So I’m tryna dial a perpetual setup, I got 1 ac-infinity propagation dome for seedlings, 1 2x2x4 tent, and 3 2x4x6 tents. The ac infinity I think has like 50w lighting, The 2x2 got a 100w light and a 4” exhaust fan, the first 2x4 I’m thinking is gon be good for veg it’s got 200w lights and 6” exhaust with a carbon filter attachedc the other 2 each have 320w lights and 6” exhaust fans with carbon exhaust filters. I’m just used to one tent beginning to end so I bought someone tents to try to get perpetual going and stuff just hasn’t been going according to plan. Idk how many plants I should b tryna run with a perpetual and tryna like make the amounts lower as I go, but like I felt so in my element doing 1 grow at a time, now stacking it I feel lost, I keep coming back to it and it’s stressing me. I use Gaia green 284 and 444, and 70/30 coco/perlite from Foxfarms, and calmag by bushdoctor. I use my well water ph’d to ~6.00pH. Watering when starting feel light but not light as a feather. My goal is to get 8-10oz per 30 days, and try to just make sort of a ig SOP for my grow going forward so it would make it a lot easier and not constantly back to the drawing board. I’d what size I should honestly do, was thinking water and moist paper towels for 72 hours,rapid rooters for 7 days of seedling , maybe 0.7 gal for like 20 days of early veg, then a 2g for 39 days of true veg, then into 4gal fabric pots for flowering. Grabbing flowering plants that are 60-65 days. I feel in my element but lost. Please can somebody help me.
If any more info or anything is needed please ask. I need to push this out, I can’t keep dealing with with trials and failures and only getting like 4 oz since I share with my girlfriend and my room mate.
hey bud how ya doing and hope you been okay. As for your issue im sure it can feel like a pain in the ass and although i have not started my perpetual grow i have been reading into a lot so ill just give you my opinion on how i would go about it with your setup and hopefully someone who does perpetual can correct me or just help both of us in general lol. but for your setup id probably start with 3-4 plants so when ya hit your flowering rooms your not overfilled. but how id do it is 4 seedling in 2x2 for 3 weeks. week 3 seedlings get moved to veg tent (1st 2x4x6 tent ) and 4 new seedlings started in 2x2 tent. at week 7 id move veg plants to 1st flowering tent ( flower tent A) then 4 seedlings to veg tent and start 4 more seedlings. At week 11 id move plants in flower tent A to flower tent B, Veg plants to flower tent A, seedlings to veg tent, and start 4 more and by week 15-16 your flower tent B should be ready to harvest and you just continue the process of moving everything down the line and starting 4 more seedlings each time ya do and i believe youll be harvesting every 4 to 5 weeks once your pipeline of plants is going l. This is just how i would attempt at first and see what issues i may run into and id probably try and find/go with fast flowering strains so your not backed up on late blooming strains.
A perpetual grow will run smoother using clones rather than seeds. With seeds there are too many variables. I’d consider smaller containers and automated feeding. Are you looking to harvest every 30ish days? Part of dialing in a perpetual system is determining plant count vs veg time to reach harvest goals . . . 8 plants on 7-10 day veg or 2 for 30 days. Good genetics and the right nutrients and you can easily meet your 12 oz a month goal
Could keep mothers in 2x2, veg in 2x4; with clones veg can be as short as 7 days depending on size targets, flower in the remaining two. Running multiple strains can be a pain unless they have very similar growth characteristics.
Perpetual can be a lot of hands on work, but it can also produce a lot of smoke consistently. By the time you get a strain really dialed in you’ll be tired of smoking it . . . but if you have friends to trade bud with you’ll never run out.
Previously as I was seeing it fail, I had tried to go into like 3-5 days for germination, then they would get like 21-30 days u til id send them into flowering and id do like 8 or 9 plants, but id feel like they crashed into each other as i tried to LST, and photons drop off too fast for me to have nice long branches and also they weren’t huge plants. I used to take 2 or 3 plants from beginning to end but felt stressed that i felt like any little mistake would domino into flowering unless i had more options. I flower for 60 - 65 days roughly. But the plants were growing slow, everyone says they should be ready to go realatiely quick and with topping but like I switched from 3 plants to 8 plants, and saw nearly a 50% drop in yield come harvest. But I like the idea of 3-4 plants. Was seeing that most places will sell like 5 or 6 packs so I might grab one of them per run, and drop them all for early veg and early cull to make space for the better genetics. And what would u start the seedlings in? Also reminder I got that AC I finish dome that can be outside of the tents standalone.
I used to use bottled nutrients but ended up not finding any truly organic versions because of them needing to be basiclsly instantly available, so I switched to Gaia green, as an organic dry ammendment. We have been tryna figure out an automated watering system but that means I got figure out collection, how to keep it clean with adding a bunch of chems, a distiller likely so I don’t add extra ppm’s and gunk up the lines, and build that and figure out the amounts, study drip irrigation cause I can’t fathom how to properly do it without having a contamly overwatered environment. And I wanna do clones but at the same time I like to try to switch up my strains every run cause like u said you’ll start to have the same strain and it’ll get old and I’m the only like grow buddy, technically everyone else I know I’m basically teaching the basics to that’s interested in cultivation lol. I wanna figure out how to do maybe tissue culture so I can host tons of mothers. Might try to keep like 6 strains or so in small like 1-2 gal pots in the 2x2 and use tha for mothers with each see run. But like I have no real guidance for proper mother keeping. I’m a solo learning without a mentor or a group around me with a wise one, so the fast falls upon my shoulders.
the seedling dome would probably work the best but not sure as i start mine in solo cups and around 2 or 3 weeks ready for transplant and if working with seeds id say do 3 plants at a time and pop a 6 pk or so and take the best 3 out the pack and move them to veg and other 3 you could toss or depending on your schedule keep em for next cycle. i think 3 in each tent will fill the flowering tents out nicely as well as each plant having enough lighting. and if able to use it outside a tent then i believe you could keep the smaller tent for another veg if ya find yourself getting backed up in flowering. i think the biggest challenge might be the different flowering times so if your trying to keep a strict schedule def gonna want fast flowering strains
If you’re wanting to grow organic, I think you’ll be happier running something like earth boxes. High performance grow systems do better with non-organic liquid nutrients, you can fine tune the NER to growth stage and make adjustments to nutrient availability almost instantly. That just isn’t happening with organics.
A true perpetual grow isn’t very well suited to home growers producing their own smoke, it’s weakness is variety. Until you run a particular plant you can’t know with 100% certainty how that plant develops in veg and the length of transition or flowering period may vary with each individual seed. That just doesn’t work well in a grow method that is all about timing . . . it takes a run or two to get dialed in to a particular strain and then you can crank it up.
I think you can still reach your goal of 12 oz a month with seeds and organics, but in my opinion you’ll need to switch to a living/super soil type medium in larger containers. Organics are outside my wheelhouse but @BluntForceTrauma420 does very well with soil and might be able to give you some pointers and suggestions.
If you have any questions that you are confused on let me know. I think organics are capable of giving you what you’re looking for. It’s definitely going to be a bit slower though as organics essentially let’s the plant do things at its pace. I’d say alot for 40-50 days veg for some good sized plants or 30ish days for medium sized plants. You’d have to stagger the other tents accordingly. Stay on top of feedings and be preemptive to stay ahead of the needs. I’m not familiar with Gia green so I couldn’t tell you how and when to feed. With build a soil I feed 1x a month so if I were doing perpetual I’d feed every 3 weeks to stay ahead of the grow as issues will slow down your veg time. I know earth boxes were recommended but I much prefer 10-20 gallon grow bags and a blumat system. Less chance of messing up as you need timed dry backs with the boxes. With blumats the dry back is automated and there is always water on demand as the roots pull from the soil and hit the designated dryness it feeds fresh clean water. It allows you to be less hands on which will make your grows a lot less work too so less stress. Again if you have further questions let me know.
I use Gaia Green and have for 3 years now. I feed every 3 weeks with the Gaia Green and supplement with cal/mag, silica, humid and fulvic acids, and microbes once a week. I use Fox Farm coco with activated charcoal, and worms as a medium. I also reuse my medium over and over again, I remove one plant and put another in its place. You should plan on taking a couple of grows to get the feeding and watering down before you think of doing a perpetual grow. I agree with the others that you should use clones instead of seeds. Seeds can be unreliable for a perpetual grow bc of the questionable growth you may get.