup not the same as the DWC kits you can buy or something different? Maybe I'm just not seeing something? Thanks guys...

 

[LEDNewbie]

where is everybody???

 

[ItsGrowTime]

I actually don't think it's exaggerated at all. His trees are 5-6 ft talk and 6 ft wide!!!! Pics don't lie, full of huge big buds. I honestly don't see why others have such trouble achieving these numbers?? Look at Ghettogrow. He got 3+ pounds out of each of his big trees and he struggled to maintain 20% humidity!!! Just imagine if be had perfect humidity that run! 3.5-4 pounds I'm sure he would have achieved. Also the strain you run is very important.

Im doing very well with an AKxCritical Mass strain, known to be heavy, and the biggest problem one will run into is light penetration even with 3000w IF you're serious about a 6 foot WIDE plant. Do you realize how wide that plant is? Even a 1000w (which I run mostly and all vert) will have trouble penetrating deeply enough to get any light to interior buds. Nevermind covering a 6 foot TALL plant with a 1000w vert presents its own limitations. That's like running a 1000w over a 6 foot tall plant and expecting the bottom half of the plant to yield anything more than tiny popcorn. I don't know of Ghettogrow's exploits but I'd probably question his dry yield totals too.

Not calling him out but after this many years of non-stop growing, Ive realized a lot of the legends of past yields are exaggerated.

There's guys outdoors that have got 5-8 pounds off one tree!!! So why can't someone get half that number indoors??? Especially with a dialed in hydro setup? You running a high flow recirculating setup?

Can't compare outdoor grows to indoor so that's irrelevent. So many reasons why. Do you grow? No offense but "newbie" in your handle doesn't inspire confidence. You're pointing to other people's claimed yields. How are your own? I'm speaking from experience here, not hearsay. Yes I run a system very similar to Heath's. 27gal tubs with bottom feeds and top drains recirculating, indica trees, vert bulbs (3x1000,2x600) on a flip between rooms. CO2ed, measured humidity, constantly monitored hydro solution of House and Garden Aqua Flakes and supplements, 1/2hp chiller, 270gallon total volume, pond air pump, etc etc. Yes I run a similar system to Heath's. I don't claim to be a master grower but I hold my own and Ive pulled up to a pound and a half from a tree in a perfect circumstances dialed-in system. That's a pretty damn big plant indoors. 4 pounds? 3 pounds? I seriously doubt those numbers as completely dry product. Just my .02.

 

[redbudduckfoot]

dude, then you need to improve your growin. You aint gonna win any points by coming in here and discrediting Heaths yield claims. he only started this thread to teach others, not to brag or inflate yields.

I can hang a 1000w hps in the middle of a 5 x 5 room, place four plants around the bulb, flip at two feet, weave through a 4 x 4 scrog screen, and yield 3 pounds. yep. 12 ounces a side. each plant in 5 gallon smart pots w pro-mix & blumats.

I know heath ran sat dom hybrids, maybe thats why you cant break the 1.5 barrier. people wouldn't do the huge 30-40 light vert tree grows I see on the T%@farm, if they didn't compete with 1g/pw like a horizontal ebb/flow scrog will do.

some people like to overestimate their growing ability. I am a great grower in flower, but cant keep healthy plants in veg. I'll admit that.

I think we tend to underestimate the knowledge a Master Grower has, how far along in the game they are. Remember, its easy to know who ia the master grower on sites like this. He is the member here who is here to teach, not lo glean info off other members. Heath comes to mind instantly, as does DHF, BldSwTrs, just to name a few.