Amount of plants?

ADLpotter

ADLpotter

Active Member
Hi guys,

I've been growing single plants at a time in a small grow cabinet for a while now for personal use (still not enough to cover the habit though) but now I'm wanting to fully support myself since I hate having to try and source good weed.

I've built myself a flowering cab which will be used seperately from my veg cab for a perpetual grow.

The dimensions of the cabinet are...


53cm wide (20.9")
38cm long (15")
166cm high (5'5")

Now I am growing one plant using a 5gal bucket DWC at the moment, just your standard size 5 gal



This takes up a fair amount of room in the footprint of the grow but there is still room for a pot or two if I move the DWC bucket from the center to the side.

My question is, while I know I can fit the plants, will it actually be beneficial to put more plants in, or would a greater yield be possible if I concentrated on the 1 plant instead of crowding the space. Without the extra plants I can put some extra CFL's lower down to shine light on the side of my main plant, but with extra plants in the way it would be much harder (although still probably possible but to a less effecient extent).


So, whatcha think? 1,2 or 3 plants.


Lighting will be approx 250-300W of CFL lighting.
 
TheDifferenceX

TheDifferenceX

Well-Known Member
ADLpotter said:
Hi guys,

I've been growing single plants at a time in a small grow cabinet for a while now for personal use (still not enough to cover the habit though) but now I'm wanting to fully support myself since I hate having to try and source good weed.

I've built myself a flowering cab which will be used seperately from my veg cab for a perpetual grow.

The dimensions of the cabinet are...


53cm wide (20.9")
38cm long (15")
166cm high (5'5")

Now I am growing one plant using a 5gal bucket DWC at the moment, just your standard size 5 gal



This takes up a fair amount of room in the footprint of the grow but there is still room for a pot or two if I move the DWC bucket from the center to the side.

My question is, while I know I can fit the plants, will it actually be beneficial to put more plants in, or would a greater yield be possible if I concentrated on the 1 plant instead of crowding the space. Without the extra plants I can put some extra CFL's lower down to shine light on the side of my main plant, but with extra plants in the way it would be much harder (although still probably possible but to a less effecient extent).


So, whatcha think? 1,2 or 3 plants.


Lighting will be approx 250-300W of CFL lighting.
Click to expand...

You could probably grow 2 or 3 decent sized plants... Possibly consider 3 gallon pots if you're going for 3 plants...

For your space.. i'd say just 2 plants.. stick w/ the 5 gallon bucket... 2 of them, 2 plants... 300 watts of CFL's... sounds like a good combination to me... adding some more lighting once you hit flowering...
 
ADLpotter

ADLpotter

Active Member
well this cab is a pure flowering cab, plants are vegged in a seperate unit.

I've never grown in anything bigger than a space of about 3ft cubic so I was unsure on the light. How much wattage with CFL's do you think I should add?

I found some cheap 130W CFL's and I already have a 120W fixture setup so if I bought a couple of the 130W's I could easily up it to 400W or so without a problem.
 
Punk

Punk

Well-Known Member
If you're doing it traditionally, you should root a cutting from something you grow from seed, and then take that cutting and use it as a mother plant, then you keep them in smaller pots, the plants tend to stay shorter, and subsequently you can fit more plants in your grow area.
 
ADLpotter

ADLpotter

Active Member
I'm wondering about setting it up for 1 plant, vegging for longer then training with a SCROG grow. I know I have a fair bit of vertical space but if I can grow the plant to be big and busy and take up the space then flower using a SCROG that could really increase my yield no?
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
ADLpotter said:
well this cab is a pure flowering cab, plants are vegged in a seperate unit.

I've never grown in anything bigger than a space of about 3ft cubic so I was unsure on the light. How much wattage with CFL's do you think I should add?

I found some cheap 130W CFL's and I already have a 120W fixture setup so if I bought a couple of the 130W's I could easily up it to 400W or so without a problem.
Click to expand...
do you mean actual watts or equivelent watts?
 
Little Tommy

Little Tommy

Well-Known Member
I have had good success in the past doing the scrog with plants in 3 gal containers in soil. If you are thinking of doing one plant DWC, you could to train it from a young age and just keep topping and LSTing it until you get the desired bushiness. At that point you can make the best of the space you have for flowering. Keeping an even canopy is the key.
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
sweet, lol, my cfl flowering area used to have 22 42w 2700k but cat bruke 10 of em when it knocked 2 of my diy lightbar cfl fixtures on the floor. i must ask though, why not use a smaller hps? if you can properly vent that many cfls you can easily do the same with a smaller hps. I'm saving my money for a 600w hps lighting kit myself instead of getting more cfls to replace the broke ones. cfls are alot more costly to use than an hps in the end and give 1/4-1/2 the yeild. Im wishing i would of never wasted all that money on em and just went with the hps from the start. not hating on cfls or anyone who uses them as i have,do, and will keep using them(side lighting and vegging) its just its not really worth the investment in the end. but thats just my .02 cents. lol
 
N

NavySupra

Active Member
Is there any reason you don't want to use an HID lamp to light your flowering cabinet? HID equipment is not overly expensive, quality made magnetic ballasts will provide decades of reliable service. HPS and MH lamps are easy to source and available in many wattages.

If you are limited on horizontal space but have lots of vertical you might want to look at uncle bens topping technique.
 
dura72

dura72

Well-Known Member
ive got 5 plants 23 days into flowering under 1000watt hps after 5 week veggin under 600hps in a 4' x 4' x 6.5' tent (standard organic grow). i had 6 but for a separate reason i had to move one( potential hermie issue). 5 is enuff in that space 6 was just too many, it may have been ok if i pruned the fuck outta it but i dont really like the idea of that. NOTHING beats hps although others are cheaper to run and dont give heat problems but u gotta look at the big picture imo. i want yeild and i dont want to wait, im a real impatient guy.
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
solid advice, but

1. hps is not cheaper to run.400w is 400w, no matter what.
2. cfls will give you heat problems just as sure as an hps.
 
ADLpotter

ADLpotter

Active Member
the reason for CFL over HPS is purely cash, can't afford a HPS lamp let alone ballast, whereas I can get CFL's for cheap as.
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
you can get a full 400w hps for $100........at more than one place. how much money you got? your yield and that should be greatly increased by switching.
 
ADLpotter

ADLpotter

Active Member
that site doesn't ship to my country (australia) and the ebay link doesnt work


not to mention for $100 I can get 600W of CFL
 
ADLpotter

ADLpotter

Active Member
ok lone behold I ran across some extra cash so I did as recommended and got myself a 400W HPS. So now I've got about 131W of CFL for vegetative and 400W of HPS during flowering
 
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