Copied and reposted here, due to relevancy;
Here's the thing about innovation, and about improving as a grower; to the plants both are one and the same activity, with results for your crop that are ultimately immaterial as to whether they're the result of better technology, better growing techniques, or both.
You can be a great grower and not get good results from your shoplight. You can be a lousy grower and get poor results from a $100k room- and believe me, we've seen it here on the Farm!
There's an old theory in agricultural nutrition, the leaky barrel theory. It's the idea that your crop is constrained by the weakest nutrient in their feed (the shortest barrel stave), but I think the concept explains the whole gardening process very well. Whatever input is furthest from the ideal is the constraint- and this includes techniques not commonly thought of as 'technology', like keeping different stages of plants apart so they don't cross contaminate each other with pests. The failure of pest management is just as sure a path to ruin as sloppy practices or bad gear.
Indoors, the technology aspect takes center stage due to the totally artificial nature of the environment; without the tech, it would just be a roomful of dead plants in the dark! Talking about what's 'natural' indoors must thus be done with care, as does making basic assumptions about the best way to proceed.
I've recently had a technological epiphany; growing a flat landscape of crops inside is just a failure of the imagination- and worse, it makes incorrect assumptions about the technology involved. Outside, sunlight has had 93 million miles to attenuate; light intensity on a mountaintop versus Death Valley has much more to do with atmospheric conditions than proximity to the sun.
Inside is a whole different story; light intensity remains the prime driver of the plants we're growing all right, but everything ELSE changed! The light itself is immeasurably dimmer than the sun- yet it's extremely close- to the point where a foot or two makes the difference between insufficient light pressure and damage from too much. In spite of this, we still assume that growing plants as if we're outside is the best course. We build elaborate light fixtures to 'correct' for the basic nature of the light we've created- and they and the light they produce is compromised in every way. We create a flat farmland-like plane for the plants to be woven into, even though outdoors the plants are never level!
Well, it's time to turn such old ideas on their head, literally. Why does the light need to be overhead? The sun doesn't stay overhead, why should our lighting? Why not take better advantage of the relatively small donut shape of our light's 'goldilocks zone', just like our planet does around the sun? How many squares are there in nature- so why do our growing techniques constantly try to square off round corners?
This need not be expensive. My grow cylinders are cut lengths of field fencing, bought second hand, hung from the ceiling with nylon cord. My RDWC tubs are the very ones available at home dePot for $10 apiece. A vertical socket with 15' cord is hands down the least expensive lighting fixture you'll ever buy for your grow!
Sorry about the sideways, but here's the basic system; not pricey, not complicated.
You still trellis your plants- only instead of bending and chopping them as they grow upwards and spreading them out, your trellis is always next to the plant, beanstalk style. The plant grows up normally, all the while growing into place on the trellis, as the light comes from behind it.
Oh yes- that light; at a distance of 18" out less, it will burn. At two feet, it's perfect for strong, vigorous growth and production. At three feet, it's already getting too weak for peak results and production suffers. So why do we insist on lighting a flat plane placed at a tangent to it?! It's a recipe for disaster from an efficiency standpoint! We farm flat on the ground outside because that's how we've always done it- I'm not even sure it's actually the best way. Indoors, I'm damn sure it sucks- and you already know why.
So vertical trellis solves real problems associated with indoor technology and the needs and habits if the plants themselves. Because they solve these problems efficiently, I believe they represent the next frontier in the search for higher yields per square foot, and for lower costs.
The trellis I made is four feet tall- convenient since it's fencing- and I made sections 6'3" long. Each section thus totals exactly 25ft², and two of them bent end to end make a circle just 4' across. So, that makes 50ft² of growing surface inside, on a footprint of just 16ft². Does one thouie adequately light it? I'm getting leaf burn if that tells you anything! To solve the leaf burn and create the proper distribution of light inside the cylinder, I need to finish and install my light mover.
The essential point is this; I'm doing a better job of lighting 50ft² with one bulb by turning the trellis into a playpen than I am with four lights in conventional fixtures covering 50ft² of standard horizontal trellis! Imagine what that does to my light bill, and as near as I can figure- watch my threads for updates- there is no reason to expect my yields per square foot to falter; in fact, I expect increases.
So how long will I have to wait for such a plant to grow into the trellis? That's what perpetual veg spaces are for; again, I've just changed the focus of training from a flattop 'do to tall and skinny mohawk style- a shape the plant takes to readily anyway. I'm all set to deliver bloom ready plants to the trellis that will slip into place and fill it in during their stretch phase.
Assuming I had room (I don't), I could fit four of these cylinders into each of four 10x10' rooms, and command a full 800ft² of actual trellis bloom space!
So let's take this a step further, say, up a stepladder. Take that same 4'x6'3" panel and turn it sideways -what's another veg stage among friends?! With the right tub it will just fit under an 8' ceiling, and three of them together have the same twelve foot circumference that makes a four foot circle. Now each cylinder has 75ft² inside... Perfect for two 600W bulbs? In the four room example above, that means a four bedroom house could theoretically boast a full 1200ft² of trellised blooming space! AND STAY ON A 100A BREAKER.
Four panels upright make 16 feet, divide by pi and you get a cylinder just over 5' across- with a staggering 100ft² inside. I bet this one kicks ass with a couple thouies in it!
The future looks bright. Now, what did I do with my shades?
