TrevorLahey's Low Budget Growing Part 4: "The Hunger Games"

Indoor Growing Growroom Diaries
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#982

Some updates of what’s going on with me.

We had this bout of nice weather for like 2 weeks, and I managed to push my remaining plants a little further.

To the point where the big 501st OG x Sour Bubble actually finished! I had written it off mid september because it was so immature and all the frost we had it should have all died. But it lived and while I probably lost 50% of its buds to rot, theres still well over a QP of small rock hard buds left from it. Smells kushy/diesel with a hint of limonene in there.

Both of my Agent K plants were almost complete losses, one had rot inside every single bud, the big one had some salvageable buds and they’re nice and frosty. They smell like idk really gross like puke or something. Must mean they are good!

The Glacier OG x Red Cherry Berry was also mostly a total loss, but was able to save 10-15g on it, and it was also mostly mature and really dank! Smells incredibly fruity and is overpowering the smell of the other buds its drying with. Sweet!

Still a few branches to pick through on one plant but the outdoor grow should be all wrapped up and behind me by tomorrow night. And it feels good.

I wanted to grow trees this year and I did that, I likely won’t grow this way next year as its really a waste of space for the total end yield. I’m also going to be planting in the ground and doing mostly organic methods next year. Dont want to battle food problems again.

Good news is it looks like my total yield will be close to 2lbs and that should get me through a couple months until my next harvest. Never had a surplus but it might actually happen in the near future.

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#983

Glad it wasn’t a total loss for you, 2 lbs SHOULD hold ya over for a few months lol, either that or you’re really Snoop Dog incognito lol

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#984

I grow for two, but our consumption is about 350g a month so 2lbs isnt really that much lol

And Snoop Dogg ain’t got nothing on me… haha

I’m looking to expand my indoor operation and invest some more into it as well, so I can grow more than I consume and always have a surplus, I’m so close to never having to buy again, I can taste victory.

Forward, march!

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#985

Its a nice feeling not to have to buy anything weed related. So bigger tents or just more of them ?

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#986

Another 2x2 or 2x4 I’m thinking and a light to go with it. Basically something to get my autos started and through the first 30 days, before moving them into the other tent to finish. Harvest potentially a pound every 30-40 days. My basement is really clean and open now and I want to turn it into a grow lab, basically. Over time maybe even add a third and fourth tent. It’s been a dream of mine since before I started growing small scale, to have multiple small tents all in a super clean environment with different things going on in each.

I should add that all of this has been made possible because I also quit smoking (almost 3 months now!) and am no longer buying weed. I’m taking those savings and putting them back into things I’m passionate about, like growing. I really wanna go all-in on this.

This will free up my closet for side projects and experiments. I’m not really happy with my closet, it’s in my bedroom and at high risk to be contaminated by pests and other issues that I could bring in at the end of a day. Could just be me being paranoid, but I’d rather not risk moving plants from my closet into my tent(s) so it will be isolated from the rest.

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#987

Quit smoking cigs? WAY TO GO!!!

I feel relieved for you that your outdoor grow is complete and you were able to finish off a few plants! That’s great!

A pound a month? You’d probably smoke Snoop under the table! Wow!

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#988

Yes sir, a couple 2x2’s for veg & a couple 2x4’s for flower would be awesome to run, or since you like your autos, four 2x4’s should definitely get you close to a pound per month if scroged, and stagger 2 tents every 30 or so days. I’d just grow them all out the same time as most are 70ish days.

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#989

Where do you figure I’d need four 2x4 tents?!?! A single 2x4 can output 500g with only 3-4 autos. Also tagging @KingGhidora as while he doesn’t post pics here, he is running a 2x4 with 3 autos and is hauling out a pound per run as well. Hell even this last 2x4 run was well over 300g and it had all sorts of issues and a poor light setup.

This is also a general rule too, that you should be getting about a pound per 8 square feet of grow area. A 4x4 tent should output 2lbs, a 2x4 should output 1lb, a 2x2 half pound. It doesn’t matter if autoflower or not, if you’re not getting at least pound per 8sqft, you’re wasting potential and need to rethink growing methods.

2x2 gets me a half pound almost every time, with 2 autos each producing a quarter pound. That’s without scrogging or any intervention, really, and usually less than 70 days, in some cases even less than 60 days finish time.

Four 2x4’s would be 4 pounds output!! Still wouldn’t mind four tents though, hehehe

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#990

I think I must be doing something wrong lol. I probably only get half that per 4 square ft.

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#991

Admittedly, I have never achieved that with photoperiods. I used to be lucky to get a pound from a 1000w HPS and 10 big bushy plants.

Also it gets tougher to achieve as you increase grow space (so to answer a question you had a couple posts up, I ALWAYS will prefer many small spaces as opposed to one big one)

But yeah I can say that with confidence, just because around the web it seems to be the case too. 2x2=half pound. I’ve done this multiple times with SILS in a 2x2 so it shouldn’t be that unreasonable to achieve with a proper light and extra TLC. This next round is seeing if I can achieve the same results with soil as I’ve had with coco coir, though I doubt i can to be honest. Coco grows big plants, I just need to run this experiment to see how much the size can be attributed the medium.

I even think it’s possible to achieve a pound in a 2x2 but that would require a lot of work and likely extra time.

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#992

I like elbow room, my flower room is better for me when its half empty, so I can move around without banging into lights and fans lol. I managed 1.25 lbs in my 4x4 using a vertical scrog, but thats the best I have managed.

The sils seem to working in the flower room so far the Tut will be the first plant to go full time under them, so I will be interested to see how much it produces compared to the HPS.

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#993

Yeah you need a dense canopy to achieve the .5lb per 4sqft. That’s why I like small spaces, easy to fill them up. I figure I would need 6 or 9 autos in a 4x4 to get 2lbs.

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#994

Storm blowing in, some glad my garden is harvested!!!

Wooohoo!

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#995

You know me… Just trollin along here.

350g/2 people 175g per person/30 days 5.8g a day per person… Joints most likely. How much of that is wasted in idle burn time? Do you even inhale? 6g per day basically, you might have quit smoking cigs, but you replaced them with joints haha. Get yourself a dugout or a one hitter, medicate as needed. I bet your consumption goes down.

Or… Ya know… Come back to reality bro!

Anyways, happy to see you doing well and on the up side of life brother. These lights really make a difference don’t they :wink:

Whatever you do, good luck in your endeavors!

Jelly. The nice troll today.

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#996

Haha yeah we smoke joints. Well, theres a legitimate reason why it has to be joints but I wont get into that here.

It used to be way worse, she used to have her own joint and I had my pipe, but I caved and gave up pipes and bongs and the fun stuff to cut down on overall consumption and just share joints with her. Currently we are smoking 2-3 joints per hour. Snoop and Willie ain’t got shit on us!

Thanks for stopping by good to see you @Jellypowered , I havent even put plants under these lights yet, my above numbers were from my various SIL rigs! Lol I can still tell the strips are an upgrade, though, much more even and dense coverage, and measure as 20% brighter than my sils in the light meter app.

Looking forward to getting this next round up and going!

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#997

This still your preferred light set?
I am planning two more splitters and hoping to flower under SILs.

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#998

If you can find them, You can skip mixing as many bulb types and just find a dedicated 3500k SIL. More even distribution of spectrum and 3500k is kind of the catch all :slight_smile:

Edit: It really comes down to whats available to you, or how long you are willing to wait for said bulbs to be delivered. Any SIL over 11-13w is going to put out a lot of heat in the driver aspect, 8-11w is the perfect balance of output and heat. In my cabs in the past I leaned heavily toward the blue end of the spectrum to keep node spacing and overall plant size down.

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#999

Yep. That particular setup in my 2x2 cabinet produced 200g+ a few times before I retired the cabinet. It currently is installed in my 2.5x2.5 closet but I havent done a full run on it in a few months.

And yeah I agree with @Jellypowered just stick to the lower end of the spectrum, theres plenty of 3000k bulbs out there that would be perfect although I’ve not seen any 3500k I’m sure they’re available.

Of course I would recommend the bridgelux strips over the SILs if starting from scratch but if extending an additional system SILs are still a viable option, IMO.

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#1000

Lights just went off 5 minutes ago for 10 seconds, real windy here, and the rain hasn’t stopped coming down hard since 10am. I was going to do my grocery shopping but thought fuck that lol. Lights should be here this afternoon as well if they don’t get delayed, they only have to come from Dartmouth.

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#1001

Shit son you better teach me how to grow then lol, I come nowhere close to that, especially if I grew autos

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