GreenPeen

I'm hoping of starting up a large scale SOG in the near future but would like a little help! General info:
I'll be using a 4'³ frame that I have made with mylar type plastic on the inside. The frame is in half i.e. an L shape which goes in the corner of my roommaking access to the garden easy. I'll be using a 400W HPS an although this is only provides ~2800 lumens per ft² I think it should be adequate as most of the plants will be directly under the light. I've got 16 x 3 gallon buckets (1 for each ft²) with a soil, perlite vermiculite mix! I'll be using IONIC GROW fert for veg + dried blood and IONIC BLOOM fert for flowering. Does this sound concievable??
+ am hoping for around 1oz per plant?? Does this sound about right? All plants will be started from seed prob. as my current plant (if female, just put into flowering)has yellowing leaves below most of the lower growth tips - so cloning may be no-go. Also does it sound realistic to expect harvest after 5 months from seedlings??
Thanks very much if anyone can help??

P.S. GreenPeen will be known as ShottyKid from now on (password forgotten and won't send to my email address)

TonDerudesKa

Sounds like you have a pretty nice setup going there.

Should work just fine. A couple of points tho....

Light level. Light is very important. It will directly affect your yield. 2800 lumes sq.ft. is just above the minimum required for growing. So...I am not sure about an oz. a plant.

Ferts and nutes sound ok. Try adding some worm castings to your soil mix. The plants LOVE the stuff.

Since you are trying for a sog.....the whole point is a quick harvest of a lot of small plants. 5 months is not a quick harvest.....should be harvesting much sooner than that.

cy

GreenPeen

1. What sort of time period do you suggest for a decent but quickish yield??

2. About the light situation, I was planning on getting a mercury blended lamp as well (250W) but I've read that they are pretty naff in comparison to HPS and MH. What would you suggest as I could go for 600W HPS for main flowering area, or maybe 400W HPS but with a Son-t-agro as the're supposed to give out around 53K instead of 45K which would mean around 3312 lumen per ft². Also I'm also going to be using a seedling/vegging closet which is about 1' deep 2' wide and 4' high. Would a small 70-150W MH or HPS be okay?? But I think they are quite hard to get over in England. So flo's might have to be the answer.

3. Nutes are worm castings good for all round micro nutrients Zn,Fe,Mn,Mo etc? Or do I need a supplement too!

Thanks for your help Cajun.

GreenPeen

Sorry to post a bazzillion Q's but:

I've just ordered some Big Bud X Northern Lights. Would they work quite well with this SOG technique? If not would 16 plants grow to 3-4' high without being too cramped (ie 1'² each). Thanks, GreenPeen

TonDerudesKa

1. sog...fast growth. quick harvest. Flower early like at 6-7". Finish around 18-20" Total time- 2 months.

2. Forget any Mercury lamp...you heard right...they arent good for growing. What is your grow space size? Is it...4 x 4 x4? If so....16 sq.ft.....yes the 600 watt would serve you better. Better buds and yield. the 150 would be good for the seedling closet. there are Hydro shops all over the UK that sell lights...also check out ebay...and some of the hydro stores online. If you go flo's you will need a LOT of them. with flos you need a min. of 150 watts s.f. and 250 would be much better. Thats 2400 WATTS of flo. a 4 foot flo is....40 watts....you would need 60!! of the flo bulbs to get the min light level....see why hps is ultimately cheaper and more cost efficient in the long run.!!!

3.worm castings are EXCELLENT source of micro nutes,,but some supplements may be neccessary.

Finally....Northern lights should work ok for SOG...=not sure of the big bud . Look in the strain bases for quick maturing strains.

Knowledge is Power
cy

GreenPeen

Thanks for the help Cajun! Yeah I heard that the mercuries were crap so I'll try and go for a smaller HPS - some much more hassle with the Flo's. The seeds are big bud crossed with northern lights I think, but I'll let you know how i get on! Try and Start up a grow diary, and then post in a couple of months!! See ya

FaNDaNGo

it looks to me like Philips makes a retrofit HPS lamp that will plug into an MV ballast... they are under the Retro Lux section on this page, I have no idea what they cost but they may be a work around for all the people who have MV light/ballasts, tho they might be more expensive than buying and hps in the 1st place

http://www.lighting.philips.com/nam/...d/p2220b.shtml

TonDerudesKa

http://www.hempcultivation.com/secti...ticle&artid=33

Here is a link to our grow guide for SOG in case you haven't read it. Seed to harvest may take a little longer than I previously stated.

Good luck....keep us posted!
cy

apollo 11

Hi Guys, nice thread going here.

Had a question for cajunyank... I read in one of your above posts that when using florescents one should use 150 - 250 Watts of floros per sq ft. I am seriously considering using floros for my 2nd grow operation and I had never heard this before. I normally wouldn't bother to post a reply, but I respect your knowledge and opinion and was wondering if there is any other info I can read over that talks about the 150-250 Watt / sq ft thing, since this could obviously effect my setup.

I may be wrong here, but wouldn't light rules go by lumens rather than watts? For instance I could put 12 54Watt T5 floros on a 3' x 4' piece of maylar covered plywood. Each bulb has the diameter of a dime, but puts out 5000 lumens for a total of 60,000 lumens covering a 12 sq ft area. That breaks down to 5000 lumens per sq ft, which is twice the recommended growing level. Floros run much cooler than HID too, so added advantages would be that we could put the lights much closer to the plants, less plant burning, less venting needed, less overall space needed, and they have a low thermal heat index (which can be important defense against any heat seeking helicopters). I think with the HO floros that the lumens/wattage is about the same as HID lighting... HID is 88-110 lumens/watt and the HO floros I mentioned above are 92 lumens/watt. I think floro setups are less expensive than HID setups too.

I don't have anything against HID lighting, I use it myself in my main grow operation, but it seems like floros could be a feasible alternative to HID for GreenPeen (if I'm correct about any of the above views). If it goes by lumens, then why should we worry about the watts/sq ft?

But if it is true that one should calculate 150-250 watts/sq ft with floros, then I would like to know where I can get more info on how to do this.

Thanks for your help!

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~ apollo 11
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TonDerudesKa

Watts is just another way to figure out your lighting requirements.
The watts will fall right in line with the number of lumens or footcandles needed.

Say...you had 4 40 watts flos. those bulbs are generally around 3200 lumens ea. +/-. 12800 lumens and 160 watts. If your grow space was......4 sq.ft........You would have 3200 lumes per sq.ft.....a little above the minumum required. and 160 watts...same thing...little above min.

Did I confuse you thoroughly?
cy