Hey AFN! i'm kicking off my third grow next week and was wandering whats the best way to hit gram per watt? Im torn between buying 6x 6lt airpots or 4x 8lt fabric pots. Ill be growing royal cheese and blue cheese, possibly a GWK.
Ive updated my 400w hps to a 250w QB.
I'm using a 80cmx80cmx160cm
Biobizz lightmix + perlite
5" rhino fan + cf
4" intake
1 or 2 oscillating monkey jarden fans. (Maybe)
Last grow i had 3x 8lt pots and hit about 4 1/2 oz but as it was the hottest summer ever and my plants was stressed to fuck, i did alright... but i reckon i could fit an extra 8lt pot in there OR given the airpot size (20cm wide) i could fit 6x 6lt airpots in there... in my mind id aim for about 1- 1 1/2 oz per pot but that might be wishful thinking... or average 2oz per pot for the fabric.. im torn between the 2 and i dont know which would be more ideal?? Any input please i just wanna get as close to gram per watt as i can now ive spent on qb.
there are plenty of variables that would effect your yield and trying to hit a gram per watt. The obvious one is getting your environment in check and on point (look into the VPD chart for getting nerdy and finding that 5% extra)... You got the right light (you should be aiming for 1.5g per watt)... also how are you growing? are you utilizing the the square footage with topping, training, scrog , LST etc. All these things really can effect yield in a big way. Plant count does matter but not as much as how you use your space. Genetics is also very very important, if it's a relative of the cookies family you know your yield will be less but if its a blueberry variety you got good chance of a real high yield. But with auto's I always find it a cross fingers that you get a big plant. I've see huge differences between phenotypes from the same strain than to even think about trying to calculate an average of what you might yield due to your space is impossible. It never works out what you need... now with photoperiods its easy to get what you want down to nearest the gram with clones.
One of the most important things for when growing in soil that will effect yield is when you water them. Time that watering spot on and you will see that extra % you are looking for on yield. For maximum effect you want to be watering each pot at the time that plants wants to drink. Even if you are watering them at different times through the day (this is why I grow in coco). The pot lift method is the best for this, you want the plants to dry out good in soil. To a point that the pot is super light and if you look at the leaves they will be slightly pointing down at the tips. You don't wan them drooping that would be taking them to far and maybe damage the plant but if you can time that window you will see a huge difference... When in soil you want that pot to be light to lift, if in coco about 50% dry (coco can act very different from soil and has its own rules)... want to know about how I grow in coco come over to the garden, I'm all about the yield and growing the best of the best.
Are you air rating your water ? that will give you an extra few %
Air pruning pots will also get you that extra few % ... I find the cloth pots to work best
Pot size... more root, more fruit as the saying go's... but... if you are in air pruning pots you can trick your plant into thinking its in a larger pot. That why I use them, I grow in 8ltr cloth pots.... I grew a blueberry (it in the strain review section) in 6ltr of coco (air pot) and got near on 7oz out of the plant, she was huge and took over half the tent.
I used to grow in a 80x80x160 when I first stared out and my best yield was near on 18oz with 3 plants, soil, bio bizz nutes, 25ltr pots with lst training. About 450w (true draw) of burple Mars LED... My 3rd grow.
The trick to hitting the yields you want is building a system for your space and tweaking it each grow. Each grow I increase by an Oz easy and I know I'm still not near the maximum I can get our of my spaces.
Also start looking into microbes, since adding them into my system i have smashed it out the park to far and in to the next field... gone and out grown my tents....again. I've had to rebuild one of my spaces last week to accommodate the extra growth.
