Vertical Screen without any training?

[Guest Wilderbud]

I might be jamming 3 pairs of 4' flouros into one half of my grow space and am thinking if I grow like this and then add a light shining horizontally in to the plant from 2 foot away may be as good as training/tipping too late *less plant stress*.

 

Has anyone grown a plant normally and flowered it by using horizontally directed light and seen a good yield? I know you wont be distributing the peak growth of all bud by not training/tipping but will it make a decent yield compared to a light from above in a tall cupboard *imagine training went wrong and you had tall plants to flower with one major light source - its all about the ounces of tight bud*? Can the light use as much light from a horizontal direction as it can from a vertical direction when budding starts?

 

Vetical ScrOG would waste less vertical growth - like those hydro-boxes with the 6 flouros in a hexagon. Itd be nice to be able to maximize the use of a tall cupboard and strong HPS like this *a vertical light mover would be simpler to make at home rather than a horizontal one and plants love light movers*.

 

Just an idea Im throwing around for discussion - Im not implementing it yet but may experiment later if it sounds fruitful.

[Luke Skywalker]

Plants operate according to two sets of stimulants to tell them where to go for light... one, geotropism, which points the roots down and the plant up, and phototropism, which pulls the plants around as the light moves... Geotropism is the stronger of the two, and it wins out... so even if you have lights underneath plants, they may be happy with extra light, but they won't turn too much towards it... the growth tips will always point up... Scrogging can be made slightly more efficient with a vertical plane added, but this is more like creating a bowl of buds rather than a flat scrog... Its so the lamp is at an equal distance from the buds no matter where you are in the canopy... The trick is to time your growth well enough so you can flower it and get all the buds to come through the screens at the same time... And the top of the vertical planes don't turn horizontal towards the light, they just lean in a little and take what they get... so flower em short on the vertical... they'll stretch out a lot from there...

 

As to the vertical light mover, how about something like a paint pic to show us what you're describing, I can't quite get my head around it...

 

One thing a person on og does is surround the plants with lights, hid's hanging vertically amongst the canopy and around the edge of the plants... This allows for much better light distribution as well as being able to use one lamp for two plants... This particular guy has a bad rep, but the yeild and pictures don't lie, he's found something that works... I think this could be the future of large scale indoor growing... For the amateurs and perso smokers tho, I think it will be some time before it becomes scaleable down to our sizes... depends on how you grow really... I've had a dream of 4 250 hps surrounding a plant in a cupboard with a single 250 above as well... It'd take up a lot of space, and you'd need a shitload of venting, but the buds would be spectacular...

 

Anyway, hope that made sense and helped you out somewhat, here's a great link for scrogging, been bandied about here quite often, and within it is further links to smaller scale scrogging instructions too...

Edited August 11, 2003 by Luke Skywalker

[Guest Wilderbud]

Theres no need for me to design a vertical light mover unless it was useful so never mind that - itd just be simpler because of easier forces to deal with itd put more work on the motor and less on the cradle).

 

Anyway... I was thinking of the above as I think that what you want is the most intense lights on the most buds. It sounds like youre saying horizontal light isnt as good as vertical light for flowering (the growth tips will always point up) but then you go on to say that someone has used it to grow fatter bud - Im curious as I like fat bud [looks to the left]. =\

 

I use vertical flouros and will add a horizontal hps later and I think that this idea is better for yield (flouros suck of course but they are decent for 'growing' a one metre plant IMO as you can get good intensity to every bit of green - itd be nice to test against straight top-lighting of the same intensity (NB. not wattage). I remember reading about a grower who used vertical lighting to increase vigor and weight of a plant in High Times. =)

[Luke Skywalker]

Hi Wilderbud... yeah, vertical staged lighting may have a lot of potential, but the main canopy has got to be your priority in a small grow IMHO.

And with plants of moderate size, in small spaces you usually tie and stretch out plants to maximise space, I'd have to say you're better off with a small hps or mh unit lighting it, with the flouro's as supplemental. The amount of lumens put out by a hid is huge compared to flouros, even of equivalent wattage... (not to mention the difference in space required..) but the trade off is heat, because they burn bright and hard... So make sure you've got ample ventilation going... not to mention space for it... Adding a few flouro's (compacts are better) to the undercanopy will definitely do something for your yeilds, but overall it's going to be the hid that gives you most bud for your buck...

 

But yeah, go for it, it can't hurt em to have some more light...