no i havent. honestly this is the only cannabis forum i still frequent from time to time since i stopped perusing HPA.
i recall atomizer from way back, ill have to google some. thanks.
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HPA Aeroponics for Commercial Production
- Thread starter Mad Lab
- Start date
no i havent. honestly this is the only cannabis forum i still frequent from time to time since i stopped perusing HPA.
i recall atomizer from way back, ill have to google some. thanks.
I also like to note that he mentions vap's etc of course extracts are the future but again you need large amounts of weed to make it for instance hash takes allot to make allot so with more n more extracts hitting the market prices will drop thus creating a problem and no real gains in profits.
and lets face it its all about profit and also plant count So HPA really is out of the question like it was mentioned you cannot really grow large tree grows but rather really small ones instead so is it worth it at the end of the day ???? 10 plant legal tree grow or 10 plant mini one bud grow ????
and lets face it its all about profit and also plant count So HPA really is out of the question like it was mentioned you cannot really grow large tree grows but rather really small ones instead so is it worth it at the end of the day ???? 10 plant legal tree grow or 10 plant mini one bud grow ????
squarepush3r
Member
look at Tomatos for example, while most are grown outdoor, there are some commercial indoor tomato greenhouses. This one in Canada appears to be using a rockwool slab type system. Obviously Canada is cold as shit in the winter so they probably have to use the greenhouses if they want to do anything off season, it would probably be more cost effective to just have an outdoor field if weather permitted.
[youtubeif]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h16o7m98VWc[/youtubeif]
wow this forum software is pretty janky. Here is the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h16o7m98VWc
a few points id like to make:
one.
His argument regarding HPA is entirely with respect to indoor growing from what i understood.
two.
aren't many smaller plants technically more productive than fewer larger plants? I dont think that fact is in dispute.
three( a long one)
growing Indoors is necessarily very expensive, and hence any and all avenues through which one can lower costs and maximise profit CAN LOGICALLLY BE PURSUED.... unlike say outdoors growing in greenhouses, where the cost of production, and the fixed costs associated are far less... such that meager boosts to productivity cannot justify the increased labor costs( that i herein assert must accompany any large plant HPA system).
given that he is arguing that small plants must be used to avoid these costs, and given the photo period issues.... cannabis cannot foreseeable be grown employing the suggested approach outdoors, and therefor is only suitable for indoors production.
Growing indoors, with the average commercial costs of around 13 cents per kwh( i think?)... idealized, you are paying 13 dollars an hour per 100 fixtures, for just lighting.
thats about what a single unskilled laborer costs. so yea at that scale; the scale i believe most black market production occurs at, it probably makes no sense to venture into this particular gambit.
putting aside my arguments against indoors production in the first place. i think what he was asserting is that, going forward into massive scale operations with 1000+ lights, where you are paying a 10 fold increase in these fixed costs... logically investment in HPA will result as a means to maximize profit.
its all microecon 111 stuff.( im an engineer btw, so take my musing on economics with a huge grain of salt) when profitability invariably heads for the shitter, and you approach pure competition with lowish barriers of entry, only the folks with the capital to make this system of growing work will be able to justify growing indoors at all.
that being said, imo if HPA turns out to not yield the advantages that ccs asserts, it will never materialize in any serious way in the first place. what he is claiming is that the "invisible hand" will drive HPA into productive use commercially.
all of the above aside... i do take issue with ccs's assertion that cannabis extract will drive the demand for INDOOR grown cannabis... i dont buy that for one second.
the advantage of growing indoors is that one has far better control of environmental issues, namely pests and poor weather.
so what do you yield under these idealistic conditions? well, presumably, perfect cannabis... unmolested by pests, or cold weather, or extended periods of cloudy weather, pesticides... growth regulators or what ever else...
why throw away the only advantageous quality of indoor grown cannabis, by processing it into homogenized extract? if indoor grown cannabis is to proove viable economically at all, in a the hypothetical purely competitive market place, IMO it will have to leverage the only quality it has over field and greenhouse cannabis, and that's the pristine quality.
surely there will always be folks smoking dried plant material... i mean, folks are always harping on this and that bouquet and aroma... speaking about some feckless doobie like its a glass of fine wine. zesty citrus pungent peppery subtle yet complex... all the vain adjectives one hears from whine folks...
one would think many smaller plants are more effective but n reality NOPE
your talking smaller plants getting .5 gram dried per plant then running less plants giving you a pound per plant for instance i grew 76 plants vegged 5 weeks to get 6 pounds see the problem was only harvested to 1/3 of plant so really more plant food then i went 12 plant scrog to get 7 3/4
your talking smaller plants getting .5 gram dried per plant then running less plants giving you a pound per plant for instance i grew 76 plants vegged 5 weeks to get 6 pounds see the problem was only harvested to 1/3 of plant so really more plant food then i went 12 plant scrog to get 7 3/4
sure but did you factor in the additional time required for these larger plants? presumably the 12 plant scrog takes far more time to veg... time that, over a year or so, had you been vegging shorter, with more plants, could result in you getting in more grows than otherwise.
im not sure what you mean by only 1/3 of the plant being viable? are you referring to under developed cannabis? or unripened cannabis?
if shorter duration plants truely result in uneven ripening of the plant, thats a huge issue i had not considered. perhaps plant breeding can address that?
im not sure what you mean by only 1/3 of the plant being viable? are you referring to under developed cannabis? or unripened cannabis?
if shorter duration plants truely result in uneven ripening of the plant, thats a huge issue i had not considered. perhaps plant breeding can address that?
sea of green grows out preform most methods yield wise if you factor in veg times in your comparison...I have done the math ,many times...yeehaw
The math and reality sometimes do not add up there TBO its all i did for almost 3 years SOG 76 plant rooms in all stages over 1000 plants going from clone to flower
what i do know is more plants = more food costs increaase and trully less yield as your only harvesting 1/3 of plant being plant is so packed in the lower buds sites are under developed and worthless
And yes i even tried trimming the 1/3 then placing them all into flower for few more days or weeks but the problem is the plants go into shock from cutting it all up to begin with so thats a waste of time
what i do know is more plants = more food costs increaase and trully less yield as your only harvesting 1/3 of plant being plant is so packed in the lower buds sites are under developed and worthless
And yes i even tried trimming the 1/3 then placing them all into flower for few more days or weeks but the problem is the plants go into shock from cutting it all up to begin with so thats a waste of time
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yea, actually this system is in far more use than you might think.
in Scandinavian countries... denmark and UK... lots and lots of toms are produced this way.
i actually use an identical approach, sans the greenhouse though.
i was referring to 100% indoors however, and i believe that he was as well.
these greenhouses are at best light supplemented, though many are not.
light supplementation is a very far cry from the amount and intensity of light most of you indoors folk use.
The technology is proven, it simply needs to be scaled to offset the costs.
With cannabis legalization will come field grown hemp production. Wait till hemp pollen ruins an entire marijuana crop that's miles away from each other. And how do you expect to produce and market a medical grade product when you're spraying pesticides?
The produce industry is already moving indoors due to higher and higher costs of crop insurance. CEA Green houses will be more prevalent than field grown.
And who says you can't use HPA in a green house? That's just silly talk.
you are overstating the risk of cross pollination.
granted im not familiar with the hemp plant, but most pollen drifts less than a mile.
pollen grains are far larger than you might think. corn has these huge anthers that dump insane amounts of pollen for many days... even so, you only need a distance of about 1 furlong to yield a 99% non contaminated crop. it drops off drastically there after...
by 1/2" miles its like a 10th of 1 percent.
if hemp pollen were say, many times smaller and lighter than corn pollen, it might travel substantially farther given the right wind conditions, however it STILL will suffer from the same issue, and that is that the pollen density drops off at a rate close to the square of the distance.
the whole cross pollination thing has been brandied about by the anti gmo folks for so long... its truely tiresome, and does not merit much concern.
now if on the other hand, someone wanted to sabotoge your field by flying over it and dumping a pillow case of hemp into your field... yea i can see that fucking your crop up, but not some field miles away...
regardless im far from convinced hemp will be grown in any appreciable quantites... compared to say cotton.
regarding HPA and greenhouses.
i was extending your logic to exclude greenhouse production because due to the need to flower the plants early, and hence keep them small and manageable.
are you proposing some sort greenhouse with a shading ability?
I don't know if it's been mentioned here but an alternative to high pressure diaphragm pumps could be the micro fog atomizer. It runs on compressed air & siphons water/nutrients from a Rez. A company called atomix aeroponics had an almost exactly the same system out but it was insanely expensive & the company went under almost as soon as they opened. None of the videos show it but spray/feed on off times could easily be controlled by a cycle timer & a 120volt solenoid valve between the compressor & the atomizer itself (I always liked Parker solenoid valves - easy to service). A decent air compressor is a lot more durable than a HP pump
yea, the problem is that compressed air is very energy intensive, and i think the derth of this thread is in focused on largish and very large scale production.
air atomization if very old technolagy. im sure you can find dozens of manufacturers besides the one you mention.
i disagree about air compressors.
air compressors require air fiilter replacement, and periodic flushing to remove moisture. belts need replacing... oil needs changing etc.
my diaphragm pump is 100% maintanance free. no lubrication and it should run fine for 1000's of hours before requiring a new membrane assembly.
multistage centrifugal pumps require more care... much as all pumps do... namely in servicing the shaft seals and gaskets in the wet end assembly etc.
i did both sides 5 week veg scrog side extensive training to have as many tops to the light source the sog was just grown naturally bottom line again was plants over lapping each other shading others out and only got to harvest really 1/3 of plant if that ?? So is sog better not necessarily but by having as many bud sites near a light source with out shading showed me way better yields and thats a fact
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Mad Lab
Member
Hey Chad,
Thanks for dropping in! Didnt notice the thread has action the past week.
While you note that HPA is not for large plants, I have to say that while large plants arnt really suitable, medium size plants are just fine.
Many years i have flowered topped plants at 1 foot in height, and finished at 3.5-4 feet, much like most indoor cannabis growers preferred finishing plant height.
And although not ideal for commercial production, big plants are possible. I have done a few tree runs with HPA 55gal drum chambers. Supporting is a task as with any large plant indoors, but possible.
Atomizer has some big plants outdoors in an HPA system.
Cant wait to hear more about the R&D. I've never seen an HPA system bigger than a 1000sq ft area, wondering how that NDS system works. I remember you saying it feeds (50) 4x8 areas, but how does that translate into large commercial builds with long channel chambers.
So in your opinion, HPA for commerical use is only achievable with SOG methods currently?
Yes, this is true, SOG is proven to be largest producing method to date. But then again, Dr Fever does know it all.
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putting aside for the moment... whether or not plants can be grown to larger sized with HPA...
what say you in regards to growing these plants, with this system, in a rigorously climate controlled greenhouses, perhaps even with co2 enrichment?
the above guy never replied to my query.
id be curious to hear how one could grow, sog style in a greenhouse. seems like you would need some overly elaborate system whereby one could draw some light proof curtains across the entire greenhouse?
ive seen similar systems, but only for shade cloth and heating systems. never for the entire greenhouse...
perhaps though im being ignorant here. ive come to learn that there is some some sort of cannabis 'rudderalis', that grows regardless of light conditions.
does this plant yield in the same ball park as a conventional cannabis plant?
i ask all of the above because i genuinely think 100% indoors grown cannabis is completely absurd; a whimsical aberration brought on by drug prohibition...
it goes without saying that im convinced that any future legal environment will be almost 100% outdoors as i noted previously.
Mad Lab
Member
I'm interested in the same subject. While i believe outdoor growth will be a larger industry than indoors, as it is currently when your scaling the two, there is always going to be a quality issue that is unsurpassed indoor. Outdoor flowers are and can be amazing, but the sun being so powerful really contributes to a larger leaf-to-bud ratio.
I think the middle ground that will continue to take off lies in your query: greenhouse environments that are relatively sealed with blackout curtains and co2 enrichment and DTW hydroponic/aeroponic systems. Something im really leaning towards.
Someone referred me to some automated blackout greenhouses somewhere in WA that were supposedly badass. I cant find the link now but that reminds me to search for the product.
If Chad pops his head in again maybe he can tell us about the R&D layout at the Tweed greenhouse in Niagra lake, if it doesnt violate any disclosure agreements. I know Tweed has an enormous greenhouse build/expansion currently, wondering what they got going on in the way of there build specs. Controlled GH environments are new to me, but hopefully the next thing to tackle.
Edit: Video i just found, similar to the ones i was looking for in the way of mechanics.
http://www.gro-techsystems.com/automated-light-deprivation/
whereisbrianV.
Active member
http://Usecubix.com
Tested for 2 years, grew over 100 different species, never a plant loss because of a system failure.
Ran organic and salt fertilizer and never clogged a nozze.
64 sqft of growing space in 4 sqft of floor space.
Tested for 2 years, grew over 100 different species, never a plant loss because of a system failure.
Ran organic and salt fertilizer and never clogged a nozze.
64 sqft of growing space in 4 sqft of floor space.
I am sure it grew some nice lettuce in there what about MJ lol
