Help me design my Cloning/Veg room please!

[genEric]

Greetings all!


Hoping to pick up some ideas from some of the veterans here.

I'm an experienced grower both indoor and out, soil and hydro. Due to Michigan's 12 Plant rule my grow partner and I have worked out our system in which he will (legally) run two Flowering tables (10 plants per table SCROG )at his place (he's legal for up to 24 plants). We're growing a 55-60 day strain.

The plan is as follows:

I will maintain two mature mothers from which to take cuttings from. I will clone and veg out 10 plants and feed one of his two finishing tables (Scrog - 10 per table) roughly every 30 days (1/2 flowering cycle). Therefore he will finish out one table every 30 days. By finishing his ten-lots every 30 days ought to keep things running smoothly and will keep us both legal.

The area in which I need assistance is which method of growing will serve me best? I hope to be able to provide him with 10 cuttings, topped and vegged out to about 10-12 " roughly every 30 days.

I have an 8'x10' room with a 7' ceiling. It is a basement with a consistant temp of 65F summer 55F Winter. Climate control will not be an issue. I have a solid budget to work with here ($1500-2000) and modifications/construction is no problem.

I would like to get away from MH lighting and perhaps move over to CFL or LED (although I don't feel LED technology isn't quite where we need it to be yet...). The room will be unattended for about 8-10 hours daily so naturally running a big ol' 1000W MH is a concern of mine and, frankly, I'd like to try something more energy efficient if possible.

I need help choosing a growing system be it top-drip, ebb & flow, DWC, etc.

Summary: 8 x 10 room in which I must at all times maintain two mothers and must be able to provide 10 well-rooted 10"- 12" bushy lil' gals every 30(ish) days.

Given these requirements what would you do? What method, what medium, what type(s) of lighting (and how much), or are my goals laid out above too lofty and unfeasible?

Any advice will be geatly appreciated! I will look forward to your suggestions.


Thanks and peace,

genEric

 

[mrbong73]

Hey man you have nothing to worry about. You have more than enough room and budget.
I would say t5 for the lighting. You could easily have a small tent or build a room or whatever you want.
I would recommend smart pots with either soil or coco or whatever mix you like. Easy to lst with the velcro straps.

 

[fishwhistle]

I agree with the above poster about the t5s for light in veg.

 

[genEric]

Thanks for the replies so far!

T5s it will be for the lights then. I'll bone up on their coverage and figure out how many I will need and in what configuration...

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I guess I should have stated that soil or coco will be fine for the two mothers but I need my vegged-out cuttings to be, ideally, bare-root so that my partner can drop them into his favorite (and very effective for him) medium: Drip-fed pots filled with little rockwool bits topped-off with Hydroton.

(I thought his system a little behind the times, perhaps, but his results speak for themselves. This cat has his operation down to a science and has, for well over a decade now, blown me and many others away with his work.

******************

Great call on LSTing the mothers. I can lay 'em right down horizontally under the T5's and keep 'em lush and compact simultaneously.

Velrco=great suggestion. I like it! Thank you!

********************

Regarding clone/veg:

Will I need to root the cuttings and then transplant into a larger system for their 4ish week veg?

Or...

How might I root my cuttings and veg them out into 10-12" bushes in one "cut-root-grow" system? I'm hoping to avoid the shock/delay that transplanting rooted cuttings will cause.

Any suggestions as to the most effective method for my rooting/veging situation?


Thanks for the great ideas/suggestions thus far. I will look forward to further input- you guys are great!

genEric

 

[ScrOGer]

EZ cloner for hte cuttings until they have nice long roots. then drop them into bubble buckets. Your partner will only need to pull out the net pots and you are good to go. cheap and efficient, if you DIY the cloner. But the mothers in 5gal each or larger buckets.

A 4'x2' T5 blue spectrum Fluoro fixture will blast a nice area for you. I think you can even daisy chain them together. only requiring 1 outlet to power 2 fixtures.

 

[Thdaoub]

i learn many things about planing by the above.thank you for all of your share.

 

[ProdigyGrower]

I would deff run pure coco for mother plants and t5 will be just fine for the moms for the clones once the root I would look in to 250 watt complete systems that have the ballast built in sun lite suply makes them and you could run a 2x4 flood table and set it up on one of the industrial metal racks you get at homedept they work perfect for that set the table on one level and the Rez underneath on the lower level and the hang 2 250 watt systems from the top and that would work really well to vegg out 10 bushy girls ready for flower or you could hang a 4bulb t5 if that's the way you wanted to go either way works great just my 2 cents and it dnt take up any space for real you could fit it in a 5x5 tent and have your 2 moms in there as well any way stay frosty bro peace!

 

[hiboy]

t5 for lighting bingo
dirt is great for moms. lots less attention, water every other day. make new moms every 4-5months .simple
take ur cuts.....clone to veg, more experience will get your time schedule rolling
h

 

[genEric]

Thank you all so much for your input!

I'm gonna run:

- A nice array of t-5s as needed depending on final floorplan/layout. I'm going to stick with t-5s, be they 4' or 2' as they are so "clean". by "clean" I mean simple: Few if any heating issues winter or summer, easy daisy-chaining as noted in ScrOGer's post above, and reliability in that I can lose a bulb on a holiday weekend, not happen to have a spare (shame on me!) and no harm done.

- Mothers in Coco, trained to lay down nice and comfy, hand-watered and hand-fed.

- 18 to 20 hole homebrew EZ-type cloner (I'll veg the first ten to pop roots and sadly destroy the rest unless I have a taker than can get them out the minute they pop- not likely. Gotta stay 100% legal.)

- (Still deciding on)Ten 3 gallon bubble buckets using 5" net pots in Hydroton. They will plug into his 8" top-drip pots. Probably gonna pull him away from the rockwool as it will be much easier to set the net pots into his pots and "backfill" with Hydroton rather than trying to tuck rockwool around the sides, etc. It sounds like a bit of a hassle and kinda weird and his tables are something to behold but hey- the green does grow, and how(!), so who am I to question it, right?

or possibly:

I am also considering using a couple huge tote bubblers with five plants each. Quite a few less pumps as I don't think air manifolds distribute evenly so that's ten pumps for ten buckets vs. (probably need) four pumps for two totes. I've still got a little time so any/all ideas will be considered. Same 5" net pots as above, etc. Any other suggestions regarding the paragraph above re: bubble buckets please chime in!


Lots of work to be done in the coming weeks. Once we get into a steady rotation I'll try to create a photo journal or somehow pay it forward to ya'll.

Thank you all so very very much!


Best wishes,

genEric

 

[ScrOGer]

Multiple netpots in a larger tote is great. be sure to separate the roots, so they do get tangled with one another. you can separate using plastic dividers (cut them to your specs), or do daily maintenance: pul out the net pots and straighten the roots, and detangle if needed. it's a hassle. I like to section off when using the larger totes.

you could also connect smaller buckets and run two pumps. one fill and one drain. have them running all the time, to create a recirculating environment. make a "network for each strain, so you can get those plants dialed in ppm wise, while in veg. then when you transplant, you are already dialed in, and let the bloom boom begin.

Note: make the fill tubing a top feed. have it pour into the hydrotron, versus drilling thru the bucket. this way the falling solution get aerated as it falls thru the rocks and trickles back into the bucket's res, below. it isnt as oxygenated as using an airstone or difuser, but it is an aerated solution and the surface tension of the water in the bucket is also broken, so you dont grow algae. Well... no algae as long as the bucket is light tight.

 

[genEric]

Multiple netpots in a larger tote is great. be sure to separate the roots, so they do get tangled with one another. you can separate using plastic dividers (cut them to your specs), or do daily maintenance: pul out the net pots and straighten the roots, and detangle if needed. it's a hassle. I like to section off when using the larger totes.
<snip>

I'm going to go with the totes. Two totes @ 5 plants per tote. I found nice 20 gallon totes with tight-fitting lids. They are 100% lightproof and the plastic is UV resistant and easy to cut, etc.

Which leads me to: I've already got four 20" airstones so I think two per tote out will bubble nicely. Would I do better to run each tote as a top-drip recirculating system or as bubblers? I'm open to whatever will perform the most effectively. I can build anything...

Regarding seperating the roots: I'm afraid that partitions might interfere with even bubbling. I suppose I can fiddle around and dial in the stone placement before securing them to the bottom. Would vinyl "curtains" hung from the top, between plants, be adequate as dividers? I don't have a problem with daily maintenbance- it only takes a few minutes to pull each pot, dress-off the roots, and replace.

We're into our third week of flowering over at his place. Blue Cheese. Thus far the strain has grown itself. Very impressed with this strain. Seems very forgiving and has so far grown like a dang weed. No pun intended. We've got the PPM dialed in and have kept solid records. We're planning on sticking with this strain for a while. As long as they finish as nicely as they started we'll be in good shape. It's claimed to be a 45 day strain but I've yet to see a plant (any strain) finish that early and neither has my partner (the flowering guy). I'm guessing we'll end up closer to 60-65 days to a proper finish. We'll phase-in a second strain, later, when we've got this one down to a science. For now we're keeping it simple with one strain.

Boy I sure do digress huh?

ScrOGer: I took a look at your gallery. That is one seriously gorgeous canopy! My partner might have a few questions which I will post here in a new thread if you wouldn't mind. He's a great grower but until this grow he's done trees. This is his first scrog.

Thank you ScrOGer (and everyone else too!) for your help and I'll look forward to your input on the ideas I've laid out above.


Thanks,

genEric

 

[ScrOGer]

The airstones will give the most aeration, over top feeding back into the buckets. more bubbles, but the top feed works too.

i'll post a pick of a bucket we did not top, and let it grow wild, to see what kind of stretch these genetics had, as we received some cuts from a buddy and his fans blew all of the ID cards off of the pots! lol. It was a mess. but without airstones these trees were ridiculously huge.

as far as the fear of not getting even aeration is concerned. you dont need to make the dividers go all the way to the bottom of the tote. a few inches from the bottom is good. you just want to be able to keep the roots from growing under the partion and getting connected to the roots in the next area.

I'm not sure about the plastic curtains. would they breed mold? perhaps. thikn of a shower curtain that not dried out after use. mold starts to develop. just a guess :)

There are strains that flower in 45 days. Ruderalis is a quick flowering plant. brothers grimm and other breeders have crossed with Ruderalis to get that sweet as short flower time. I have yet to see myself a 45 day true finish time, but I had C99 finish @52 days tho. close to 50/50 amber and cloudy.

I'm subbed for more questions. hopefully I have the answers you are looking for... hopefully more of the farm members will be able to help out as well. be sure to check out the other forums for answers as well.

 

[ScrOGer]

Here are some pics from the wild growing tree experiement. but does look a lot like the production from a UC. what do you think?

Here are the pics. They do not look good to me, so remember this was a stretch experiment. i trained the plant and filled 90% of the screen. which is way too much for a actual scrog. ok. that was the fine print. :D
We actaully pulled over 3 oz per plant making it over 1# in that overcrowded, hot as closet. that was mother room #2, back in the day.

the last pic is from day 20 of flower. the top one were at around 40-45 days of 12/12 and the rest are pretty evident. we pulled them down at 63 days of 12/12. we let them go long...

EDIT: THEY WERE VEGGED FOR 26 DAYS.

 

[genEric]

Thanks again ScrOGer and everyone else who pitched-in!

I'm going to give the totes a run just as they are, without partitions, and if it turns out that I have to work at it to keep the roots untangled then so be it- lesson learned. I'm confident that I can pull each plant up every second day or thereabouts and keep things in order. Worse-case scenario is that I'll have to prune a few roots- no worries. I'll probably have to root-prune them when putting them into the top-drip flowering tables anyhow.

I'll be using two 20" airstones in each tote so they ought to bubble just fine.

I've got my bill of materials worked up so tomorrow I go shopping and then get to work building my cloner and bubblers, build a few tables, prep the room electrically (add a bunch of outlets, put a G.F.I. first ion line one each leg), run a water line, install a drop-sink, and hook up some speakers.

Everyone plays music for their plants don't they?

I'll post some pics a little later, once there's something worth looking at...

Thanks to all once again for your assistance. It really helps to bounce new ideas off of others and get a feel for what the rest of the farmers are doing out there. This forum has been invaluable and I hope that I can help others in kind some day.

Thanks all!

genEric