In Greenhouses How Many Square Ft Per Plant In Soil

[DoobieBro]

I’m going to ask a question I feel I should know the answer to but don’t.

As mentioned in my intro thread my family has a large CBD and Marijuana business. Recently we had to fire one of our growers and I have been asked to over see that grow. One of the first tasks I have to deal with is the building of a greenhouse for 200-300 plants. Until now it’s been an outdoor grow. How many square feet do we likely need. Should we have 8sqft per plant or more or less.

 

[4plant]

I guess it depends how long you're growing season is and how large pots you're planting in. I'm sure you've seen some Northern California greenhouses with one plant every 25 square feet. Try to reverse engineer your situation if you know how big your plants finish at the end of the year work backwards and decide how much room you need for each one.

 

[scubascrog]

dude nothing is growing in our off season I can tell you that. so you are building a greenhouse for next year? wouldn't you be planning your op based on how much land you have? a variation of 100 crops is like an extra 4 thousand square feet. build enough greenhouse to expand. and be able to walk around in it.

 

[CaliRooted]

You can grow In our off season, just gonna cost you a lot of extra money for sup lighting and keep the greenhouse warm. But without putting lights and a heat source your just wasting your time.

 

[DoobieBro]

dude nothing is growing in our off season I can tell you that. so you are building a greenhouse for next year? wouldn't you be planning your op based on how much land you have? a variation of 100 crops is like an extra 4 thousand square feet. build enough greenhouse to expand. and be able to walk around in it.

You can grow In our off season, just gonna cost you a lot of extra money for sup lighting and keep the greenhouse warm. But without putting lights and a heat source your just wasting your time.

We are going to be building an indoor grow and building the building to do it in. So in all honesty Greenhouse may have been not been the accurate term. We already have an indoor nursery space now we want to build an indoor space large enough to take the plants that are currently veg in temporary containers and move them into the permanent containers. You see in the past we have relied on others to do all of this for us. Now that I'm part of the company my son-in-law and his partner want me to oversee the grow operation at this one site.

We could have purchased or rented a warehouse, but that's not what we are choosing to do. The main reason they are bringing me into this is they know how passionate I am about medical marijuana and CBD and how committed I am to building our family business. You see I am already part of the sales and distribution team have built a large network of vendors and patients I work with directly.

So now I need to know how much space I need. Let's assume the pots will be 5 gallons Geo Pots and 200-300 plants growing in organic soil being brought to flower.

 

[DetGrnThumb]

8 sq ft is pretty tight. We're a touch over 16 sq ft per plant (4×4) in the greenhouses heavily trained and trellised with roughly 2 - 2 1/2 foot aisles between the rows. Plants typically see 24 days in their transplant pots (1 gal) before going into the final pots you can see in the pics (13 gal). We're also full Netafim fertigation and coco dtw

 

[scubascrog]

8 sq ft is pretty tight. We're a touch over 16 sq ft per plant (4×4) in the greenhouses heavily trained and trellised with roughly 2 - 2 1/2 foot aisles between the rows. Plants typically see 24 days in their transplant pots (1 gal) before going into the final pots you can see in the pics (13 gal). We're also full Netafim fertigation and coco dtwView attachment 838866 View attachment 838867

This guy is the thread jesus listen to him :)

 

[DetGrnThumb]

This guy is the thread jesus listen to him :)

I mean, I definitely wouldn't go that far, but I have helped design, build and operate my fair share of large greenhouses and indoor facilities as well. One of my very good friends and partners has one of the best lines I've ever heard when talking to someone about their projects. He says "I may not know everything, but I've spent many years and a substantial amount of money learning what not to do along the way." I always thought that was a good way to put it without sounding like a condescending jerk

 

[DoobieBro]

Good Morning Thread Jesus,

LOL Sorry I couldn't resist! I could not be thankful enough for your response. I very very much appreciate it.

 

[Kbye]

Hire a professional consultant.

 

[4plant]

300 plants÷24 plants per 4 by 8 table equals 12.5 tables. Each table is 32ft2 and you'll want to have 2 feet or so between tables so add 28ft2 per table= 28×13+32×13=780ft2 just for tables and some room to move around.

 

[DoobieBro]

300 plants÷24 plants per 4 by 8 table equals 12.5 tables. Each table is 32ft2 and you'll want to have 2 feet or so between tables so add 28ft2 per table= 28×13+32×13=780ft2 just for tables and some room to move around.

!

Dude Thank you SO VERY MUCH!
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I was just able to visit the plants for the first time the light period. They are in veging soil in and it turns out they are in the pretty bad shape they most assuredly have nute lock because the guy that has been taking car of them since the other person was fired has been using "hydro" ph numbers instead of soil. They are currently in fox farm. I told him no more nutes for right now. Also instead of the organic nutes they were supposed to receive they have been getting general hydroponics crap. The water is well water so at least they are not getting chlorine.

Another issue is the freaking lights are 2 high from the plants so they are growing too tall and spindly. Now I just learned that the owner of the property is running 600w ballasts with 1000w bulbs in the nursery.

 

[4plant]

Yikes , Well if your in southern Ontario ill stop building kitchens and come work with you.

 

[DoobieBro]

Yikes , Well if your in southern Ontario ill stop building kitchens and come work with you.

Much Appreciated but I'm in Northern California!

 

[4plant]

Oh well, with a climate like that you should check out hybrid greenhouse so you can get the benefits of free natural light but still control the climate and c02 .

 

[Jack og]

Well, here is what works for us.
Greenhouse
5 gals sea of green
10 gal scrog
30 gal 4x4 space
Yeilds
Strictly speaking in terms of volume
5gal sea of green yeilds better for a turn and burn scenarios .
Smaller pots more frequently fed/watered via irrigation systems
Larger pots same deal but frequency is lower, gal for gal, the quantity of feed remains constant but we like the idea of sea of green better.

 

[Jack og]

Pics

 

[DoobieBro]

Well it turns out the person who owns the property and is also responsible for water and feed missed watering for 2 days. Plus the lighting he installed in the nursery is too high and making the plants stretch to fast and too far. The plants looked in far better condition this morning after receiving two days of water.

Man, I very much appreciate all the replies! Today I went out and spent the morning aggressively topping the plants and we are going to start CalMag to hopefully strengthen the plants. Some more has changed apparently this grow is shrinking to 1/3rd the size I was originally told, but I will be taking on another that has been cared for by the previous person much better. Thankfully, all the infrastructure is already in place also.

As for the current one I'm working on these guys want to build a quick and easy greenhouse. Do any of you know of decent ones that don't cost an arm and a leg that we might be able to assemble with 4 people on a weekend? I was told that after this grow becomes more profitable we will build or have built a much better one. By the way I'm in the Sacramento Valley in California. If you know of someone who has a used one for sale please p.m.. The rest of my family is more concerned about turning a profit right now than almost anything.

Nevertheless, I'm feeling much better after seeing the vegging plants this morning!

 

[DetGrnThumb]

Well it turns out the person who owns the property and is also responsible for water and feed missed watering for 2 days. Plus the lighting he installed in the nursery is too high and making the plants stretch to fast and too far. The plants looked in far better condition this morning after receiving two days of water.

Man, I very much appreciate all the replies! Today I went out and spent the morning aggressively topping the plants and we are going to start CalMag to hopefully strengthen the plants. Some more has changed apparently this grow is shrinking to 1/3rd the size I was originally told, but I will be taking on another that has been cared for by the previous person much better. Thankfully, all the infrastructure is already in place also.

As for the current one I'm working on these guys want to build a quick and easy greenhouse. Do any of you know of decent ones that don't cost an arm and a leg that we might be able to assemble with 4 people on a weekend? I was told that after this grow becomes more profitable we will build or have built a much better one. By the way I'm in the Sacramento Valley in California. If you know of someone who has a used one for sale please p.m.. The rest of my family is more concerned about turning a profit right now than almost anything.

Nevertheless, I'm feeling much better after seeing the vegging plants this morning!

What kind of bulbs are you running in your fixtures. We run those 945 watt DE CMH units in Phantom fixtures. They work extremely well and definitely do not have failure rates anywhere near what people report (at least in our experience). Digilamp makes SE versions of these bulbs and Growers Choice makes the DE version that we use. Their DE 945's only come in 3100k. I prefer 4200k or a checkerboarded combo but beggars can't be choosers.
You're probably best off with some decent hoop houses until you get that money in to upgrade. At which point I'd highly recommend you look into Systems USA greenhouses. They're phenomenal. The only drawbacks to running the hoop houses is that they're not as easy to move air and humidity control is a little more intensive (you're basically growing in translucent garbage bags held up by a skeleton that allows for very little air exchange without significant modifications.) The motors for the blackout systems are also finicky and tend to get snagged rather frequently so you need to deal with those issues at first light and in the evening more often than standard systems for glass houses

 

[DetGrnThumb]

This is one of our Systems USA houses. Really a nice setup. Clean, no leaks, high quality materials. Definitely on the extremely short list of GH manufacturers that I would consider for a new project

Sorry about some of the doubles, I uploaded from my phone and my computer in this response and some of them doubled up on me. Got most of the pertinent parts in here like the Netafim fertigation system, the PIIAN odor neutralizing system, the irrigation/climate control/CO2 delivery systems as well as the overall structure of the facility with some drone shots as well