Hello Everyone I’ve recently got into the medical marijuana industry in Oklahoma and my grower bailed on me almost immediately upon signing leases and writing checks. So, here I am learning as I go :)! Which is fine and i’m looking forward to the challenge but I have a steep learning curve so I thought i’d ask for a little assurance that i’m moving forward in a correct manner or some tips on how to do so.
I have 3 rooms built out in my 8k sqft warehouse. 1 is 45x20 w/ 12ft ceilings and 2 are 25x20 rooms w/ 12 foot ceilings. My plan is to have lights every 4 feet and have 3 rows going vertically. I purchased 25 480w Quantum boards similar to “HLG 550 Quantum LED”. 25 lights on my first row - i’m running 45-50w per sqft in these room — closer to 75w are all 3 rows are complete. Anyways, I have 10tons of A/C in each 500sqft and 20tons in the 1k sqft. I plan on running a ebb and flow halo drip system. Draining to a reservoir and then pumping to waste. I’ve been looking at Dr Zymes for pest control but recently stumbled upon some information regarding colloidal silver for Anti fungal/bacteria/insect… basically if its parasitic this helps. Using a 5 stage reverse osmosis system to clean water. Running CO2 and I think i’m going with the AUTOPILOT F90 Eclipse controller for TEMP/HUMIDITY/CO2 and something else I forgot. I was looking at using general hydroponics nutrients for coco as I will be using a coco/perlite blend. And I keep hearing great things about GH and its cost/scalability. I hear mills is an amazing nutrient as well. I was wondering if anyone has used JR PETERS line of nutrients for cannabis JACKS NUTRIENTS. They’re about 10-15% of the cost of the others it seems and this company has been around for 2 decades! On each wall i’m mounting fans to keep the air moving in the rooms - 8 fans total mounted on the walls - 4 fans on the ground. I’m thinking that heat coming off the quantum boards could be an issue so i’m open to suggestions on how to deal with this heat. These boards are supposed to be extremely heat efficient though so we shall see - I though maybe I could attach ducting to the motors and run swamp cooled air over the top of the motors and out of the room.
My SOP goes as follow and i’ll do a quick summary - ya’ll can ask questions if ya want more details. But I started from seed - found my mothers/genetics. Now that my genetics have been picked my SOP is as follows
My Rooms are split into 6 sections for flowering - my VEG rooms I call my mother room and my clone factory. The idea of what i’m doing is to create a continuous train of clones to preflower to section1-6 until harvest and then back again. A machine that feeds itself. My SOP is as follows:
1.)Cut 100 clones from mothers - put clones under veg light 18/6 for 2 weeks
2.)Move Clones to preflower for 2 weeks under veg light 18/6
3.) Repeat step 1
4.) Move Preflowering to Section 1 of Flowering room - switch to 12/12 light schedule
5.) Repeat steps 1 & 2
6.)Repeat step 4 - then 1&2 every 2 weeks until Sections 1-6 in flowering rooms are full and clones/preflowering is full.
I’ll be pushing the plants very quickly into flowering. 3 to 4 weeks after I cut clones from mother I will put them in 6 inch pots inside of 4x8 trays. I will then strip the plants of all foliage underneath Top Node site or as I was told it is called lollipopping. And I will let plants go through their normal flowering period. I’m not sure since I will be stripping almost all plant material off the plant if I need to separate the plants very far from each other. I wasn’t planning on separating them at all. I can fit 128 6in pots in a 4x8 tray and I can put 2 lights over that tray.
I tried to be detailed while also not droning on forever about every individual component. If ya’ll have any questions I’d love to answer them! Love this community - theres some brainiacs in here for sure! The love is awesome in here and the amount of knowledge is freaking amazing. Ya’ll are great - Happy Growing
I’m a clone and perpetual grower for over 8yrs full time.
Most clone strains take just over 2 weeks to root. I have 1 strain that roots and can be up-potted in 5 days. Therr are many tricks, and most clone gel/dip/what havebyou are garbage. Ive tried 20 types, and settled on a winner. And is cheap!
I also do a major leaf plucking. I do this between wks 2-3 (NO MORE than 21 days from flip). I dont get any “larf” with this trick. I get usable larger than popcorn buds down low. Even when using a net and cmh lighting.
There are lots of tricks you learn after your grownis dialed in.
if you’re stripping the majority of the side branches off, you will most likely be fine sticking them really close together. It’s typically strain dependent if they grow really wide or not. If you have something that grows tall and skinny, it’s the most ideal for that SOG method. I have a couple phenos that do this, even with the side branches, they grow really compact width-wise and I’m able to stuff a lot of plants close together compared to the bushier phenos.
ive bounced around between nutes for many years and always end up going back to Jacks 3-2-(1)1. its just too fucking easy and i can run it at 1.0-1.2ec pretty much from start to finish with multi strain rooms and never have any def’s. i just recently tried out greenleafs nutrients but have since switched back to Jacks. Jacks is much cleaner and better for drip systems. I run 100% coco drain to waste. the real trick to this style growing is to use smaller pots and get the plant root bound asap, the quicker the plant is root bad the quicker you can begin multifeeding. i dont flip to flower until im multifeeding every 2 hours.
im a little different than @Demontrich i do 2 light inner plant defoliations but not your typical “swazzing” technique since i personally like some larf for my processing lab. Ive noticed no increase in total “keeper” buds from doing heavy defoliations but not doin so give me more usable larf for turning into distillate.
I would check out the dosatron and HGV nutrients for this type of system. This will be one hell of a journey for a beginner and there are a few of us where with the know how. I am actually about to embark on a similar journey the only difference is 20yrs experience growing. This set up is is going from 250 1k HPS to 1k 315CMH.
See and as I learn my strains and get things dialed in I would like to find the strains that I can flip in 5 or 10 days. I said 2 weeks as just a number of reference. Really the rotation will be completely based on preference and strain.
Now when you strip your leaves at 21 days - do you do this because you want those bottom nodes to flower as well? So would the difference in our grow just be timing on when we strip the plant?
Fantastic I was hoping that would be the case! There’s so much to learn across the board lol - I’ll get my genetics and phenos dialed in like you eventually! I may start a thread specifically for strains that do well in SOG.
Awesome, I mean when you break down the noots they’re really just shit and organic material lol. I knew someone had to be doing it for less than 2 grand a cycle! What all did you grab from them? Did you switch up their feeding schedule much?
We use a slightly modified Jack’s 3-2-1 formula. The base formulation will give you about .8EC with RO water. We’re pushing around 1.1 with 3.6-2.4-1.2. There’s some dialing in, for example our cookie cuts are generally calcium hogs so we might bump up that res to 2.7 Cal Nitrate. You’ll never hurt anything running the base 3-2-1 formula, but with CO2 enrichment and commercially viable genetics, pushing a little harder is better.
That is exactly what I have been looking for - do you have a name for that type of system? I was recently looking at dosatrons - seems like the most viable option for scaling. So what do you think the biggest learning curves are? I have the ability to spend 14-16 hours a day doing this and I love it. But your right it is a hell of a project and I can spend days… weeks studying each individual subject. I have a pretty solid baseline knowledge of lighting - I have an airflow expert - I was thinking nutrients and how to feed and water the plants are what I should dive into next. Any tips?
I would personally avoid dosatrons if you can help it, they’re pretty complicated if you’re just trying to get your operation off the ground with little experience. Go with a properly sized reservoir for your needs (empty it in 4-6 days) and a nice stable water soluble fertilizer like Jack’s. If you’re running that many plants per tray, I don’t think you can feasibly use drip emitters. Just flood your trays and balance the water levels with a ball valve at each outlet. It’s going to be messy, get a good pressure washer.
Research pump sizing, calculate your head losses and make sure you’re within the pump’s performance curve. Not really too difficult. Make sure your system is balanced, don’t just run a single line that manifolds out to your trays. This old Medicropper video gives you a basic piping diagram:
Rather than drip emitter lines, run a riser with a 90 elbow out to a ball valve to dump directly into your trays. Make sure they dry out a little between watering, try to get two feeds per light cycle in.
DM me if you need any advice, my facility is pretty hands off and I’m at my desk a lot lol.
I don’t think it’s over-complicated, but more-so than adding dry-weighed salt nutrients to a res and piping it out. Typically with aqueous concentrate storage you’re adding preservatives, dealing with dilution blah blah blah. It’s as easy as using a hydro calculator but there really isn’t a need with a 1900sf grow. Dosatron’s aren’t 100% reliable either and it sounds like Storm isn’t the best equipped to deal with deficiencies if they were to crop up just yet. Just idiot-proof it and mix your fertilizer by hand once a week.
Yea Value right now I think i’m going to do exactly what your saying because its easy - but its not the scalable option by any means. And if I need to spend more money upfront to avoid labor cost by doing something like “pressure washing the mess after feeding/watering” I would honestly prefer it. I don’t mind learning new systems - if you guys think they’re crazy complicated that’s one thing. I also have a team of other people that I can have assist me. Contractors/electricians… not a grower though lol
Have any of ya’ll tested colloidal silver for a pest prevention? I hear that it can herm your plants if you do it too often. I’m trying to figure out a preventative measure for pest/root rot/fungus… all the bs. Ya’ll have any suggestions?
Colloidal silver can be used to get femenized seeds so probably best not to regularly spray it. Spray with a silica like pro-teKt for fungus and use some cannabis approved pesticides for the bugs. Marrone Bio Innovations has really good products for pests and fungus. For root rot you can treat with a couple doses of h2o2 (hydrogen peroxide) just be sure to inoculate afterwards as it can kill beneficials.
Colloidal silver blocks ethylene receptors which causes hermaphrodism but it will also stunt your ripening process. Never a good idea to go playing around with hormones if you can avoid it. Grandevo works really well for mites of all kinds, regalia for PM, spinosad is great for light applications like thrips. Be really careful with H2O2, do everything in your power to avoid root issues as they’re going to significantly stunt everything even if you manage to treat them effectively. With any fermented bacteria product, it’s best to never spray in flower but they’ll fail you for colonies if you use them any sooner than 30 days pre-harvest (you can get away with early flower application in a crisis). Don’t use any kind of oils like neem or Method 1, makes your oil taste gross and don’t work well.
Don’t get russet mites or root aphids. The best PPM is good hygiene.
If you are running a clean grow you should not have pest or pathogens in your grow room. If you do run into problems the guy who bred the Mac1 strain(Cap) has a solution. Before he was a famous breeder he released a line of beneficial bacteria called OG Biowar. It’s made up of three bennies that will handle root growth and pathogens.
lol