Hello im a new member in here and look forward to talking to all your different members. I have just bought "The bible" with Jorge Cervantes and have a question to you guys. He mentions in the book that with: A 12, 5 gallon buckets hydroponic system, you will need about 10 clones and 1 mother to keep it running. Flowering with 600-watt HP sodium Clones with 40-watt flourescent Mother + vegetative a 175-watt metal halide. He says that you would be making minimum 1 pound of buds a months. I dont know so much about hydroponic systems so my question is. Is that 1 pound of buds just cut or dried weight? Thanks
A 600 watt HPS can yield a pound (dried and cured) per harvest, a pound a month is wishful thinking - IMHO! It all depends on the growers skill, equiptment and technique (plus a little voodoo luck!). Here's a little "Rule of Thumb" for a 600 watter: An expert using all the "best" techniques and equiptment = 1 1/4 pound. An intermediate using "good" techniques and equiptment = about 1/2 pound. A "newb" with some learning ability and good equiptment = about 1/4 pound. Your average idiot, too lazy to read or study up and too cheap to buy the right equiptment, will be lucky if his plants live at all! Yield is always stated in terms of dried, cured, weight unless otherwise mentioned. Dried, cured, weight equals about 1/4 of the cut, trimmed, weight.
Thanks T.H. Cammo. Its nice to have these "rule of thumb". It helps us newbies with a lot of our questions. When you say that a 600 watter yields 1 pound per harvest, how many plants do you have under each 600 watter..? I have read that it could be between 7-14.... Thanks.
By steven123: "I have read that it could be between 7-14.... " It could even be more, or less, depending on the strategy! There are so many ways to go about it - SOG, SCROG, "normal", a few "monsters", L.S.T., etc. For a 600watter I would recommend no more than 12 plants LST'ed (Low Stress Trained) to about 1 sq. ft. each (for a total of 12 sq. ft.). If this is your first grow, I would say 12 plants grown normally in a 3'x4' area surrounded by mylar.
