0.5g/watt how?

hi
I have been growing for a while, a couple years.
I am growing in a 10x5 grow tent(8 feet tall) for the bud room. It is illuminated by 2x400Watt HPS.
I am a medical grower in Michigan and also have a patient I provide for. I can have 24 plants total.

I was reading the growers bible by JorgeCervantes. It states anybody with a few grows under their belt should be able to get 0.5Grams/watt/month.

For me that would mean getting 14oz/month. How would that be possible?
My current setup, I have a vegroom and a grow room. I throw in 8 plants a month into the bud room, and harvest 8 plants a month. They finish about 2 feet tall. I have experimented with topping the plants when they are young, but then I have to wait 2 additional weeks for them to start growing again, but the yeilds are heavier.
I get about 0.75-1oz on the non topped plants, and about 1-1.5oz on the topped plants.
I am growing in 2 gallon grow bags with ProMixHP soil cut with some perilite, using fox farms nutrients(big bloom/tiger bloom) using 2tsp/gallon each watering per fertilizer.
I am averaging about 8oz/month total. According to the grow bible I should be able to almost double that. How?

thanks?

Onion

more info:
I am growing WhiteWidow, and my lights are about 1ft of the tops of the plants, temps are about 80F with the lights on, with 45-50%Humidity.

Never mind, enjy the pics. My pharacuticals are fucking with my head too much for me to make sense. Sorry.

.5 grams a watt a month is like 1-1.5 grams / watt / cycle which is really hard to get imo.

.5 grams / watt / 8 weeks (flowering) is how I've always taken it when people say grams/watt.

.5 is super easy, even with like soil plants in 5 gallon buckets hand watering and screwing up nutes
.75 is decently hard, unless you got something like a bucket system and veg them huge before flowering
1 is really hard. It seems like you can hit it, but not dependably, or maybe just a section of a big room will.

You are seriously underlit for 50sqft. I use 2-400w in a 15sqft tent and a .5gm/w is easy.

Rough rule of thumb for flowering is 5,000 lumens/sqft. You would need ~250,000 lumens for your set up and 2-400's isn't going to come close.

Everything else sounds good though.

Wet

Wetdog said:

You are seriously underlit for 50sqft. I use 2-400w in a 15sqft tent and a .5gm/w is easy.

Rough rule of thumb for flowering is 5,000 lumens/sqft. You would need ~250,000 lumens for your set up and 2-400's isn't going to come close.

Everything else sounds good though.

Wet

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I agree. You should have probably 2 1000w bulbs in that space if all of it is filled with plants. If not, then at least 2 600w.

yah, i've never heard the per month part of that equation, it's usually just gram per watt per flower period, not month, i think that is where you're getting effed up at..

Yeah, I'm with these dudes above me. In a 10x5 I would have two thousands covering a 4x8 area with a little space around the sides for some fans and whatnot. That's pretty ideal. Alternatively you could do two master blasters covering the entire 50 square feet or even three six hundreds would work. Two thousands is ideal though.

1000 watt = 4x4
600 watt = 3x3
400 watt = 2x2

A good goal is going to be 2 pounds per thousand watt light. That is what any pro level gardener should aim for and that is what it sounds like you are aspiring toward.

Imho the whole X-amount per watt is kind of bs.
There's just too many different strains out there for any consistency or accuracy.
It's a slim chance that you'll achieve high numbers on a low yielding strain.
Yet you may surpass your goal of X-per watt if growing a high yielder.

I guess I should clairify on the lighting issue.
the entire tent is not being used. I am using half of it right now. So the effective growing area is 5x5, lit by 2 400W

In addition the guy at the grow shop says he would never reccoment using a 1000W light except for very few conditions. To much heat.
The grow bible pretty much says the same thing, its better to use 400 or 600 because you can get them closer to the plants and have better coverage, that the 1000 has to be 18" of the canopy, which substantially diminishes the lumens. I have my 400s about 8 inches from the tops.

Rj41 said:

Imho the whole X-amount per watt is kind of bs.
There's just too many different strains out there for any consistency or accuracy.
It's a slim chance that you'll achieve high numbers on a low yielding strain.
Yet you may surpass your goal of X-per watt if growing a high yielder.

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Totally agree and disagree. Yeah, I'm gonna be Mitt Romney this morning.

While strains are very different, all of them have been selected to yield at least a decent amount. IMHO, if you are a pro grower running just about any modern hybrid, you should get 2 pounds per thousand watt light. If you are not a pro grower, you will be soon if you keep reading and learning and growing with a passion. (Just don't read the BS!)

Jonion309161 said:

In addition the guy at the grow shop says he would never reccoment using a 1000W light except for very few conditions. To much heat.
The grow bible pretty much says the same thing, its better to use 400 or 600 because you can get them closer to the plants and have better coverage, that the 1000 has to be 18" of the canopy, which substantially diminishes the lumens. I have my 400s about 8 inches from the tops.

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Welcome to the wonderful world of grow shop guys.

An air-cooled thousand will run just fine for you. The thousands at 18" from the canopy will BLOW away the 400 at 8". At the very least run a 600 if you are concerned with weight. This is just from my experience and the experience of a lot of friends who have grown for many years.

yep i cut 3.5-4 lbs. out of my 4x8 with 2k some of my tops are 12" from the bulb i also run adjust-a-wing reflectors air-cooled is for pussies lol j/p

well you should be getting what you want if you have say 4 large plants per light and you'll be sorted. If you top in veg at say week 3 - 5 of veg (whenever they are the right height to top for 4 colas) give them a week more in the veg room then put them in flower that's how I do it and it's perfect.

I estimate that I can get anything from 3-5oz per month in a perpetual run or 6-12oz per flowering cycle with 2 large plants and 2 small plants (every 2 months or so) under a 250w HPS, ScrOG, Passive hydro setup. Check my sig for more details, but .5gpw off of 4 flowering plants, is relatively easy to get, especially in a larger scale room under a 400 watter (no offense)

Stay frosty!

I have 1 400w for flowering and I get around 2 oz per plant...some strains get 1.5 oz or so and then another gets around 3..I have one that has to have more than that on it...and it still have a few weeks left...one strain is right around 2 or 3 everytime...so it is as good as I am going to get it I think...but I look back on my first grow where I got a whopping 10g off my only plant and I giggle...I still have that plant, and she gave me 2 oz this last time...I veg for around 3 weeks each time...sometimes more...just depends...but I am happy with what i get but can't help feeling that someone else that is a little better at growing could get more...but for me 3 oz a plant is an effing accomplishment...ooohhhh and I see that you said you flower in 2 gallon pots...try flowering in 5 gallon pots...that is what size I use most of the time..veg for 3 weeks in a 3 gallon and then move to 5 gallon and then switch to flower...

The concerns with most people and using 1000w light is the heat. Most growers are in tent, cabinets, closets, corners of rooms, etc.. Since they are in a small space and usually on a budget they have to be concerned about the heat generated larger lights and removing it. I disagree with what your grow bible and hydro guy say though. If you can afford it and it can be cooled correctly then using 1000w lights is always better than smaller wattages. You will get a much beeter light penetration and higher lumens/footcandles. Most of the time though because you are growing in a tent or in a smaller place you don't use 1000w lights because of height restrictions. If you can afford to cool the lights properly then 1000w are usually the way to go. Check out this guy using 2 1000w lights in a 8x8 tent with no cooling issues (https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/513182-newb-grow-journal.html). That being said; how you have your lights set up right now is just fine if you are only using half the tent. Good luck.

P.S. Do research on your own and don't always take what you read in books or on DVD's to be 100% fact. A lot of situations are different and a lot of that information is wrong. Also, take what your hydro store guy says with a grain of salt. Sometimes they have alterior motives or just different opinions. Research stuff yourself and form your own opinion.

LaudanumRx said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of grow shop guys.

An air-cooled thousand will run just fine for you. The thousands at 18" from the canopy will BLOW away the 400 at 8". At the very least run a 600 if you are concerned with weight. This is just from my experience and the experience of a lot of friends who have grown for many years.

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Agreed, and then some. I have two 4X4 tents in bloom, with a 1000W HPS in each. The lights are in cool tubes, with 240cfm fans set up as outside-to-outside cooling, and the tubes are barely warm to the touch. I keep them 6" to a foot above the canopy, and my ladies are thriving. There's no such thing as too much light, just too much heat. Just my $.02 worth. YMMV.

Flash4211 said:

Agreed, and then some. I have two 4X4 tents in bloom, with a 1000W HPS in each. The lights are in cool tubes, with 240cfm fans set up as outside-to-outside cooling, and the tubes are barely warm to the touch. I keep them 6" to a foot above the canopy, and my ladies are thriving. There's no such thing as too much light, just too much heat. Just my $.02 worth. YMMV.

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1000w lights 6" from the canopy? You don't have any issues with bleaching?

phillipchristian said:

1000w lights 6" from the canopy? You don't have any issues with bleaching?

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I use 8" air-cooled magnums with super spreaders and have had strains reach pretty close to the glass by the end of bloom with very little bleaching problems. The key for me though has been that super spreader eliminating the hot spot. Best $30 ever. You're totally right though and after they got that close I changed my configuration. No bleaching is better than even just a tiny bit of it.