Cheap and easy vertical

fractal · Dec 6, 2010

Using rubbermaid brand rack components from home depot, and common steel cart racks I built up a vertical system that is modular and expandable.

Just mount the rack support rails to your wall studs, insert the shelf supports and place the wire shelf on. Then the steel cart racks are arranged at the same height as the wall shelves, six shelves in total when fully assembled.

With 6-liter pots, five per rack and three racks high per lamp you can get 60 plants around each 1000 watt hps light. With an easily achievable 1 oz. / plant that is 60 oz. from each light. Which is 3.5 pounds or more. I'm still dialing in the height at which to flower clones so that they overlap with the shelves above and below. You can see some Johnny Blaze clones on the lower shelves, those were sized perfectly. The other plants are all a week or less in the racks and will hopefully double in size. They all vegged about a week and were totally rootbound in 4" pots when transplanted.

Right now there is blockhead f2 and Johnny Blaze, Sour Diesel x White Widow and GDP clones in there. Eventually it's going to be all GDP pretty much so the geeks can have their buds and I can maybe eat again, and pay bills because I've gone broke growing haze. 12-14 pounds of GDP from 4 lights seems to be very achievable with this system.

greenthumbdanny · Dec 6, 2010

THat is really crafty of ya fractal>>I am looking forward to what becomes of this.
>>>how is that johnny blaze<< any pictures of her?

:passingjoint:

gtd

winta · Dec 7, 2010

thats slick my dude! what are the temps in there?

fractal · Dec 7, 2010

Around 70 degrees maybe 75. It's cold outside right now so negative pressure with fresh air intake is what's going on. Soon I want to seal it, cool the lights with outside air and supplement with co2.

I'll get some pics up soon danny of the JB. I'm evaluating 4 phenos right now to choose a keeper but it's frosty as hell. So much resin the leaves taco inward and the stems are covered in trichomes.

One key thing about the setup is that these pots have no holes in them. That way with careful watering by hand everything is great and with no runoff to deal with. It would be a pain in the ass to have watertight shelves with runoff water on them waiting to spill on the wall and ruin the floor.

altitudefarmer · Dec 7, 2010

What a great little setup, fractal! Nice use of the light. Looking forward to this show.

robz · Dec 7, 2010

That's a nice idea there. I'll be watching this.

Bobby Smith · Dec 7, 2010

Nice setup - any thoughts of putting a screen in there? Looks like attached to the shelf would be perfect for training plants backwards into it.

Regardless, looking good.

sfzoo · Dec 7, 2010

LOVE IT!

btw,

12-14 pounds of GDP from 4 lights seems to be very achievable with this system.

very interested in this...can't wait to see! will you document this here?

fractal · Dec 7, 2010

I am putting plants into it as I get them prepped and ready, so I won't be doing a grow journal or anything. But I will follow progress of course and post my epic yield results. Just put in the first 6 GDP clones so in 60 days we'll see if they hit an oz or not. The cut that I have is really high yielding for a GDP so I think it will be a cinch.

In 2 weeks I am pulling the 5 gallon pots out of there and setting up the full-height steel racks and the wallshelves along the back wall. Then you will see the entire setup, it will be about 7' tall with 6 racks. Perfect for two 1000 watt hps lamps or three 600 watt lamps

This is me realizing that flat gardens are OBSOLETE, especially in california when you have to be producing at max capability if you want to not go broke. Flat gardens with the GDP strain would mean 5 weeks of veg and 2 pounds per light AT MOST. With vertical, I can fit 60 plants around the light instead of 16 plants beneath it. Also veg time is slashed to 1/3 and all the buds will be full and dense from being exposed to the lamps much more closely.

leadsled · Dec 7, 2010

Nice setup, like how you handle the runoff.

lollipopman · Dec 7, 2010

Like this, add some plumbing for feed and drain lines would be perfect... Maybe add a light mover to a pulley , where the 1000 goes up and down.

sfzoo · Dec 8, 2010

this is me realizing that flat gardens are obsolete, especially in california when you have to be producing at max capability if you want to not go broke. Flat gardens with the gdp strain would mean 5 weeks of veg and 2 pounds per light at most. With vertical, i can fit 60 plants around the light instead of 16 plants beneath it. Also veg time is slashed to 1/3 and all the buds will be full and dense from being exposed to the lamps much more closely.

word.

fractal · Dec 9, 2010

Here is that johnny blaze girl, #4 of 4. This one is in a full sized 5 gallon pot finishing up that I brought in from outdoors last month. The other 3 phenos all have a much more dense bud structure but are all large, leggy sativa plants. They also hermied on me but that could have been from some obvious light leaks I know happened - the vert clones will confirm that for me in another month or so. This one is at 65 days, roughly. Should take another 30 days to finish. I did smoke some of the barely dried premature JB and HOLY SHIT this is strong weed. Way too strong for newbs. I was tripping balls for a minute there.

fractal · Jan 24, 2011

Well dudes and chicks the results of the preliminary run are coming in and they are exceeding my expectations! This is the easiest and most productive method of growing that I have ever done, the hardest part is putting up the vertical racks because it requires some out of the box type thinking. There are some major benefits I did not anticipate namely dense, full sized buds on the entire plant. Secondly, the plants finish at least a week faster than I anticipate which caused a little problem with the GDP I gave it nitrogen for a week too long and the buds aren't very stinky or frosty yet after a month.

Pictured are the Johnny Blaze keeper which is a great one to label "blueberry haze" and leave it at that because you can see the BB and the haze influence, it for sure looks like a DJ short creation. 80-90 days, probably viable in this system if topped as is these plants are 12-20 grams.

GTD the blueberry haze shots here are what you were asking for a while ago, looks crazy huh?

fractal · Jan 24, 2011

And the Hindu Funeral is the chunky frosty one, an original strain I created myself from sour D and white widow. This shit is done and blown up to the max here at day 53. There are 3 other phenos, of course the one that is the craziest, teabagging on OG kush 'oh my god im tripping balls i smoked too much' bud is the one I scrapped prematurely because it looked too spindly. Well shame on me because it's the fucking chronic boombonic with smaller buds but a danker smell and finishes also at just over 50 days. The one here looks like it will be close to 20 grams so I am well on my way to hitting an oz per plant and pulling 3.5 pounds a light with this system. Although I'm going to keep it at 24 per wall instead of 30 to limit the total to 96 plants for legality.

I lost the chem#4 recently, don't miss it one bit with this funky assed Hindu Funeral #2. Also the vibes around the grow are much improved as the dawg was carrying nasty skanky tweeker vibes from the dude who gave it to me. It's frostier than anything and rank/skunky/swampy smelling with a little funky sweetness. Potency from the seed plants was insane, leaves sour D and white widow lagging far behind, true hybrid vigor in this one. I'm a little pissed the male plant died from this line, I'm going to have to get some more widow seeds and do this cross once more. Hindu Funeral = it's got the Widow and the Diesel + the fire so you're good to go ! (the joke is that in india widows burn themselves on the husbands funeral pyre GET IT HAHAHAH I love morbid humor) Pounds of these no-leaf, ridiculous sticky chunks should be a pretty easy sell in any market.

fractal · Jan 24, 2011

Hindu Funeral # 4 is the one I culled one night about 6 weeks back, don't know what I was thinking I thought I HAD to get rid of something my mother plants were getting big. This one looked a bit spindly compared to the others but I was totally wrong it's the most potent and tastiest one of the 4. At least I have two healthy ones to attempt a re-veg after harvesting the buds.

Secondly, the Poison Kush. It's crazy how plants look different when they are grown in different environments! I've grown this one before and it looks almost like sour D but when the ppm of the nutes goes up, it gets denser than dense and looks like a gnarly kush. Topped, this one could possibly do 30 grams per plant with 3 tops in this system. With 2 weeks veg growth only.

Bobby Smith · Jan 25, 2011

Great update, plants look really dank.

Green81 · Jan 25, 2011

very clean KISS setup. ++

fractal · Mar 11, 2011

I thought it would be a good time to document the current status of the SQUADIUM. It's running very nicely and I added a third cooltube with a 600 watt hps in between two 1000 watters which I feel provides a good even light distribution up the entire 6 rack height of the SQUADIUM.

This time aroud I vegged the plants a while longer and I think that I am getting closer to the ideal 25-40 gram dry yield. The hindu funeral is definitely capable of pumping it out consistently as pictured. The 1998 Super Silver Haze proves to be tailor made for the SQUADIUM, and Blockhead just threw me 45 grams from two plants, not even topped!