I am using a 4 Pod flood and drain system and i want to know what people think is the best way to get maximum yield from my efforts.

Do i grow 16 single stem plants to about 4ft high max. How much could this yield per plant? Would they all get nough light from a 400W HPS? The idea would be to try to get them to flower right up the main stem from pebbles to the growing tip and be really thick. Is this feasible?

or

Do i grow 4 big and busy plants, 1 per pod. How much could this yield per plant?
I grew 2 large plants there weren't trimmed at all before and the bottoms of the plant took another 2 weeks to finish after the top was cropped. This also means veging for longer.

So which was would be more likely to yield more as a total yield?

I've tried planting 2 plants per pot in a flood and drain system but find 1 plant per pot is better. They say u can put up to 3 in each pot but they just end up vie-ing for position and u end up losing some or they dont produce much cos no light getting to them, theres jus not enough room. I tried wth Indicas (Hash Plant) and it wasnt worth it but Sativas may be better as they can entwine round each other and arent as prone to mould. Personally I'd stick to one per pot.

Thanks Perv,

For my last grew i grew 3 per pot but ended up with only 2 after all the males were removed. I grew these to mature plants in veg and got a total of 8 oz from both plants at harvest.

My line of thinking is this time to grow more plants but keep the branches prooned to keep them single stemmed. Still grow them tall ie 2ft before flowering so i end up with plants about 4-5ft tall. I am thinking that this will give me more yield and variety than 4 fully bushed plants grown to 2ft before flowering.

Anyone else?

Yeah, being unable to sex the plants before getting them into the pods is a real pain. I did that my first grow, cracked 10 seeds, had two pods with 3 each in them, the other two pods with 2 each. Ended up with one empty pod, two pods of two and a pod of one. Complete pain in the ass. Without a shadow of a doubt, the plant on its own was the healthiest.

So you're thinking of a SOG-style jobby in a flood and drain? I reckon you could do it, but probably not to best effect with the individual pods. More likely to get results of a flood and drain pan, instead of pods, something like this. The first pic there I think gives you an idea of how crowded it will all be.

Having said that, let us know if you go ahead with it, I'll be well interested! Have you got any pics of the two plants per pod grow you mention?

I think Edgeworth is right, this would work a lot better in a pan system as theres just not enough room in a pot for 2 decent root sysems. Pruning off the branches and leaving single stemmed plants will be a help but I still think you are going to have space issues as leaves grow out quide wide from stem sometimes and you cant really remove these without hurting the plant. But....I'd say give it a go anyway mate. No one gets anywhere without trying. You could find its a brilliant prducer but I reckon you have a lot of work ahead of you trying to keep them under control.

hey, you've got four pods, try a little experiment if you're not sure. whack four ladies in one pot, three in another, two in another, one in the last. prune them as you say, see if it works.

let us know, its an interesting idea...

personally, i'm hoping that scrog will increase my yields. this is quite different to what you're talking about fetish, cos the veg times are a lot longer, where your idea doesn't have that drawback.

scrog? whats that? not some cheap form of booze?

How long do you veg for Edge? I do 2 weeks veg then 8-9 bloom but my plants (sativas) get nearly 2 metres tall so will go down to 1 weeks veg now, maybe 10 days max. when growing indicas I get a nice 3-4 foot high plant

Hey Perv

Check out my grow diary mate, link in my sig, info in there. A good example of a scrog is here.

So far, this grow is 4 weeks in veg since germination, and I think they've got at least another two to go before flower, possibly even double that. But the yield should make up for it...

I'm still very new to all this, and maybe scrogging is a step too early, but hey, you've gotta practice before you can expect 2g/W, right?!

I am gonna have to have an in depth look at that mate. It looks interesting. My only concern is that my process takes 10 weeks in total whereas that one takes 14-16 weeks. so for every 2 grows in Scrog I can get 3 done my way. Obviously you'll get a bigger yield with scrog but will that outweigh the extra crop? 5 crops per year vs 3 crops per year, I think it will be close in yield. I think the weed quality will be better in the scrog method but I get to learn more as learning from an extra crop. swings and roundabouts.....

"I'm still very new to all this, and maybe scrogging is a step too early, but hey, you've gotta practice before you can expect 2g/W, right?! "

Too true mate, tips and tricks from others hlp but you only really learn by growing yourself. I think you've taken the harder but more rewarding method of heading headfirst in, I salute you. I am on my 15th crop (not counting my last one as it was a near total failure due to temps) and am a bit stuck in my ways with growing so like to suss it out completely b4hand, I'm a bit of a poof like that.

I will start a diary into my next crop, Shiva, and we can compare things. should be good mate

Yeah [attachmentid=129858]
Here is one of them.

I am worried about how crowded it will be but I think i am going to give it a try with 3 plants per pod and grow large single stem plants removing any large side growths and just keeping the fan leaves and the upward stems.
I'll let you know how it compares, in about 3 months time when i harvest them, to the 8oz i just got from the two bushy plants.
I just keen to optimse my growing for my grow space and thus yield as much as i possibly can each time. That way i can take a break every now and agin from growing without have to worry about running out.

keep us posted mate, with our combined knowlege I'm sure we can work out the best way. By the way are your flood and drain sysems made by esoterics? just wondeing if u have the same as me but guess they're all the same anyway

Yeah, it sounds like we've all got the same system, mine's from the guys in guildford too.

Let us know how it goes fetish, I'm intrigued by the idea of 8oz from two plants. I'm doing maths in my head as we speak, and the numbers are quite interesting!

As for these systems, what are your general impressions? How many grows have you done in them? I'm only on my second, and am already thinking of modifying the system to make it better. Would love to hear other users' experiences and thoughts...

I used to grow in soil but am much happier with the esoterics one as its a faster growth rate and less hassle. watering plants everyday gets a chore, I check my tank once every 3 days and if pumps get stuck on or fail its all hunky dorey, have had cats knock my pumps on b4....little furry gits....

I think I am on my 8th grow with this system. Done Hash Plant (3 times), Mazar, Shiva (twice) and White Rhino. They say u need to change the pebbles regularly as they build up salts but I havent noticed any less production. I have customised my one, it was 24 pods but now 15 and they dont sit on the nutrient tank as this meant I couldnt clean the tank during growing. On the whole I think its superb and i wont change to anything else. would try aeroponics but I try to save electricity and the food and drain is the cheaper with less risks.

I would be very keen to know how you've done that perv, exactly what I want to do. Having the res under the system is a pain. Not only does it increase your overall height, which is bad, but it makes the whole thing more clumsy to maintain.

Got any pics?

Do you find the same thing fetish?

Edge

cos I had a 24 pot system I got 24 pots plus 12 to stand on, total 36 pots, meaning i can sit 16 pots on other pots. The pots have to be higher than the tank for gravity to work so no getting out of losing the height unfortunately but having your tank free is a must. As I had a bigger sysem I had enough tubes to customise my own ring, oo-er. I did have 2 tubes coming off of the side of the lower level, with the regulators, going into the tank but I find the water drains fine just usng the 2 tubes that my pumps are on, the water just drains back thru them when they switch off. so I have 2 tubes wth pumps on going to the lower levels and 3 tubes coming into tank from the over flow pipes on the higher level, very simple. Its 3 rows of 5 pots which link together at each end, cant describe so will have to photo it but u cant see my growroom for weed at the moment, its embarasing, so over grown its everywhere and I've taken the fuk it and see approach......

Yep i have the same one, only the 4 pod but the detacha bit is really usefull for me.



Do you not get 4oz per plant Edgeworth? If so what do you get and when do you flower them and how many do you flower in each pod?
I am on my second grow as well mate. I find the system is great and requires very little maintence, i do find that it is best for me to dump the nutes and mix a fresh batch every 2-3weeks though. That's a simple enough job with a length of hose though. I took the roots out of 1 per which had 3 plants grown to 3ft high that were males and i had to cut out the clay pebbles as the root mass was massive. Which is also why i think that i could get 3 per pod flowering. The thing that i am most worried about is that there will be enough light for all of them.

Sorry mate, its friday night and I've just sparked up. This made sense up til we got to your ring and tubes! Believe me, I am well versed in fuk it and see, and there can hardly be much wrong with a growroom of weed! I'll have to come back and read it later...

I was kind of thinking of trying to reduce the height, by having the drain pumped back to the res, which is beside the system. I think you would have to have some sort of res under the pods, but I'm hoping it can be reduced considerably. It also obviously makes the res easier to maintain.


I reckon I should have upgraded to the detacha pod system from the word go. It must make things easier.


Mate, you got me there. From five plants, I only got 8oz. To be honest, I was chuffed with that right up til now. Now I think I can only get better! To be honest, they didn't have the easiest life. They were stretched, moved, frozen, damp, burnt, topped, burnt, frozen again, burnt again, topped again, moved again, welted, wet and finally burnt (day before harvest, can you believe that?) before I got my yield. "No, honestly, listen to me, I'm really good at this, take my advice, its golddust."
I stuffed up the number of plants in each pod. Ended up with five plants from 10 seeds, two in two pods, one another pod, and an empty pod. Got my 50%, but would have preferred a slightly different spread, if you know what I mean...
They were flowered too late, over a foot tall, and they were leggy. When they finished, after 8 or 9 weeks flower, they were at least six foot. Except the one on its own, it was a lovely 5 foot. Thats whats forming the basis of my answers to your idea of growing multiple plants per pod. I can't believe you did that well at it, when mine reacted so badly. I'm hoping it was the strain I chose, Wonderberry, a sort of copy of Blueberry or something. Cos if you can do it that way, then there's a lot of weed to be grown in a very quick time.


Yep, I've just got the hang of rapid emptying and refilling of the res (as rapid as possible anyway, its in the attic and there's no water up there...). I found the seperation of the roots and the pebbles a complete pain in the ass, a royal nightmare. I flushed it with H2O2 for 24 hours in an attempt to dissolve them, but that wasn't so successful. I've got the most of it out, lets hope its enough!

The light you can increase. There are heat issues, but you can figure them out. Its the growing space in the bucket thats the issue, and the competition between the plants. Do it mate, if it worked the first time, it'll do again, especially as you know infinity times more than you did this stage last grow, right?

Hey, alternatively, and this is a bit off the wall, but what about increasing the size of the buckets? Theoretically if you got new bigger buckets, plumbed them up, you would have more growing room. You might get res size problems, and I don't know if your grow room is big enough, but it would work. What do you think?

Stoned Edge

I am out at the monent, have an oz of Jack Flash winging its way to me tonight though, should be here about 10ish, I shall roast until then!!!! No point me trying to explain without pics, I dont even undersand myself mate....

"I was kind of thinking of trying to reduce the height, by having the drain pumped back to the res, which is beside the system. I think you would have to have some sort of res under the pods, but I'm hoping it can be reduced considerably. It also obviously makes the res easier to maintain."

I think this will complicate things too much, the simpler it is the less can go wrong. I think we need to think about what were growing far more. I've tried both sativa dominant and indica dominant now and have to say the indicas come out better as they dont grow up so quick. with Sativas they just grow up too fast in our systems and u end up having to bend and cut the tops so much its gotta be detrimental to the plant. Before I said fuk it to my grow I was bendng at least 6 heads per light over each day, sometimes up to 12. eventually it got to the point where I couldnt bend them down anymore as there was nowhere to bend them to, just chocca with growth and I dont like chopping tops off once white hairs show thru.

I have a 2 pod detacha system and am glad I didnt spend the extra money on the 24 pod detacha system. I dont find I need to remove the plants from the pots during growing so defeats the object of it. I clean my whole system including pipes between each grow so it would all have to be dismantled anyway. Ah just thought, u coul clean your tank if u had the detacha pod but risk damaging the plants moving them and youre bound to break roots taking the pot out...

4oz per plant? no I dont get that, max so far is 2 and a 1/4 oz per plant but whole process is finished in 10 weeks, very quick. How long did it take toget those buggers so big mate? Also with buds that big you risk getting bud rot more, I hate bud rot, weed wth leprosy.....

about the roots when cleaning your pebbles, during the grow I use Cannazym which breaks down dead roots so whatevers left after I cleaned them gets dissolved anyway in the grow. Theres SensiZym which is another similar product but havent used it.

About increasing the size of pots, I think you'd be better off going to the growing in one big container rather than pots as said earlier. much less hassle and more room.

I moved mine when i had chopped all the males to get the most light to both plants.

I started from seed and from the very start to the final chop it was about 17weeks. No signs of budrot on mine mate and it tastes and smoke lurvley.... It was a long time but they were both really bushy and in hindsight i would have removed the lower side brances as these took and extra 3 weeks to finish and hope to get a thicker denser cola.
What do you guys think?

doing it that way, could you take off the biggest top buds and grow the rest for 2-3 weeks to make them bigger? You may get even more out of the plant that way. sounds good what youre doing though.

I grow from clones usually so no need to sex them and u get more uniform growth too making life a bit easier. I havent got the best ventilation so budrot can be a problem for me so better to grow them the way I am til thats sorted.

Yeah, thats always the catch, isn't it? I am a bit of a fiddler though, always looking to make things a little better...just have to make sure I don't get too clever for myself and ruin my crop/grow room/loft/roof!!! We can definately do very well using indicas. But I think I would prefer not to be limited and be able to try any plant I wanted.


Cheers, I have made a right pigs ear out of this, needed someone to tell me how to do it...


Yep, prob.

3 weeks seems like a long time. Guess it depends on how much you get off them, but I'd be tempted to be able to do one harvest, and immediately get the next crop on the go. What kind of percentage of the overall yield do you think you get off the side branches three weeks later?

Hi Edgeworth sorry mate i have been offline.

I have just checked my spreadsheet and here are the figures. These are all dired figures at between 15% and 20% of original harvested weight.
1st harvest 2nd harvest 3rd Harvest
Plant A: 25.4g 91g 75g
Plant B: 5.1g 65g 30g

Plant A total: 191.4g = 6.75 oz
Plant B total: 100.1g = 3.53 oz

That's over 10oz for two plants, not bad for my first grow wouldn't you say?

There was a week between harvest 1 and harvest 2 and 2 weeks betweek harvest 2 and harvest 3.

I only harvested each bud when it was ripe and when i removed the tops buds i then lowered the light to about 8" from the highest bud.

Hmm, yeah, thats really interesting. I would never have thought you would get so much more from the second and third harvests than the first. And were these two plants in the same pod? Looks that way from the data, with one plant almost dominating the other.

And that is a damn good yield mate, you can be proud of that for sure! I think I'm going to have to pay closer attention to when the plants are ripe and do a staged harvest like you did.

What have you decided to do about the multiple plants per pot grow? You going to give it another go?

Cheers for the data mate,

Edge

The first harvest was only the top buds that were ripe. The 2nd harvest was about 1/2 of both plants then i lowered the light and ripened the bottom half, they were only being fed ph adjusted water from 3 weeks before the first harvest right throught to the end.

No both plants were in their own pods with 2 3" cubes and roots from 2 chopped males in with each of them.

I have decided to give it a go and have transplanted all of the plants into the pods. I have got 3 mazar in one pod, 3 magic bud in another, 3 Blueberry in another and in the last i will try some younger plants 2 mazar and 2 magic bud. This way i will see the difference between three and four plants per pod and the difference in yield due to flowering younger plants. They will only be thrown if i don't flower them so i will give them a go. I was going to have 3 Blueberry in the last pod but i haven't go enough females and the cuttings i have taken are taking an age to get growing.

I read about harvesting plants over the course of an entire month in a book a while ago and thought that it was an interesting concept. The theory is great as you grow bigger plants that you would do normally and then flower them. With the lights in an indoor grow plants do often ripen from the top down so it appears to be a way of getting double the yield in less than double the time. A few extra weeks veg and flower has got to be worth it.

What do you reckon mate?

Yeah, I've read about this too, but the figures they gave made me think that it wasn't worth the effort, the time it would take to ripen up the lower parts of plants would be better spent on getting a new grow on the go. But maybe that was something else, cos I vaguely remember it mentioning putting the plants back into veg, and that isn't what you did, was it?

Anyway, I'm changing my mind on it now. My big mistake was not really knowing if my plants were ripe before harvesting, let alone seeing if part of them was and part wasn't. I'm going to get a 30x magnifying glass so I can at least have an informed opinion as against just guessing. Is this how you checked your buds' ripeness?

And if its only an extra week or two, then its a good idea, surely. I'm going to keep thinking about that...

BTW I think its a great experiment you're doing with the multiple plants per pod. I'm growing Mazar myself, and its one bushy little lady, I'd be very surprised if it did well, but then you're aiming to keep them really trimmed, aren't you, single cola? The Blueberry sounds more promising, long and leggy, and I don't know much about magic bud.

I'm five weeks into a scrog with Mazars, currently four plants, but one hasn't shown its sex, so its going to get the chop, so that'll be three plants. It would be interesting to compare how much I get per plant off mine compared to yours. And to see how long each of our methods takes. I'm fairly sure that with a scrog I'm not going to get the opportunity to do multiple harvests. As I understand it (and my understanding is flaky at best), the plants should develop a larger number of smaller colas, so I think they'll ripen up all at the same time. I'll definately check at the time though...

Good stuff fetish

No mate your right i just kept them in flower. I have read about the switching back to veg as well and as i harvested 15 buds from each plant at the final chop they could have been fatter, maybe the veg period would have given them longer to fatten up? But then would it have been worth it, i doubt it.


Yep i have got a pocket microsocope 30x cost about £12 but it's not great. You have to get it just right to see the trichs but it does show you what you are looking for. I am trying to find a better one for my next harvest. I may try a 50x or a 100x if i can get one.


Yes like you say what's an extra 2 weeks, that must be better than harvesting them too early.


My last 2 plants were reallly bushy too and i have already notice the mazars are getting that way. Yep single cola and no outward growing branches.

Let me know how you get on mate.

I think a million plants will get you most yeild,





Come to thinking of it, 2 million plants will get you more yeild!