Back to the original subject of the thread, vertical growing techniques;
The current buildout underway is just two plants around a vertical thouie. Two trellis, 4' tall x 6.25' long, bent into a half circle four feet in diameter. Each section joins end to end with the other just like it and thus forms a circle around the bulb. The plants grow up out of their respective 27 gallon tub and onto each trellis at the bottom in the middle. The plan is to over veg the space and see what yield it might make.
On another thread I discuss in detail reworking my aeration system by throwing away the air pump. No, that's not a typo, I'm dumping my air pump and stones for a waterfall in each tub, and I've just completed a setup I'm happy with. One less system and attendant mess to worry about!
So, the growing surface area of my vertical cylinder of 4' x 4' dimensions is;
pi x diameter x height
3.14159 x 4 x 4 = close enough to 50 ft² not to be worth the quibble. By comparison, the total surface area of the trellis in my horizontal zone is the same- and that's lit by no less than four of the same thousand watt bulbs!
The light distribution is drastically better, too- the trellis has only a small set of footprints properly situated exactly the right distance from the bulb, but the cylinder boasts its ENTIRE inner surface area placed at the exact "goldilocks" distance.
I realize that growing two plants to cover a full fifty square feet of growing surface takes time, I'm working on a solution here, too. Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see how each of our approaches develop.