Thoughts on Grow Tents / Grow tent myths commonly found online

[vchaz]

You didn't mention do you have a inline filter so your filtering the incoming air from what your pulling from the outside in? Good way to introduce critters to your grow. If no filter you may want to consider it if you start to have critter issues...….... Peace

Right, there’s is a cloth/particle filter inside of my air ducts that pull in from the outside.

Also, to those who say that “oh you are just used to the smell”. I should point out I do not smoke very much at all. I’d say i smoke about a half ounce a month, if that. I only like to smoke before bed, or on the weekends if I have nothing to do. I’ve found that smoking during the day, or for the sake of smoking, is not for me. Not only does it fuck up my tolerance, but it keeps me on my ass or keeps me from focusing on the stuff I need to focus on. I work in IT, and have a hard time doing my work when stoned. I used to think that everything was better/easier when I was high (thought this when I was a teenager), but as an adult who has been on this earth a few decades, I disagree with that assumption now. Personally, I love the taste and smell more than anything. I prefer indicas because of my back pain, but my back pain usually only flares up at night. So needless to say, I don’t go through nugs nearly as quickly as I produce/receive them.

 

[vchaz]

Plants do most of their growing during the dark periods, sort of a reverse process of what they do during the day. They take O2 in during dark periods, although not nearly as much as they make during lighted periods. I'm not certain what processes happen during the lights off, but they are actively growing 24/7

I think you completely missed the point of my comment. I’ll just leave this link here. Plants rely on CO2 for photosynthesis. Wasn’t saying anything about O2.

Photosynthesis - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[MIMedGrower]

That is not correct. People have been in my apartment and cannot smell it at all. The only time I can smell it is when I open the bottom vents, before I have turned on the fans that blow into them. And I actually don’t smoke a lot. I smoke primarily for back pain relief and for help sleeping, so I mostly smoke at night. This means that during the day, there’s no smell from smoking and I’m not just “used to” the smell. I have neighbors that smoke in their units as well, and I work from home fairly often. Every time I leave my apartment and come back I can smell if my neighbors have smoked. The smell from their apartment sweeps into the hallway. But when I go to the store and come back, I can’t smell anything outside or inside of my apartment. I can’t even smell anything inside the tent. I have a second carbon filter/fan combo in the room that I am not even using, but at first thought I might need to use one inside of the tent and outside of the tent because of the positive pressure. Turned out that was not the case. The second one is also sometimes used for a 2x2.5 grow tent that rarely has plants in it because of its size, and mostly is for germinating / veg, etc. anyway, both of my inline fans and both of my carbon filters are rated for 495 cubic feet per minute and only one is inside the 5x5 grow tent, and that’s the one that gets turned on. It is certainly powerful enough to clean the air from the entire room, and it does. Even with the bottom vents open, there is very little air escaping because the air that does escape out of the two small bottom vents just comes right back after being sucked to the fans. Will get some pics tonight hopefully.

If the smell of a full flowering plant does not escape then you do not have positive pressure.

And if you had positive pressure blowing a fan at the vents like you are would not work. The pressure would work against the fan and blow smell everywhere.

If i turned my exhaust fans down too far the smell escaped. Not enough negative pressure and or air speed through the filter.

And like i said. With large enough intake the sides of a tent do not suck in noticibly.

 

[Jimster]

I think you completely missed the point of my comment. I’ll just leave this link here. Plants rely on CO2 for photosynthesis. Wasn’t saying anything about O2.

Photosynthesis - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Sorry, I was just commenting that the plant's energy cycle continues in the absence of light. You are correct that plants use CO2 for photosynthesis, but they also rely on O2 and CO2 for respiration and growth during light's out, when the energy that was created during photosynthesis is used. I was just commenting on the light/dark cycles and how it related to what the plant is doing during those periods.

 

[vchaz]

Jimster - You are correct, the plants energy cycle continues into the night. However, providing supplemental CO2 at night is pointless, because Cannabis can’t “store” CO2 in the night and use it during the day. Some plants can, but Cannabis isn’t one of them. Hopefully my first comment didn’t seem too condescending, and I should have included this information as it was pertinent.

And MIM, I still think you are both right and wrong about that. Not going to just say you are wrong about that. I mean context is everything, but positive pressure just means air is entering the tent faster than it can be removed. Whether or not the smell escapes in that case isn’t completely dependent on the pressure inside the tent, because the conditions outside of the tent are really the deciding factor. In my case, the air is not escaping the room that the tent is in. Air that makes it outside of the tent is almost immediately forced back inside the tent. Even with the bottom vents closed, my tent appears to have positive air pressure because of the strength of the box fan that I have running in there. It’s my moms birthday tonight, but I have some time to take a few vids if you are interested.

This is completely off topic, but one of the reasons I predict a lot of seasoned growers will struggle in the legal cannabis industry is because different factors predict success. When everything was all illegal, a major factor in economic success was risk. People needed to be willing to take the risk to reap the rewards. A lot of people did well in that economy, but in a market where there is no need to take risk there are other important factors to success. One of them is being able to use science, and apply empirical data to solve problems with cultivation such as using cost-benefit analysis to determine the most efficient inputs, having access to scientific labs for plant breeding where true breeding varietals can be created using the double haploid method rather than using backcrossing and inbreeding, etc, etc, etc. Definitely not saying I know it all, or even saying I am advanced or anything. I’m still learning, as I’ve only been doing this for less than a year. But I’ve done quite a bit of research, and this train of though was the genesis of me creating this thread. There is a lot of misinformation being propagated online. Some of it may have no positive or negative effects at all, but others may have + or - effects which are determined by a number of environmental factors which will undoubtedly vary depending on grow room design, climate control, geography for sun grown, etc. It is very interesting though to see how some science is applied, or misapplied, by cannabis cultivators. For instance, there’s a lot of hype surrounding VPD. A lot of people don’t really understand it very well (myself included, haven’t done a lot of research) and so it seems possible that a lot of people are just blinding using “new” cultivation techniques in non-controlled tests, and may even think they are having a positive impact when the positive impact could be caused by some other factor that the grower has failed to account for, which changed at or around the same time that VPD was implemented. Could be lighting changes, CO2 changes, etc.

One love

 

[Mr Bee]

One time about 15 years ago, I was sick and went to visit my Dr, who smoked. I walked into his office with a half an Oz of my buds in a small mason jar. I sat in the waiting room for about 5 minutes when he actually came out into the waiting room (I was the only patient there at the time) and told me to get that stinky shit out of the office, he could smell it in the back as soon as I walked in. I couldn't smell it, my wife didn't notice it, but the Dr said it smelled like skunk piss in the office and he told his staff thatmy dog was sprayed by a skunk and I got it on me. I never realized how much it can stink, especially Indica's!

Haha that happened to me only 3 months ago.i went into my dr,s and he,s like "fuck sakes your absolutely mingin o weed." I was fucking affronted.i didn't even have anything on me at all.
one time I was walking up to get the wee one from school and the cops drove past me and turned came back and stopped and they said they smelt the weed wen they drove past!cunts searched me and everything but I didn't have shit on me,I had just finished a spliff 2 secs before I left the house.cock suckin coppers.

 

[vchaz]

And

 

[vchaz]

MIM, I should have clarified. There’s probably a better way I could have articulated my point. Too much negative air pressure is a bad thing, and too much positive air pressure is a bad thing. Ideally we want equalized pressure, however I’ve personally experienced more problems with too much negative pressure than I have with a little bit of positive air pressure. Because of the placement of the fans next to the vents, the air that escapes is immediately recirculated back into the tent. So the air does not escape per se, but there is a constant air exchange cycle happening near the lower vents. Mainly because of how powerful those little fans I have there are. It wouldn’t work with a weaker fan. I wish I was better at AutoCAD, maybe I could diagram the airflow in my room and that would make it easier to understand.

Also, my video was too big to attach and I don’t want to upload it to YouTube. But I guess a better way of putting it is, not *all* tents with positive air pressure will have a smell leak, but it’s possible. It just depends on how the grower controls for the air that leaves the tent.

If you ever find yourself in the second city, maybe I can just show you. Lol

 

[JWM2]

How can you say you don’t grasp VPD and then go on to bash it? Most of us didn’t just pick up the hobby recently.

 

[vchaz]

How can you say you don’t grasp VPD and then go on to bash it? Most of us didn’t just pick up the hobby recently.

I’m not bashing VPD. I am saying most people in the cannabis world are misapplying it, or not actually doing a controlled scientific experiment to measure its effects. Of course, there are larger cultivators who are able to hire consultants who have lots of knowledge regarding implementing mob. There isn’t a lot of empirical data on VPD in different indoor growing environments, and the data that is easily accessible is often contradictory.. There is a lot of contradictory information on the internet, not just related to VPD but regarding cannabis in general. Most people just go to google and look at a chart, but not all the charts you find online are the same and not a lot of people using those charts actually understand the science behind VPD, which is required of you want to be running VPD in the most efficient way possible. I am by no means saying I have everything figured out, I am just sharing my observations. Once cannabis is legalized across the US, there will be a lot more research done in regards to optimizing the indoor growing environment for cannabis. But I haven’t seen any evidence suggest that hobbyist indoor cultivators are using it to its fullest potential, or even understanding the effects it is having in their grows.

Also, I’m not sure why you bring up experience. Does it matter how long you’ve been growing pot? Sure. But not all experience is equal. And not all people who have been growing pot for decades are going to survive legalization. I have a family member who has already bitten the dust.

 

[vchaz]

Also, just because I have only been growing cannabis for 1 year doesn’t mean that everyone who has been growing longer than me knows more than me, and it doesn’t mean that everyone who has been growing for less time than I have knows less than me. There is some knowledge that is specific to cannabis, but not everything. I’ve been growing peppers hydroponically for years. My family has been farming the same land since the 1850s. We have been doing no-till for almost 40 years now. So I am not new to agriculture or farming, I’ve grown up around it.

 

[oldskol4evr]

How can you say you don’t grasp VPD and then go on to bash it? Most of us didn’t just pick up the hobby recently.

esp you knew it was coming bro,hahahahaha

 

[MIMedGrower]

Also, just because I have only been growing cannabis for 1 year doesn’t mean that everyone who has been growing longer than me knows more than me, and it doesn’t mean that everyone who has been growing for less time than I have knows less than me. There is some knowledge that is specific to cannabis, but not everything. I’ve been growing peppers hydroponically for years. My family has been farming the same land since the 1850s. We have been doing no-till for almost 40 years now. So I am not new to agriculture or farming, I’ve grown up around it.

Lotta words and posts but you have not shared any knowledge.

 

[vchaz]

I would say 90% of the people on this forum have not shared any knowledge lol.

 

[vchaz]

Just a quick example of the type of the type of “knowledge” that people share which is wrong, but has little noticeable negative effects. People use far red lights to put the plants to sleep, but then advocate for folks to run them in the morning because “if far red puts the plants to sleep, it must aid in waking them up too”. Just because sunrises have red light doesn’t mean it wakes the plant up any more efficiently than than turning on grow lights.

 

[Jimster]

[QUOTE="vchaz, post: 2250578, member: 98670"

This is completely off topic, but one of the reasons I predict a lot of seasoned growers will struggle in the legal cannabis industry is because different factors predict success. When everything was all illegal, a major factor in economic success was risk.
[/QUOTE]
I think the biggest threat to the everyday grower is going to be Big Pharma. Once they get hold of some key patents they will use special interest group pressure to slowly squeeze the avg grower out of the business, other than very small, personal grows. That is sort of their pattern/process. Farmers currently are restricted from using certain strains of corn unless they pay license fees to monsters like Monsanto. Farmers can't grow their own seed stock without paying dues. The genetics are currently getting very homogenized with a million different, but similar, strains being created, while the original strains go away. Eventually Cannabis growers will follow the lead of heirloom tomato growers.

 

[vchaz]

I agree that Monsanto is going to be the biggest threat. They have the money to throw behind R&D and I think that once cannabis is legal across the US and across more markets, they will produce a homogeneous cannabis variety that is GMO and has genes for fungal resistance, pesticide resistance, drought resistence, etc.

There will always be a market for craft growers, but large scale farms are going to have issues. Especially as market conditions continue to degrade. For instance, we grow corn and soy beans. We have a lot of risk tolerance because of government aid for farmers, crop insurance, corn and soy future markets, etc. Cannabis farmers don't have that. Due to the huge drop in corn prices, pretty much everyone growing corn is getting USDA subsidies.

We grow monsanto round-up ready corn and soy on my farm, we pretty much don't have a choice. We do a 3 field rotation of corn and soy, switching which crop gets two fields every year. The soy is a legume so it fixes nitrogen out of the air, and allows us to spend less on fertilizer.

Our seed spend is ridiculous. We spend in the low 5 digits every year for seed.

 

[The Jewels]

I can’t even smell anything inside the tent.

Did the seed package say "cannabis" on it?

 

[vchaz]

Right now I’m growing Mr Nice Black Widow and Sensi Skunk #1. It really only smells if I turn off the carbon filter. Doesn’t matter if the tent is on or off, if that thing turns off it stinks after like 5 minutes throughout my entire apartment and into the hallway. With the carbon filter on, it doesn’t really seem to matter whether the tent is open or not. The smell is almost not even noticeable.


Night and day difference for sure. And like I mentioned previously, it’s because the carbon filters I am using are overkill for my space, and I run them on full power. One 495cfm inside a 5x5 tent and another outside of it. So just in that 8x9 room I have 990cfm, split across two online fans and two carbon filters.

I also tend to use a lot of candles and stuff, so there is competition to make it to my nose.