I'll throw out a few things that I learned this year. I'm up in Salem so we have a bit shorter season that you will have down south. My largest plants, Blue Dream and Snoop dream, were 8 and 9' tall. Unfortunately, once we started getting rain in September, everything started falling apart. I built a 12' tall greenhouse as protection against the rain. Even though I was dragging the plants out when it was sunny, and aggressively trimming away any mold, I still lost a massive amount of product to mold. Some of the kolas were 18" long and as big around as your wrist. But once you started cutting out the mold, would be lucky to save a third of it. My smaller plant, a Cherry OG, gave a yield of 2 pounds and it was only 5' tall. I'm guessing that we lost at least a pound from the larger plants, probably more like a pound and a half. The reason I waited for the larger plants was because they were not maturing as fast as the smaller plant.

Next year, I will be looking for auto flowering plants so we can harvest before the rainy season. The greenhouse was partially destroyed during one of the storms. Planning on rebuilding, but not nearly as tall since the shorter growing season won't yield the tall plants.

To answer your question about flowering stage, my plants were flowering early to mid August. The large ones still weren't fully mature at 60 days. We did have a cool and wet period in there where growth seemed to stop. The buds then started to grow and mature after that, but we were getting into October by then.

My plants were really too tall to light dep without another significant investment and covering and uncovering daily. You may have a different schedule and can afford the time.

tj Wise said:

I need general advice, and some potential strains. In my backyard here in Southern Oregon I can Light Dep 28 flowering plants at a time, but I can simultaneously stage another 60 in veg in cold frames from April-September. I want to grow in 30 gallon bags so I can move them into the greenhouse. I don't care if my strains have a longer veg time, as long as the flower phase is short. How short is JUST the flower stage... 40 days? Could I get 4 batches: 10-JUN, 20-JUL, 30-AUG, 10-Nov? Of course I want a big yield, plus potent, rugged, etc. All in a 30 gallon bag. Could I get 3 lbs a plant? What strains should I consider? Would auto-flowering strains help me? And... am I crazy?

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Yes... you are crazy... because you are asking for a miracle plant that does not exist.
A 40 day plant that will yield 3lbs that is potent and rugged...

How about 40 days veg followed by 40 days flower for 1.5 pounds?

Hey Noob from Salem, what a sad tale. I chose to rush my harvest and endured they lost weeks of growth. I had no mold but they yield was under half from my prior years. I made a few other mistakes too, but yes, 2016 sucked for me.

I'm thinking of running a few trees, old-school... but also running batches of bushier, smaller plants in 30 gallon air pots. I might try "The Doctor" (8 weeks, high yield, medium height and are quite bushy) and flipping them into the early flower by putting them in my darkened green house. 56 days total, I'm just not sure when I should induce flowering.

http://grow-invalid.com/strain-reviews/the-doctor

do light dep.. The open air hoop houses are super cheap.. You could grow decent sized plants and trigger them whenever you want.. Avoid all the mold and cold days towards september

MendoGiantZ said:

do light dep.. The open air hoop houses are super cheap.. You could grow decent sized plants and trigger them whenever you want.. Avoid all the mold and cold days towards september

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Seems to me, light dep would be a labor intensive task with a moderately sized hoop house. I'm just not visualizing a drape that can be easily manipulated twice a day without significant investment in materials and mechanisms.

Not trying to be negative here, just not understanding how to do this without a lot of work.

It's just pulling a tarp over a green house so light doesn't enter so it's about as labor intensive as a car or boat cover lol but you have to be there or automate.

Heres a couple pictures of the super simple hoop house we build.. We put in t posts down each side and use indoor trellis netting for support.. If you buy 20 ft pvc from your home improvement store they are pretty much the perfect size... The wider you make your hoop house and the lower you make the top it becomes a lot easier for someone to pull the blackout tarp over.. We use 12 ml breathable blackout tarp we get at our local hydro store... We cover our hoop houses at 530 pm and uncover anytime after 830 or 9 pm once it is completely dark out again... I payed my buddy who lives at the property 25$ bucks a day. We are adding lots more hoop houses this year and i will up his pay to 50$ a day because its gonna be a good amount more work..

The bottom picture is of plants that were really nice and big because we were going to plant them into our 300 gallon bags for full term... We decided to do another round of dep and let them grow naturally in early june and get them really nice and big before we flowered them... Our first round of dep we started plants and got them about a foot tall.. We had way more plants the first time and it was more like doing small indoor plants.. It worked well as well but we needed way more plants.

Hope I'm not hijacking your page but this is a cheap and easy way to do it.. for about 5 k you can buy a 90 foot blackout tarp as well as all the pvc to build a 10 ft x 90 ft long hoop house and get 100 clones as well...

This is how we veg our clones.. super easy carport from costco.. One or two cheap shop lights hung in the middle of the carport.. You can completely inclose the structure if you get snow in colorado and throw in a couple space heaters to stop the super cold night.. Then plant them whenever they are ready..

in the last picture you can see how you leave the tarp propped up a little so its ready to pull the next day.. You get one end started then tie ropes all the way down that make it easier to pull.. It takes about 10 minutes to cover one hoop house.. Uncovering only takes one minute the whole thing just slides off.. We ended up realizing that the cheap clear plastic cover only caused tons of issues with wind flow and caused mold without any benefits

Lots of good ideas here. Since I'm not growing commercially, am limited to 4 plants at a time here in Oregon. Learning the trade off for potential of large crop vs reality of weather issues. Think next season would be a good time to try smaller plants and lower yield. Would be happy with a pound out of each plant vs the potential of 3 and only getting 1/2. The thing is, my smallest plant was a Cherry OG and gave 2 pounds in 40 days less than the giants that were only 1/2 pound each after the mold debacle.

This guy on intsagram does this crazy technique where he puts flood lights out in his garden at the end of July and puts all the plants onto 24 hours of light. He let's the plants dry out until they are somewhat stressed and then cuts off the lights and it forces them o start flowering. I haven't done this but I could see it maybe working.

And keep that air moving ..... !!!! Key ..... the better you control your environment, the better the yield and product as you max out the genetics. all the pro's growing in the 6 acre greenhouses are pumping in co2 ect maxing out their environment. it's all about yield per square meter when business is on the line -

ie: mimic the pro's

The environment where the plants are being grown will directly affect transpiration rates, and calcium and boron uptake. The types of environments that suppress transpiration can include:

– Hot, humid conditions, especially when light levels have been reduced with excess shade.

– Cool, humid conditions, especially when no de-humidification is occurring.

– Greenhouses with little or no air movement, especially when conditions are humid.

Other management factors can also reduce transpiration rates and affect calcium and boron uptake. For example, a high salt level (high EC) in the root media will reduce transpiration by making it harder for the plant to take up water out of the soil solution. Constant overwatering or underwatering may also reduce transpiration rates.

https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/understanding-transpiration.82240/

MendoGiantZ -- that is great stuff! My question, because I can veg outside outside all summer, and light dep in the hoop house, how many batches can I run from April 1st through November 30th? Anybody? I am willing to read :)

Here's my schedule for this year. We built raised beds this year that are made from 12 " tall by 20 foot long boards. The beds are 80 feet long and 7 feet wide. We will pound in railroad stakes every 4 feet all the way down along the side of the beds. Like u saw in the pictures but with a foot or so gap from the side of the bed to the pvc frame so we had some room for the plants to reach out and put our t posts in for the trellising.
For our first round of light dep I am going to plant one hundred clones in each bed. In rows of three all the way down the bed. I am going to get my clones March 10th and make sure they are nice clones. I am going to fully enclose one of the hoophouses with cheap 6 mil plastic from friedmans. Put one heater in the greenhouse maybe two if it's supposed to frost. I will hang construction lights along the center of the greenhouse with fluorescent bulbs plugged in every ten feet to prevent them from flowering. They will come on around 1 in the morning and go off at 7 am or so when the sun is up. I will plant my clones into cheap 3 gallon squat pots and place them all in the heated hoop house with lights. I plan on letting them grow three weeks or so with the lights and the heat until they have been topped once and are nice healthy bushes. Then on April first I will plant all 500 starts into the five raised beds. They will start flowering immediately after you transplant them into the beds so make sure they are your desired size. My friends say you don't even need to pull the tarps the first couple weeks because of the shock and the change of light. Plus the amount natural hours of light. I'm still gonna pull mine to make sure. Also remove all the cheap plastic to increase maximum air flow. Then pull tarps until May 30th when I harvest. I will have my next batch of clones started before I harvest using the same method and will transplant my 3 gallon pots into the beds on June first. This time they will grow without a heater with the natural light and u cAn let the plants get really nice and big in the beds. The second round is going to be your bread and butter. The sun is the strongest and the plants will be by far the healthiest. The market is also going to be dry so this is the one you want to make count. I'm gonna veg them in the beds for three weeks and use less plants. Then I will plant my third round right after I harvest around the end of July. I will plant my 3 gallon plants August first and let them grow for a week or two naturally then start to flower with the normal light and finish naturally.
Will see how it goes this is my first year converting to full light dep. I did two hoop houses last year and this method worked good and this is the plan I came up with.

This is my first year running this many beds and hoop house so any info or pointers are more then welcome. Always trying to learn and improve.