What Is The Best Light Dep Greenhouse On The Market?

[Blaze]

Yeah greenhouse and outdoor plants once acclimated can handle greater temperature extremes - both hot and cold. With a greenhouse you aren't exactly going for the 'ideal' climate like you would in a grow room, but rather you are trying to keep the climate in an acceptable range. A good analogy I heard from a very talented grower years ago that I always liked was that indoor was like driving a car down a freeway, outdoor was like driving a boat down a river. The car (indoor) can make quick, rapid changes whose effects you see immediately. You are in complete control and not affected by nature. The boat (outdoor) needs to have it's path planned out more in advance, as changes in course are slower, and ultimately you are at the mercy of the path of the river (nature).

I think you would want to get some sort of commercial dehuey as well, those little 80 pint ones probably won't be able to handle something that big. I've run a 70 pint in a 10x20 before and it could barely handle that. I am not exactly sure what we will be going with yet, I'll worry about that once fall rolls around and we actually need it.

I personally have not seen anyone pull off 5 harvests a year. I've heard stories, but talk is cheap. Winter runs tend to have terrible yields and quality from what I have seen. They are also really expensive to run due to all the extra heating and lighting, I have not yet personally seen one that I would consider to be worthwhile. Farther south in SoCal it might be more practical though since winters are more mellow. If I can get 3 good runs per year and shut down from Nov 7 to Feb 7 I'll be happy.

Plus with Mendocino's new horribly thought out, bullshit medical ordinance our plants numbers will be more limited in the future compared to the other coastal NorCal counties. That would mean larger plants to offset the low plant numbers, which in turn means more veg time and therefore less runs per year.

Like I said earlier I do soil so I don't mess around with rezs and temps and all that. The water comes out of our pond which stays a fairly consistent temp from spring thru fall. For greenhouse and outdoor it's best to keep it simple in my opinion. Screwing around with a hydro or coco type set ups, especially when temperatures get hot, can be more of a hassle than it's worth.

 

[MendoGiantZ]

I think your spot on blaze. I bet the hills inland of Santa Barbara and further down south would be the best spot to try and do 5 rounds ( or at least 4 good ones ). I have heard a lot of my friends investing in outrageously expensive greenhouses and are trying to get at least 4 rounds per year. I'ts probably totally doable but I ll believe it when I see it. (Most buddies say they do just as good with the hoop houses ). Also they are gonna have crazy high plant counts to try and do a quick turn around right after they harvest. . Just from my little practice run this year I kinda figured out what I want to do next year. I'm going to build a bunch more hoop houses at one property that has a really nice vegging room. I will start with a bunch of clones and Veg all the plants in the veg room until there about 2 feet tall and nice healthy bushes. Then I am gonna fill up all of the hoop houses with the plants on March 1st and transplant them into 25 gallon hard pots that are easy to move around. Then I'm gonna veg the healthy plants in the 25 gallons another 14 days. On March 15th i will take clones off all the big plants and start flowering them the next day. I will Veg all the clones I just took in the veg room and have them ready to go to replace the plants that are currently flowering. This seems to be the best way to get three good harvests per year. The third harvest will grow and finish naturally in October.

 

[ncga]

Blaze, you should look at the new CMH out there. In the initial set up I'm liking the growth of it. It's only at 5 days but looking good. I have been thinking of the ultimate GH .

Light mover for sup lighting, eliminates the light blocking

Lumens controller to turn lights on only when ambient fall below a preset level.

I'm finally going to run some numbers on a small light dept project this year. Will be a late start so will be working on end venting with blackout.

 

[Cali clouds]

Thanks for all the good info. I'm thinking we are going for 3-4 runs per year. We don't have a big enough veg space to make it happen faster. we have to follow complete bull shit plant count rules for the stupid county. Code enforcement has really been stepping up their game.
As far as a winter crop goes, I guess we will see. I still don't think there is anyway possible to do 5 with our place but we were planning on going right threw winter. We have heaters and plenty of light to get a good veg. I guess we will just have to wait and see how it goes.

 

[juiceyjay]

You guys are crazy as hell spending 20k+ on a GH with lights and shit. The whole reason to grow outdoor is to avoid costly electric Bill's and grow your marijuana for free other than nutes and soil. I grow in central cali and plant in the ground they do fine in 100°F+. I spend about $400 a year on soil, nutes, and material but get back 5lbs+ which is more than enough for me

 

[maya42]

You guys are crazy as hell spending 20k+ on a GH with lights and shit. The whole reason to grow outdoor is to avoid costly electric Bill's and grow your marijuana for free other than nutes and soil. I grow in central cali and plant in the ground they do fine in 100°F+. I spend about $400 a year on soil, nutes, and material but get back 5lbs+ which is more than enough for me

The difference between personal and commercial medical costs. Growing is expensive any way you cut it. It's like a solar system, the more you put down up front ,the more you get in the end . You only want to build 1 greenhouse, so why go cheap? It's worth it later. Less problems and more efficient.

 

[Cali clouds]

If growers just grew a head stash there would be a whole lot of sober people out there.
In the so cal club seen quality is most important. If you are just average you will get washed up with the other 3 million guys trying to do the same thing.
if you had a light dep gh you could have your harvest 3 times over. Imagine how happy you could make your friends. My buddy that built this thing is old and retired. He has plenty of money, but he really like to grow. When you have worked your whole life with shit, it is good to be able to build something really nice and have fun with it.

 

[Cali clouds]

 

[Blaze]

Cali have you guys tested the dep system yet? Also I noticed it looks like there is some sort of insulation on the end walls - did that come with the kit or did you guys add it?

 

[Cali clouds]

Yeah we actually just turned it on yesterday. I have not seen the dep system go 100% on its own with the timer and controler, just manually running the motor. All in all it works pretty good. One spot one of the rollers tends to favor one side of the track and dented the sheet metal channel that the curtain tucks into. We put a guide inside the track to hold the caster in the center and it seems to have fixed it. It has ran on its own on the timer and everything this morning and all went well. Really cool to see it go. It is really slow but slow is good with mechanical stuff
the insulation in the end walls we did ourselves. The metal definitely gets hot in the sun, and the end walls are the farthest thing from light tight. My buddy has gone through a few rolls of metal tape sealing all the metal joints. Definitely plan on chasing light leaks. Some of it is inevitable, but the end walls and we're the curtain runs into the end walls could be designed better. There was a 1" gap between the channel that the curtain tucks into and the siding on the end wall because the frame of the end wall sits between the two. Although it is kinds nice because it created the gap to put the insulation behind. I would take a pic but you can't see any of it now that it is all insulated.
I went in there today and in there today and it looks great. It is half planted. All the girls are in there but half still need to be transplanted. They are happy in their new home. Weather is amazing I wish we could have been running back In February but oh well, it is done now. We are probably going to veg for another month or so and then be looking at a mid July harvest. We are a Lil worried with the July heat but we have the evap cooler when we need it. Can't wait for July to cut this place down!

 

[fishwhistle]

What county Cali and whats your plant count allowable?They are shafting folks with similar setups around me in socal,that is the way to do it if you can get away with it!

 

[Cali clouds]

Plant counts suck. There is not a good county around here unless you can pay code enforcement off. It seems like they are after everyone this year except the Indians and out of towners. A lot of the crack shack outdoor grows around here that piss the locals off. They just hit a big gh op these crazy fuckers built right off a main road. A few gh's probably 30x100 each and ripped the plastic to shit. Now it's a big pile of trash on the side of the road. As far as we go we have all Co op paperwork and keep our plant counts legit with a long veg. This place is pretty small compared to the shit these other guys are pulling off. Just 12 monsters. as soon as code enforcement goes after the grows all the dispensaries have time to open up. Then they go after the clubs and the hills are covered with gh's. They really are fighting a losing battle.
Adelanto and desert hot springs are issuing permits for commercial cultivation indoors only in certain restricted areas. That caused shit hole desert industrial buildings to cost about 300 times more then they are worth. It is like growing weed to give everything to your uber greedy landlord. Desert hot springs has a lot of bare land in the zoning but you need 10's of millions to build the infrastructure and building. The city's new what they were doing. Huge investment money funding buildings you drive around in a golf cart.

 

[Seamaiden]

Ugh, and I'm moving right into the thick of it. South of those locations, but in an area where it's ALL banned. Your GH looks sick!

You guys are crazy as hell spending 20k+ on a GH with lights and shit. The whole reason to grow outdoor is to avoid costly electric Bill's and grow your marijuana for free other than nutes and soil. I grow in central cali and plant in the ground they do fine in 100°F+. I spend about $400 a year on soil, nutes, and material but get back 5lbs+ which is more than enough for me

For how long will you be doing that kind of growing, though? The localities that are embracing the new MMRSA structure in SoCal are mostly demanding indoor or GH cultivation methods. Same with Sact'o IIRC. So if you're going to be a player, how do you plan on complying?

 

[Cali clouds]

Any updates on any other greenhouses? We just harvested the first run in that place. It all went good for the most part. The blackout tarps that grow tech uses suck. They are three layers thick. I think when they hemmed the edge they missed the center layer. So after opening and closing every day the center layer started to pull back from the edge causing some light leaks. We got new tarps on the way. I have heard that they have had alot of problems with the tarps. They didn't give us much shit about getting some new ones for free but i just hope the new ones are better quality then the last ones. Anyhow any of you guys get greenhouses built?

 

[Blaze]

Ours starts going up this week. Didn't have any troubles getting the county so sign off on the plans, they were very thorough.

 

[Cali clouds]

Did you get a actual plan on the light dep or a instruction booklet. I really couldn't make up our problems with grow tech if I tried. They could never provide a plan for a 24x24. And definitely check your tarps. The contractors we hired told us last week that they have changed 3 defective tarps from grow tech this month. grow tech definitely knows about the problem or else they wouldn't be sending them to us for free... hopefully lol

 

[Blaze]

Yeah our plans show the entire dep system - the motor, tracks, everything. Like I said the plans were thorough, they are literally engineered down to the bolts and screws used, and it came with about a 70 page booklet for all the load calculations. The county building department was not able to nit-pick us on anything, everything was above and beyond their requirements to sign off on the project.

 

[Cali clouds]

I swear its like we are talking about two different companies lol. maybe they just didn't like my buddy. Anyhow I think the tarps are manufacturer defect. I doubt grow tech makes them but I don't know. I think they missed the center piece when they hem the edges. Anyhow good luck with the build.

 

[Blaze]

Thanks, so far so good. But the real test will be once construction begins. Gro tech did mention to be about how they were switching to different tarps when I was over there 6 week ago. Their demo greenhouse had the old style ones, which they said they did not like. Ours is supposed to have the new black out tarps. I will definitely be sure to check though.

Part of your buddies problem is it sounds like he didn't get the fully engineered stamped plans either. They do cost more, but it makes sure your building meets whatever criteria the local building code demands. Our plans did take a while as it was a custom job, that has been the only delay so far on Gro Tech's part.

 

[trualchemy]

Re an earlier point about gh temp control - how do you not totally ruin the smell at 90+ degree temps? Do you just expect lower quality than indoor, or is it not an issue? My experience indoor has been to never go above 80 after 3rd or 4th week or the terps tend to evaporate away...

Great thread btw