very interesting stuff, ttystikk. got to several veg stages part which touches on multiple photo periods, a subject I've been exploring lately. haven't read entire thread. will dig in some more. thx- glad u brought this one to the table.
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Read it and will need time to patch it to my neuro-net. any perspective on photo periods and growth stages? BTW I'm in total agreement w/ your perspective on au natural as applied to an indoor grow culture. i'm trying to learn from and emulate nature in the sense that I want to provide the plants w/ nature's optimum conditions during the unique growth stages that I can recognize, but if I'm doing it right, the plants should rarely have it so good in nature, other than the occasional "perfect year" out in a "perfect" forest patch that nature matched up w/ genetics for an optimum grow that expresses the same structure, flavor, potency, size and bag appeal that I am going for.
Good question, and deserving of a more complete answer than to just the specific question you're asking. The whole idea here is to divide up your growth stages into groups with the same number of plants in each one. Depending on the number of stages you use, you'll keep the plants in any given stage for anywhere between a week or two on up to four weeks, the more stages you use, the less time plants will spend in any given one of them. The next thing to coordinate- and it's not as easy as it sounds!- is to make sure you can move all the plants the same day. This allows you to take advantage of Henry Ford's big idea, namely, you bring the assembly line- that is, the product- to the workstation, instead of bringing the work station to the car.
An aside here for those who are car- obsessed, like me; The biggest difference between the Lamborghini Murcielago and the Gallardo isn't any of their components, and the price difference between them is not due to any difference in specification, rather it's the way they're made. The big Murc was built one at a time, with teams of lab coated (seriously, I saw pics!) technicians swarming around the chassis, bolting on parts and getting in each others' way.
The Gallardo, by contrast, was envisioned from the very beginning as Lamborghini's very first sports car built on a modern moving assembly line. Here, the chassis sits on a moving belt which carries the car past each workstation where a guy or two- still wearing labcoats- mounts the specified component. Twenty some-odd workstations later, and voila!- a supercar is born!
Small wonder, then why the baby Lambo was first offered to the public for a piddling $150k while big brother was selling for closer to $350k. No one can tell me that two extra cylinders and a few hard part numbers added up to that kind of coin, no, it was due to the efficiencies gained by building the car on a production line and driving down the time, effort and therefore the cost of building the cars.
The lesson here is the same one; if you build your batch of girls one at a time, you lose a lot of production efficiencies, which drive up your costs and drive down your throughput, and therefore limit your potential earnings.
If, on the other hand, you build many stages that are each customised for that particular stage of the plants' life cycle, not only will you get better results, but they'll be MUCH easier to replicate time and again, leading to bigger yields from the same square footage and inputs, lower costs and consistency improvements that all come from better control over oyur production process.
Think that with all this extra product, you'll have to sacrifice quality? NO WAY, brother- since you experience each stage of your plant's life cycle again and again, you have the opportunity to constantly stay on top of them and see them far more often than a single batch approach, leading to better results, not poorer ones. Which do you think is more manageable; one ten pound crop all at once, or two pounds every two weeks?
Now, to drill down to specifics; if your crop has an eight week blooming cycle, and you want to break your bloom cycle up into four stages, that comes out to two weeks a stage. Make sure all your veg stages take two weeks as well. Now, your freshly cut clones will be ready in two weeks, which will take the place of your rooted clones, which grew and are ready for peak veg, which will then see those go into the first phase of bloom, etc, etc.
I'd keep the lights on 24/7 for the clones and the rooted clones, and then start introducing some dark time for the peak veg, say 6 hours darkness. This will prepare the girls for the time when they begin to see 12 hours of darkness and so when they hit the bloomroom, they'll be ready!
If you're trying to grow fewer, larger plants, then add more stages to your veg. This gives them time to get big and you time to trim and train them to shape so that once they bud, they'll provide the maximum return on your valuable investment of time, effort, inputs and real estate.
I think that potentially the best way to utilize this concept is in the nutrients- if you're moving plants from one regime to another, especially in hydro, then you can fine tune the nutes in each stage. Progressively stronger veg nutes in each stage approaching the first bloom phase, then in the first stage of bloom they get not only bloom nutes but also bud initiators and so on. Each stage through the bloom cycle can have a specific mix, concentration of base nutes and a unique formula of additives tailored just for the plants at that stage.
Again, repeatability is key- since you're doing the same thing with the same strains over and over, you'll begin to see what works and what doesn't. You'll also get really good at noticing when things look off and be able to respond before things get out of hand. This is the key to consistency and repeatability- and those, as nearly any millionaire will tell you- are the keys to success!
