Plant size vs pot size

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
Also, remember the more you water/feed the bigger you plant will grow. If you use too big of a container, you will be watering/feeding less frequently. Even if you water 4x/week instead of 3x/week(just an example), that adds up over the course of the grow. If you take two clones from the same mother, both vegged for 2 months-one in a 5 gallon and one in a 10 gallon(again, just an example), I would bet that the one in the 5 gallon will out preform the one in the 10 by the end of the grow if the roots were well established in the 5 gal. but barely reaching the edges in the 10. Same size root system, but the one in the 5gal can be watered/feed more frequently. It's root size, not container size that determines how big a plant will get-roots can obviously grow larger in a bigger container, but unless your able to fill the medium it's counter productive because you won't be able to water/feed as much. A proper wet/dry cycle is really important in soil, the drying and then watering really helps the roots get fresh oxygen. The longer it takes to dry, the less oxygen your roots will be getting. More water, more feed, more oxygen. You have to find the RIGHT size container for what your trying to do, it's not as simple as 'bigger container=bigger plants' there are other variables to consider.
 

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
Outdoors and indoors are completely different. Also, if your planning on doing coco again you don't need as big of a container. You can grow trees in coco with much less medium then soil. And if your doing coco you'll be using ALOT of nutrients-coco get's fed at least once a day until 20% run-off. I wouldn't consider running coco DTW in anything bigger then a 10 or MAYBE a 15 gal.

You can see that guys in coco who run smaller containers and water multiple times a day do better then they guys who run bigger containers and treat it more like soil(watering when dry, which I don't recommend with coco)
 

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
And remember, .5 grams per watt is a good goal to shoot for-that is about a pound from a 1000w light-some of the vertical pros can pull close to 2 pounds per 1000w light-but that is on another level!
 

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't expect two pounds a light, that is like the holy grail of growing! Don't want to disappoint you, just being honest. If you pull .5grams a watt your doing pretty darn good.

Those guys outside...are outside : ) Big difference, even breeders will have two different numbers under expected yield, one is outdoors and is usually 1-4pounds and the other is indoors and it's usually in grams per square meter and much much much less. A plants full potential can't be reached indoors.

Look in the vertical growing forum and ask around there, I don't think any of those guys are using anything over 20gal containers, and most use way smaller.

If you could pull 2 pounds a light just by using a big container...everyone would be doing it. It more complicated then that.
 

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
If your doing a vertical, stadium style grow(vertical bulb with plants around it in a circle, rotate plants every couple days) and using 1 light, I would recommend doing 6 plants in 5 gal containers, vegged for two months. Dr. Gurber rocks it doing that style and his plants are 5-6' tall and big bushes when he's done. You can get up to 6 harvests a year-and probably at least a pound each time(using a 1000w HPS). That's not too shaby...

Remember K.I.S.S: keep. it. simple. stupid : )
 

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
Pounds go for 2500-4000 where I live, that is 15,000-24,000 worth of pot in year using one light!

I think it would be really smart to start off doing a two month veg in 5 gal containers and 6 plants around one vertical light. If that works out good, then go bigger if you want. Remember, the bigger the op, the bigger the problems. It's best to get your technique down and system dialed in before you go all out and put all your eggs in one basket.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. Pounds here go around 2 to low 3000 dollars. I wasn't thinking 2 lbs per light, I was referring to the 4 plant 5 light vertical setup. Some guy doing rdwc is pulling 3 lbs a plant with only a 2 month veg time. I'm planning on using 5k-6k in lights in flower. Like I said, I'm a greedy sob and I want to max my yield while keeping 12 plants max. I'm aiming for around 5-10 lbs per 2 months depending on how many lights I use. I think 2 lbs a plant should be doable. I've grown in coco many times and their root structure is different than that of soil plants. Smaller as well. I'm really tired of all the bottles, ph'ing, equipment, and whatever that comes along with hydro. I'm going to keep it simple with organic soil in some kind of no till pot and clones go straight in from start to finish. You're right most people are using smaller than 20 gallon pots for soil unless it was for multiple plants. I will start small and get things dialed in.
 

ghb

Well-Known Member
i did something similar recently and i must say it was very easy and not as labour intensive as doing lots of smaller plants but i don't like the looks of the yield to time ratio .i find growing 10 smaller plants will get more overall quality bud than 3 larger plants under the same wattage and taking less time.

i trimmed a plant yesterday and it took me over 6 hours, there was a lot of pop corn i could have trimmed up but just gave up on, it was soul destroying! doing smaller plants is a lot better for your mind believe me!
 
That is one of my worries is that I will end up with too much fluff. For that I do a lot of defoliation and trimming of what I don't think will be good bud sites before flowering and some during flowering as well. If I do end up with too much fluff doing large trees I'm going to have to give scrog a try or do smaller plants. I need to give smaller plants another thought. Veg time doesn't make much of a difference to me as long as I can harvest every 2 months. I can feel you on the trimming though. Trimming dense buds are a hell of a lot easier than trimming a ball of fluff.
 
Top