What Makes Growing Vert Better?

Sorry for my lack of Knowledge on this subject

Iv heard a lot of people say that growing vert is better then growing parallel

that you can get more yield and all

is this really true ?

it just seems to me that you would have more height with parallel since the bulb is going across the top of the cab

where vert the light hangs down further in it

that is just to my understanding though

can any of you verify this for me ?

if vert is better , please tell me how

im getting ready to work on a new cab

and depending on the info i get will help me decide to go vert or not

This was my answer to someone who was wondering on whether do put a 1000w bulb vert or horizonal along with some 400w supplementary bulbs. I think it should answer your question - https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/424171-1000w-cool-tube-hanging-vertical-2.html

I would put the 1000w vertically and the 2 400s up top - preferably on a spinner (you can get just 2 bulb versions)

You are looking for maximum light use as well as maximum growing surface area. If you have a 1kW bulb hanging vertically and lets say your plants are 5' tall and 2' from your bulb. That's 4*Pi*5 = 62.8 sq ft of vertical canopy + the horizontal canopy up top.

With the 1kW up top you cover a 4x4 area - 16sq ft of canopy up top and if the plants are 1' from the 400s another ~20 sq feet of vertical surface area within the 4x4. That's a ton less area exposed to direct light and also prevents you from expanding much past 4x4 which means you can't run very large or bushy plants as there would be little room for the 400's.


Pretend in the picture you don't have those 2 400s up top. If you look at the total amount of white surface area comparatively between the vert bulb and horizontal you will notice it is greatly different.

Whoa, nice simulation! Is that from a grow specific program or a general graphic design program?

DIALux. It's a lighting software used for interior and exterior design. It's free and most large lamp manufacturers have down loadable throw charts and numbers for fairly accurate projections and calculations.

Gastanker said:

If you do it right, yes.

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My problem is ,

im completely illiterate on diagrams and just they way shit is to work

if i see it done and shown how then im good lol

you say if i do it right

how i would do it is just hang it as close to the center of my cab as i could

click on the micro grow scrog in my sig

and look at the first 2 or 3 pages and you will see what room im working with right now

I suppose just turning the plants prevents them from leaning over (so this could be done with a single light)? Why have we been so convinced the lights had to be above the plants to begin with? I say this assuming the concept of the vertical light is side lighting the plants.

Heyoka said:

I suppose just turning the plants prevents them from leaning over (so this could be done with a single light)? Why have we been so convinced the lights had to be above the plants to begin with? I say this assuming the concept of the vertical light is side lighting the plants.

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Hooded lights make it much easier to maintain proper temperatures.

Vertical lighting is when you hang the bulb vertically without a reflector surrounded by your plants rather than over your plants. This allows for a much larger surface area to be directly illuminated.



The white is the brightest light. Both are 1kW light fixtures one pointed downward in a reflector and the other hanging vertically. You will notice that the left one has much more surface area covered in white.

I was under the impression that cooltubes were one of the first aircooled hoods. that certainly could be the wrong impression. I say that thinking that it would be a snap to hang a light vertically in a non reflectored cool tube and surround it with plants on lazy susans or turn'em by hand. Course, I have no experience either way.

while vertical light on paper seems to blow away conventional horizontal setups, it is much hard to do then just hanging the bulb beteen the plants. you will rearly see a comercial or even a large grower use these setups basiclly because its a pain in the ass. it is way harder to maintanance plants with a 1000w bulb hanging a foot away. I've tried a couple differnt setups and whil i still got production it was not worth the hassle i could do the same in a flat garden.

Fancy graphs and charts aside ill dumb it down to a more simple and reasonable answer: vertical light setups are only more effective (generally speaking) if you're limited on space and doing a circular stadium grow. This is when you have plants organized into a ring around your bulb with multiple levels of plants, from an efficiency standpoint this is the only reasonable way to apply vertical growing, and it only really works with relatively short beg times.

also light spinners aren't worth the increased operating cost unless you're using it with 2 or more separate types of lights. If you have 2 of the same temperature lights rotating around the same area a linear mover would be more effective, but using a spinner to supplement different types of lighting is where that technology shines. That being said im still skeptical of the effects of a spinner to increase yield against the increased cost of having so many more bulbs in use for the same square footage, the only way I see spinners beating out a light mover from an efficiency standpoint is if you have extremely limited square footage to work with and need to maximize yields.

So since when you grow vert , you have plants that are positioned around the light

with the light hanging in between them ( is that correct )

so growing vert would not do me any good growing single plants and hanging it above it like you hang cfl`s

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=127881

I had questions about vertical, ic mag has a dedicated vert grow section. That link should answer your general questions.

ExDex1x1 said:

Fancy graphs and charts aside ill dumb it down to a more simple and reasonable answer: vertical light setups are only more effective (generally speaking) if you're limited on space and doing a circular stadium grow. This is when you have plants organized into a ring around your bulb with multiple levels of plants, from an efficiency standpoint this is the only reasonable way to apply vertical growing, and it only really works with relatively short beg times.

also light spinners aren't worth the increased operating cost unless you're using it with 2 or more separate types of lights. If you have 2 of the same temperature lights rotating around the same area a linear mover would be more effective, but using a spinner to supplement different types of lighting is where that technology shines. That being said im still skeptical of the effects of a spinner to increase yield against the increased cost of having so many more bulbs in use for the same square footage, the only way I see spinners beating out a light mover from an efficiency standpoint is if you have extremely limited square footage to work with and need to maximize yields.

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Check out Heath Robinson's Trees - https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/101347-critical-mass-tree-grow-x.html

I would strongly disagree with it needing to be a stadium grow and that you can only run short vegged plants. I haven't seen any horizontal growers get the numbers heath does going vertical.

Light spinner would only be ideal if trying to cover the circumference of a circle - which is what I had drawn up and what you would have with a vertical grow. Linear light movers would be silly when trying to cover a circular shape. And what are the increased operation costs of a spinner?

Vertical kicks ass. It works for small spaces and large comercial grows. its the best way to get the most off your lights. Whith horizontal hoods you only get like 180 degreez of your light being exposed the other 180 that faces the hood has to feflect down and lets be realistic here we all know we are loosing lummens let alone it just having to go through a glass. Yes the cool tubes have glass as well but you are getting 360 degreez of light from your bulb. The vert lighting is not only good for stadium grows that is not true. I have seen comercial and grow tents as well as I have grown vertical myself and can speak from experience. Check out my grow on my sig for some monster vert bushes. My next run I will veg twice as big and hope to achive 1 pound per plant minimum. Research the vert lighting check out doubleds mpb system with the vert lighting. Look up mrdizzle and many others that grow vert and you will see what time it is with the vert light. Hope this helps. Happy growing bro.

Peace,

MEGA

Gastanker said:

Check out Heath Robinson's Trees - https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/101347-critical-mass-tree-grow-x.html

I would strongly disagree with it needing to be a stadium grow and that you can only run short vegged plants. I haven't seen any horizontal growers get the numbers heath does going vertical.

Light spinner would only be ideal if trying to cover the circumference of a circle - which is what I had drawn up and what you would have with a vertical grow. Linear light movers would be silly when trying to cover a circular shape. And what are the increased operation costs of a spinner?

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if you find me a circular room ill find you a room ill use a spinner in. And the increased operating costs are from having 2-6 bulbs running over the same area as opposed to 1 bulb covering 2x the area.

And im not saying very only works in stadiums, im saying its only utilized to its maximum potential in stadiums.

ExDex1x1 said:

if you find me a circular room ill find you a room ill use a spinner in. And the increased operating costs are from having 2-6 bulbs running over the same area as opposed to 1 bulb covering 2x the area.

And im not saying very only works in stadiums, im saying its only utilized to its maximum potential in stadiums.

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I think you are mistaken as to how spinners work. If you have an 8x8 room (4 4x4's) which would normally take 4 stationary lights, then you would use two lights on a spinner just like you would use two lights on rails. You double the coverage of each light just like the light rails. Again as we are dealing with a mostly circular canopy (if you arrange plants around a circular object (the bulb) you end up with a circular canopy. Thus the spinner would more evenly cover the plants than the rails.

Lets do some math. A spinner that uses two bulbs set 5' apart has a path of 15.7 ft. Two 7' light rails have a path of 14ft.

I'm not saying everyone should use spinners, I just recommended them to the OP as he wanted to use two 400's as supplemental lighting along with a 1000w vertical.

I also think you are confused as to how vertical grows work. lets say that we agree that a 1kW light covers a 4x4 area. If you have a plant that is 4' tall and illuminate the side of it, it is equivalent to a 4' wide canopy that is horizontal. The only reason you would need a stadium is if you can't manage to grow a plant that is 4' tall.

What is this about circular rooms? I wish they had them... A circular room would be beneficial regardless of what you are using. Even with light rails and rectangular hoods the corners of a rooms are always going to be the weak spot. If you are utilizing the entire room then linear rails do have the capability of dumping light into the corner better than a spinner as you can really stick them into corners - I don't know why you would ever want to do that though.

Gastanker said:

I think you are mistaken as to how spinners work. If you have an 8x8 room (4 4x4's) which would normally take 4 stationary lights, then you would use two lights on a spinner just like you would use two lights on rails. You double the coverage of each light just like the light rails. Again as we are dealing with a mostly circular canopy (if you arrange plants around a circular object (the bulb) you end up with a circular canopy. Thus the spinner would more evenly cover the plants than the rails.

I'm not saying everyone should use spinners, I just recommended them to the OP as he wanted to use two 400's as supplemental lighting along with a 1000w vertical.

I also think you are confused as to how vertical grows work. lets say that we agree that a 1kW light covers a 4x4 area. If you have a plant that is 4' tall and illuminate the side of it, it is equivalent to a 4' wide canopy that is horizontal. The only reason you would need a stadium is if you can't manage to grow a plant that is 4' tall.

What is this about circular rooms? I wish they had them... A circular room would be beneficial regardless of what you are using. Even with light rails and rectangular hoods the corners of a rooms are always going to be the weak spot. If you are utilizing the entire room then linear rails do have the capability of dumping light into the corner better than a spinner as you can really stick them into corners - I don't know why you would ever want to do that though.

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Im not entirely convinced that the area coverage increase of a spinner is quite as signifant as most people claim and even if it does provide equivalent coverage to a light on a rail mover I dont see the advantage of 2 bulbs needing to be replaced vs 1 but this is more speculative than anything so ill give up on this idea for the moment.

My belief that stadiums are more efficient than trees for vert is that with trees you have a side of the plant not being hit with light, whereas stadiums are oriented with plants at an angle so that the entirety of the plants canopy is in direct view of the light almost like a scrog. That's all im saying. Trees are still worth while with verts but they require rotation to maintain even light coverage and offer slightly less canopy exposure

But again this is all just conjecture I i think since text cant convey tone my post may have come off as argumentative when really I just intended to give my point of view purely from an efficiency point of view, not yields. For me growing is all about efficiency, the cheaper it is to grow a gram at the end of the day, the better so long as you dont sacrifice quality.

ExDex1x1 said:

Im not entirely convinced that the area coverage increase of a spinner is quite as signifant as most people claim and even if it does provide equivalent coverage to a light on a rail mover I dont see the advantage of 2 bulbs needing to be replaced vs 1 but this is more speculative than anything so ill give up on this idea for the moment.

My belief that stadiums are more efficient than trees for vert is that with trees you have a side of the plant not being hit with light, whereas stadiums are oriented with plants at an angle so that the entirety of the plants canopy is in direct view of the light almost like a scrog. That's all im saying. Trees are still worth while with verts but they require rotation to maintain even light coverage and offer slightly less canopy exposure

But again this is all just conjecture I i think since text cant convey tone my post may have come off as argumentative when really I just intended to give my point of view purely from an efficiency point of view, not yields. For me growing is all about efficiency, the cheaper it is to grow a gram at the end of the day, the better so long as you dont sacrifice quality.

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As well I don't mean to be negatively argumentative just trying to inform. I personally would never use a spinner nor do I grow vertically due to heat and space issues.

Spinners should work better than rails but personally I would prefer the ease of the rails and the ability to easily duct everything off. In my 4x8 tent I've used rails with great success.

Vertical grows if you have the room and control the temps should still produce more g/kWh than horizontal grows - there is simply more surface area being exposed to greater amounts of light. This is why you will see professional growers such as Heath (I am not a professional grower) going vertical.

I don't believe these people ever rotate their trees. If you have light from any direction all growth points will go towards the light. If you don't rotate your plants and are growing vertically all the buds and growth points should realign to point horizontally and make the side of the plant that remains the dark very comparable the the bottom of "normal" plants under horizontal lighting. Regardless of horizontal or vertical lighting you will always have half of your plant in the dark, shouldn't matter if it is the side or the bottom as long as all of the growth points are facing the direction of the light.

/e my gf tells me I sound like an asshole online. Really sorry about that. Was never my intention to come off that way.

Gastanker said:

As well I don't mean to be negatively argumentative just trying to inform. I personally would never use a spinner nor do I grow vertically due to heat and space issues.

Spinners should work better than rails but personally I would prefer the ease of the rails and the ability to easily duct everything off. In my 4x8 tent I've used rails with great success.

Vertical grows if you have the room and control the temps should still produce more g/kWh than horizontal grows - there is simply more surface area being exposed to greater amounts of light. This is why you will see professional growers such as Heath (I am not a professional grower) going vertical.

I don't believe these people ever rotate their trees. If you have light from any direction all growth points will go towards the light. If you don't rotate your plants and are growing vertically all the buds and growth points should realign to point horizontally and make the side of the plant that remains the dark very comparable the the bottom of "normal" plants under horizontal lighting. Regardless of horizontal or vertical lighting you will always have half of your plant in the dark, shouldn't matter if it is the side or the bottom as long as all of the growth points are facing the direction of the light.

/e my gf tells me I sound like an asshole online. Really sorry about that. Was never my intention to come off that way.

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True and not true and I beg to differ. You see vertical lighting..... #1 will be better for the heat and you are right about not all the sides of the plant recieve the light but they do if you dont only run one bulb hanging in the center with plants huddled around.

Perfect examples here are some diagrams that show how benificial the vertical lighting can be vs that of horizontal. Remember anything after 4 feet of light will not recieve barely and light/lummens and thats why people harvest alot of popcorn garbage on your bottoms. If you notice all angles of plant are recieving light. In this case vertical wins ladies and gentlemen.

Ohh and you are also correct abot people not truning there plants so all sides of plant are getting light but if you are a serious grower and have some time to slave yourself in your garden you will do what ever it takes to maximize your yield. They also make these auto turntable type spinners that will automatically spin your plants for you all day while lights are on. Hope this helps.

MEGAyielder420 said:

True and not true and I beg to differ. You see vertical lighting..... #1 will be better for the heat and you are right about not all the sides of the plant recieve the light but they do if you dont only run one bulb hanging in the center with plants huddled around.

Perfect examples here are some diagrams that show how benificial the vertical lighting can be vs that of horizontal. Remember anything after 4 feet of light will not recieve barely and light/lummens and thats why people harvest alot of popcorn garbage on your bottoms. If you notice all angles of plant are recieving light. In this case vertical wins ladies and gentlemen.

Ohh and you are also correct abot people not truning there plants so all sides of plant are getting light but if you are a serious grower and have some time to slave yourself in your garden you will do what ever it takes to maximize your yield. They also make these auto turntable type spinners that will automatically spin your plants for you all day while lights are on. Hope this helps.



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Yup, that's what I would do in an 8x8.