My pleasure. If you have limited height, then I’d say it depends on the kind of cultivars you prefer.
If it’s indica/mostly indica with little stretch, go SOG and plant a lot of them. If it’s more sativa/mostly sativa, go SCROG with less plant and train them.
Best yield per square foot is by using a perpetual flowering chamber.
This means “sea of green”, aka SOG, of alot of plants in small containers.
IMO: My ideal setup would be similar to “Dr.BudGreengenes” over on icmag. He uses a 24" x14" flower cabinet, with 210w of flourescent bulbs, (90w per sqft)
He uses 20oz sodabottles for pots.
Every week, 3 clones go in, 9 weeks later the 3 are done(27 plants in a full cab).
9 weeks you harvest 21gr (plant’s average)*27 plants=567gr of dry bud. Over a lb from 210w of CFL in two months, at 2,7gr/w.
This style requires “mother” plants you keep in a seperate veg cab, you clip off a few branches, and root them making a clone. The clones will always grow the same as eachother, so if you find the correct starting size: the plant goes in 3" tall, 9 weeks later it should finish just under the lights.
Id reccomend AK47 for an easy to work with strain, that is inexpensive to find, grows quickly, (usually 8week) and can still pack a punch.
Drbudgeenhenes was a great inspiration, though he never actually showed a full harvest from what I remember, all his yields were calculated on whatever he yielded off his last row of plants, where if one were to give those plants more space than the other plants then calculate estimated yields off how many containers one can fit in a space, it then gives a very skewed yield estimate, and he was using CFLs so just don’t take what was shown at face value cause a bunch wasn’t shown or full space harvests fully shown, and that’s coming from someone who emulated him for a good while and has been growing micro for a good while with some harvests being in that 2+g/w range.
As for @smithis take a look around the forums on people who grow in small spaces and take inspiration from what they are doing . See what works for them and go from there, also get a grow journal going.
It’s the same principles in a big space or small, get the basics down pat and that’s where 80% of your success will come from. Good genetics, good water, good medium, good nutrients, good light, good VPD. Don’t fall into the “there must be a trick/nutrient/secret passage” mindset trap when growing. Focus on getting the essentials right, consistently, and your plants will reflect your commitment through health, vigor, and yield.
You can somewhat overcome the strain specific nutrient requirement issue by using a healthy living soil. If you can build the soil using granular and solid amendments, your microbes will buffer how much is available to the plants at one time. When using salt based fertilizers, too much nutrients can make the soil hot. The down side to solid amendments is you have a 10-14 day lag time before the nutrients can breakdown and become available.
You can get great results both ways, it just comes down to your preference in the end!