Vertical Bare Bulbs for Tall Plants

collective gardener

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
I'm looking for input from growers who have grown, or even better, are currently growing very tall plants by using bare hanging vertical bulbs.

I have been seeing more and more of this method in various media. We have a medical op that we like to keep to under 99 plants. That is really our only limitation. I'm currently running 10 - 1000 watt lights, but will add 4 more this week. All of these lights are currently being used in air cooled reflectors over short wide plants.

In addition to the stuff above, I have set aside a 12' x 8' area in the flower room to try some of this vertical bare bulb lighting I have seen. We'll grow the plants in 10 - 20 gallon containers (or maybe larger?). I have enough cooling power to run about 6000 watts in this area.

I would love to hear any ideas or experiences with light spacing, height, yield, etc...

Or, if anyone has links to some pics or threads detailing this method.

Thank you all in advance.

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/407048-20-000-watt-medical-grow.html
 
Mother's Finest

Mother's Finest

Well-Known Member
I remember reading an article by Kyle Kushman where he was saying that he could fit more plants under a vertical bulb than a horizontal. We've always used 400w's and you should have 600w or better for a vertical, so we've never tried them ourselves. They work very nicely in hexagonal pot configurations. Obviously, open bulbs don't have the heat removal possibilities that isolated ones do and so are best in very large grow areas where the heat isn't as trapped around the plants.

A stationary, vertical 1000w can support 19 plants in 5gal buckets using a hexagonal pattern. Roughly the same quality would be had using a 1000w horizontal for 16 plants in a 4x4 pattern, just a little less yield..
 
W

weldergrowingreen

Member
i run some my ladies vertical to. you can get more plants around the light plus put some shorties underneath it too. i notice one good thing about vertical growing is that all those buds that really wouldnt amount to anything at the bottoms actually had some mass to them.
 
collective gardener

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
Wolverine97 said:
If you haven't already, I'd check out Urban Gardener on Youtube. I don't like his methods, but he gets great plant structure and seems to pull quite a nice yield in the end.
Click to expand...
A grow on Urban Gardener gave me the idea for this bare bulb system. It was a 40 bulb x 40 bulb flip. OMG...it was legit. The plants looked like an elbow a piece. It was hard to tell the light spacing. Also, the plants had alot of "claw" going. I was suprised since it was such a high dollar grow.

Thanks for the input. Anything else you come up with would be great.

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/407048-20-000-watt-medical-grow.html
 
rosecitypapa

rosecitypapa

Active Member
I don't have much experience with vertical as this is my first grow with it. I have to say though, after getting used to the new orientation, I like it much better. The first thing I noticed was the dramatic difference in temp. and air quality. I used to pull my air through a cool tube on a horizontal reflector, now it's just the vertical light with the cool tube still mounted but not connected to venting. The exhaust now pulls directly from the top of the room. I keep the cool tube mounted for I find it useful as I brush up against it working in the garden. The other thing that I noticed is a that my older leaves don't yellow and die out. Some of my plants still have their first set of fan leaves still lush and green and I'm ~32 days into flower (I also feed my plants nitrogen in flower too). I run a 600w 21" from plant centers. Some of my plants have leaves that are 4" away from the cool tube's 6" diameter and loving the increase in lumens without suffering any type of temp burn.

There are some tweaks in the system to be sure. For one, I'm developing a vertical light mover that works by mounting the light on a rotating disk with the ability to move up and down a predefined distance. My intuition says that having the light move will increase the growth rate in the plant by creating energy pulses by illuminating leaf area that was previously shaded.

The main benefit that I wanted and received from going vertical is removing the light ceiling. I'm running 4 different strains, with one being really legging and showing the claw (black domina). It's the only one with the claw and the same plant in veg doesn't have the claw. I don't know if it's the nute ratio yet or the effects of the lighting. In any case, all 4 strains are at different vertical heights yet they are all in my vertical's "sweet spot" of 21" to plant centers with some branches and leaves 6" away from the light bulb. The added benefit of deeper penetration of my light into the plant's biomass is giving me larger bud sites on the majority of the plant.
 
collective gardener

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
rosecitypapa said:
I don't have much experience with vertical as this is my first grow with it. I have to say though, after getting used to the new orientation, I like it much better. The first thing I noticed was the dramatic difference in temp. and air quality. I used to pull my air through a cool tube on a horizontal reflector, now it's just the vertical light with the cool tube still mounted but not connected to venting. The exhaust now pulls directly from the top of the room. I keep the cool tube mounted for I find it useful as I brush up against it working in the garden. The other thing that I noticed is a that my older leaves don't yellow and die out. Some of my plants still have their first set of fan leaves still lush and green and I'm ~32 days into flower (I also feed my plants nitrogen in flower too). I run a 600w 21" from plant centers. Some of my plants have leaves that are 4" away from the cool tube's 6" diameter and loving the increase in lumens without suffering any type of temp burn.



There are some tweaks in the system to be sure. For one, I'm developing a vertical light mover that works by mounting the light on a rotating disk with the ability to move up and down a predefined distance. My intuition says that having the light move will increase the growth rate in the plant by creating energy pulses by illuminating leaf area that was previously shaded.

The main benefit that I wanted and received from going vertical is removing the light ceiling. I'm running 4 different strains, with one being really legging and showing the claw (black domina). It's the only one with the claw and the same plant in veg doesn't have the claw. I don't know if it's the nute ratio yet or the effects of the lighting. In any case, all 4 strains are at different vertical heights yet they are all in my vertical's "sweet spot" of 21" to plant centers with some branches and leaves 6" away from the light bulb. The added benefit of deeper penetration of my light into the plant's biomass is giving me larger bud sites on the majority of the plant.
Click to expand...

While my intended grow is a little different than yours, thank you for the info. How is the size and density of your main top cola, compared with overhead lighting???
 
rosecitypapa

rosecitypapa

Active Member
I don't even know if I can compare them. I have changed so many different parameters for this grow so I don't know how much the vertical lighting in and of itself is contributing to the increase size and density of my main colas. They are growing faster and thicker but I just can't say right now that it's primarily due to the vertical lighting. I notice that the vertical is bathing the entire length of the cola with some of the light hitting the undersides of the sugar leaves. At times, I think a reflector would be useful but not as they are currently designed. Even if the illumination is the same, the difference in heat makes vertical very appealing.

btw, I admire your grow, I have similar aspirations.
 
collective gardener

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
Thanks for all the advise on my upcoming vert style. Please, everybody, read the thread cafefully to see what it is I'm trying to do here. I don't want to just grow vert. I want to grow TREES amongst vertical hanging bulbs. The idea is to get as much yield per plant, therefore maximizing our yield with under 99 plants. We are currently trying the "bend them down and out" approach to make large diameter short plants. The idea with the vertical is to make tall trees that get close to an lb/plant.

Thank You, Guys.
 
O

org@nicinsanity

Member
booooooya this is just what i needed to see to give me the motivation and confidence to setup my 1000w mh/hps cooltube with these fans i already have. that guy had no cooling?my exhaust and light cooling will be seperate to promote good airflow still.i will be using fans from airhockey tables one pushes one pulls the one pulling is hooked to 4" duct routed out of room.how does this sound?
 
Wolverine97

Wolverine97

Well-Known Member
org@nicinsanity said:
booooooya this is just what i needed to see to give me the motivation and confidence to setup my 1000w mh/hps cooltube with these fans i already have. that guy had no cooling?my exhaust and light cooling will be seperate to promote good airflow still.i will be using fans from airhockey tables one pushes one pulls the one pulling is hooked to 4" duct routed out of room.how does this sound?
Click to expand...
Not even close to enough airflow. Quadruple that amount, and maybe...
 
O

org@nicinsanity

Member
rosecitypapa

don't have much experience with vertical as this is my first grow with it. I have to say though, after getting used to the new orientation, I like it much better. The first thing I noticed was the dramatic difference in temp. and air quality. I used to pull my air through a cool tube on a horizontal reflector, now it's just the vertical light with the cool tube still mounted but not connected to venting. The exhaust now pulls directly from the top of the room. I keep the cool tube mounted for I find it useful as I brush up against it working in the garden


rosecitypapa used no venting and it worked fine. surely a 1000w with DECENT venting is running cooler than a 600w with NO venting right? rosecitypapa could you chime in here and clear up any errors in judgement or misunderstandings?
 
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