Greenhouses and heaters/ light dep

[Nomads Landing]

We have light depped every year, gravy... pm or mites has more to do with environmental and grower controls and conditions ie. air circulation and/or exhaust otherwise you'll get condensation build up on the inside of the blackout fabric. Some of the dankest shit we have ever smoked came from a ld grow of urkle. The same urkle we grew every year in our full seasons. They were underwatered, underfed, erratic covering and uncovering times (always at least 12 hours dark though), and absolutely some of the most stupefying smoke we have ever had. At school they said it was most likely due to the higher intensity of UV at our elevation and time of harvest which was early mid Aug, also the highest UV intensity. Just our .02

 

[grayarea]

grower controls ?

 

[Nomads Landing]

grower controls ?

haha, super baked brother... what we were meaning was: the growers ability to control the environmental conditions... sorry bout that... still super baked. We spend what seems like 90% of our time on environmental controls, as the sayings in our parts go along the lines of... "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes and see." or "Only 2 kinds of folks try and predict the weather here, fools and newcomers." Where we used to live all we had to do was keep the rain off and go to the river... lol ;)

 

[grayarea]

lol . me 2 . Im thinking about getting 20 600watters to use for supplemental lighting so i can speed up veg times in the spring and finish the slower strains better in the fall .

 

[Seamaiden]

You cannot beat the sun. Period. You can manipulate photoperiod, but if you're starting from seeds then you don't need to do this outside, IMO/IME. If you're talking about light depping, that's another thing entirely, but I'm not sure that you actually need to use that much wattage to manipulate growth phases. I've been using CFLs and other fluoros to manipulate growth phase, and they work even though it's relatively low wattage.

The plant photosynthesizes under the sun, and that's the best because it's the spectrum the plant evolved under. But to get it to stay in vegging if it's a clone, for example, then yeah, you'd wanna string some CFLs out this time of year to keep it in veg. You'd have to light dep as the days lengthen to keep it flowering.

Oh! I can't believe I forgot to link you to this tool. You didn't ask for it, but it's pertinent to the thread and anyone following along may find it useful.

BRB!

Ok, it's called the Daylight Explorer Tool. You should know your lat & longitude to get the best use out of it.

http://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/coordsmotion/daylighthoursexplorer.html

 

[caregiverken]

great post Sea

 

[Nomads Landing]

We are able to get the girls out in the big greenhouse on 4/15. We have poles in the corners of the beds, and a 26w cfl in a chicken brooder reflector. We then move the light from corner to corner once a day. Every 5th day the light is back where it started. We run one cfl per lady (Ladies are about 3' x 2 1/2' ) from sunset to 9:30 until 6/1 (we could stop around the 5/15, but for the extra insurance we don't). With our particular setup we can keep 18 ladies in veg using 468w in a 2000 sq ft greenhouse.

 

[grayarea]

I'm not sure that you actually need to use that much wattage to manipulate growth phases.

i like quick returns and the amount of heat i can get from that many lights. i used a 1k in my greenhouse last year and it was pretty bad ass to see the difference in growth rates . I have a tax id # and stuff so i can get the commercial rate/tier price on power b4 i fire them up . .would be for the more slow veggers and personal favorites. For production im thinking about doing a 680 plant light dep /sog in a 14x48 with no lights/heat .

 

[Baylife]

I'm stoked there's this much interest in this thread. Big props to @ftwendy for being so understanding and for teaching me the @persons name feature...

As far as the light dep I'm gunna post pics of my greenhouses once I'm done fine tuning them. I think I'm gunna put curtains inside and dep the sides kinda like a giant theater stage; which would entail dragging giant rolled pieces of black/white poly from the left to the right. The front and back of the greenhouses will be permanently blacked out (light enters from the top so the front and back aren't big deal) So basically it will be a 3 part dep: one for the top and one for each side.

I really wanna use forever flowering's breathable material but 1. It's gunna be $5000 per gh. And 2. I want to hold heat in during the late winter, early spring.

I'm gunna start a whole new thread devoted to this process which should serve as a great reference thread for anyone struggling with light dep. I've spent a lot of bread learning certain lessons and I would love for my fellow farmers to not waste the money/ time I have. Stay tuned!

 

[Baylife]

Wonder how long that stuff lasts for . Ive been tempted to get a full setup from the forever flowering people a few times but have only heard bad things about them falling apart and being hard to maintain.

I've felt the material and seen it in action and I must say its awesome. But just like subcool and his overpriced seeds these guys want bread likes there's an upcoming famine.

I would LOVE big boy greenhouses that dep themselves.....I would grow all day everyday outside and feel comfortable the whole time. Much respect to forever flowering for coming up with dep products.

 

[kolah]

If you have the money, go big. If ya don't have the money, you find ways to make things work. Necessity is the mother of invention.... so it is said. :)

I'll be popping my seeds in March, supp some bare minimum light to keep them vegging and hopefully get them into my greenhouse in late May or early June. That gives me 3 extra months of veg time to grow nice trees. I grow organically in soil and this year I'll be playing with some new mixes as I now have a few chickens and have been composting their poop...along with my horse manure and my own urine.

 

[juggernaut]

nice sea thanks

 

[Baylife]

lol . me 2 . Im thinking about getting 20 600watters to use for supplemental lighting so i can speed up veg times in the spring and finish the slower strains better in the fall .

I'm in the same boat as you. It won't be enough for me to prolong veg when the sky is grey here in a month or so. Even though this years strange as hell, I'm sure this can't last for long. I'm gunna put 600 maybe 1000 watt lights every 6-9 feet so that they will grow as well as veg. Granted they will be monstrous prior to entering the gh, I really want to yield over a pound per plant. I got pounds off lemon haze and Jack the Ripper last year and want to repeat this year for sure.

 

[Nomads Landing]

If you have the money, go big. If ya don't have the money, you find ways to make things work. Necessity is the mother of invention.... so it is said. :)

I'll be popping my seeds in March, supp some bare minimum light to keep them vegging and hopefully get them into my greenhouse in late May or early June. That gives me 3 extra months of veg time to grow nice trees. I grow organically in soil and this year I'll be playing with some new mixes as I now have a few chickens and have been composting their poop...along with my horse manure and my own urine.

Kola, we've been using chicken and horse for years, with juniper mulch super bomb, this year we added rabbits. Haven't used the urine deal, but studies rec, 2 parts water to part urine, ;)

 

[Baylife]

We have light depped every year, gravy... pm or mites has more to do with environmental and grower controls and conditions ie. air circulation and/or exhaust otherwise you'll get condensation build up on the inside of the blackout fabric. Some of the dankest shit we have ever smoked came from a ld grow of urkle. The same urkle we grew every year in our full seasons. They were underwatered, underfed, erratic covering and uncovering times (always at least 12 hours dark though), and absolutely some of the most stupefying smoke we have ever had. At school they said it was most likely due to the higher intensity of UV at our elevation and time of harvest which was early mid Aug, also the highest UV intensity. Just our .02

That's awesome nomad. And yes my light dep has also been the greenest, most dankest bud I've ever grown. And I also learned a lot about the flowering cycle and the marijuana plants resilience to light leak during their 12 hours of sleep. This year from week 2 on, I was in a constant struggle to fix the light leaks because black and white poly sucks I kept ripping giant portions almost on a daily basis. It's amazing how resilient these ladies are.