pot size and yield question?

Indoors its all about square footage. You have to consider the foot print and density of your lighting, and how many plants of a certain size can you fit in that space. Running an organic system requires a larger container for the roots to feed off. I transplant from a 3 gal to a 10 gal on the first day of flower and the root space is always filled out by harvest. 5 plants in a 4.5'x4.5' space.

A few people said the veg time was a negative factor to big plants in big pots, compared to more small plants.
I veg in a separate closet that fits 2 veggers, flowering one plant at a time in my 80cmx80cm tent. So my flower room isn't taken up by my veg times.
That gives me about 4 months from cloning to the start of 12/12 per plant, without any down time in my flower room.
I've worked my way up to using 5 gallon fabric pots for the last few harvests, but the next plant I'm vegging out in in a 10 gallon pot
I've been getting up to about 5-6 zips, so I'm interested to see if just upping pot size will make much difference.

Because I can!
I enjoy one big plant flowering in there, and looking under the canopy there's a lot of room left for a bigger pot, using just these 5 galloners.

a mongo frog said:

And heres a 5 gallon. Completely fucked, but awesome!!!

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Which pot size did you find easier to manage the proper moisture and feeding on?

OneHitDone said:

Which pot size did you find easier to manage the proper moisture and feeding on?

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For me the 10 gallon pots. I actually still lift up most of the pots. Its usually 3 feedings a week in a peat soilless, I'm feeding each 10 gallon pot a little less then 1 gallon. This works for me. I know others who water a 10 with way more water.

Just from my experience and experiments. I found that I can achieve about 1 3/4 ounces per gallon of coir. Here's a medium yielding SLH pheno in a 18lt pot that produced 6 ounces under a 400 hps with a 25 day veg.
Then here is some grown in 9 lt pots, all in coir.

Hmmm Jarvild you have beautiful plants, but the skeletal structure is so different between your big one (spread out, scroggy) and your small ones (christmas trees and donkey dicks) that it's not a perfect test.
Do you still get about the same amount from 9lt pots if you give them a more spread out, scroggy skeletal structure?

GreenLogician said:

Hmmm Jarvild you have beautiful plants, but the skeletal structure is so different between your big one (spread out, scroggy) and your small ones (christmas trees and donkey dicks) that it's not a perfect test.
Do you still get about the same amount from 9lt pots if you give them a more spread out, scroggy skeletal structure?

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My testing was all done with the same strains with the only difference being in veg times or pot size. This was all done to make my garden as efficient as possible and to determine veg times for each size pot for maximum performance.

Oh! Sorry, looked like there was some training done in the 18lt pot to flatten it and increase its light absorbing footprint a bit, that wasn't done to the others.

GreenLogician said:

Oh! Sorry, looked like there was some training done in the 18lt pot to flatten it and increase its light absorbing footprint a bit, that wasn't done to the others.

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Different strains, some of my strains are single cola dominate, the last pic is G-13 and it absolutely loses yield when you apply training techniques to it, believe me I've tried. Where as the SLH does well with training and it does help in the yield department.
The SLH can get me around 600 grams per 4x4 with training, the g-13 in the single cola style gets me 750+ grams per 4x4 with a 25 day veg time running 400 watts of MH in veg and 600 watts of HPS in flower.

Putting your plant into a larger container without it being filled with healthy roots first, will not yield as much. This is why the up-planting is so important, otherwise, everyone would just start plants in 20-gallon pots. You will see roots yes, but they will be little spider web like roots as opposed to large white healthy roots. This will produce weak plants that produce minimal yield. IMO, For a 60-day flowering plant indoor, you will never need more than a 5 gallon pot. I'm with Tupapa on this one.
First pic..These were all finished using 1000w hps in 3-gallon buckets from the 99cent store. With Perlite and RW chunks. Picture # 2 was a Larry OG finished in a 4" X 4" Rockwool cube on a 3" slab. Finished at about 7' tall.

What did she yield?

jarvild said:

My testing was all done with the same strains with the only difference being in veg times or pot size. This was all done to make my garden as efficient as possible and to determine veg times for each size pot for maximum performance.

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same strain or cut jar? nice work with a 400 i must add.

brimck325 said:

same strain or cut jar? nice work with a 400 i must add.

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All cuttings on the test runs. I went as far as even flowering in 3 ounce dixie bathroom cups to see what was capable of. Many years ago I ran a 400 watt perpetual that yielded me 1/4 lb. every 2 weeks.

jarvild said:

What did she yield?

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Grew that one a long time ago trying different methods.
I'd be lying if I said I remember the exact # of grams of dry weight. As you can see in pic, the buds are very fat. Very lemon tasting. I remember bein very impressed with how tall, and also how large the buds got in such a small space, growing medium wise. Also, I remember really liking the smoke. Wish I had regenerated that one for clones.