 Indoor Theory Lighting
Lets discuss a few ways to construct a indoor grow room. According to your local laws, each state has a different limit of plants that can be grown in a space. I find it best to always have less plants budding than allowed so we will be learning to keep our plants in the vegetive state longer than normal all the while training and shaping the plants for maximum production indoors. In my youth we would run as many as 40 plants under 1000 watts in a 6x6 area. Now we design bud rooms to run between 4-6 plants in the same area with the same wattage lights. The yield is very similar and the main difference is the amount of time the plant is grown under an 18/6 lighting schedule. The plants are topped and shaped to form a wide bush that will finish with multi-headed and at a height of around 5-6 feet. Think of each area covered by a 1000 watt light as a 6x6x6 Cube that you are going to fill with Cannabis. By using 3 separate areas designated as Cloning area, Vegetive area, and Budding area, you can continually harvest medicine every 60 days.
We are going to use some firm measurements in this teaching example but almost any configuration will work that allows the three areas to be constructed. Every light/bulb has a foot print. This means the area that can properly be covered for maximum production.
They are as follows
1000 Watt Hoods…………6x6
600 Watt Hoods………….5x5
400 Watt Hoods………….4x4
250 Watt Hoods………….3x3
The design we will be teaching is a 12x6 Budding room with 2000 Watts of HPS lighting. The vegetive area is 6x6 with 1000 Watts of MH lighting, and a starting area 4x4. I also use a small shelf with fluorescents for cloning.
I am a huge fan of specialized grow bulbs and have had great results with both Agrosun and Hortilux brands. I use vented hoods as heat is your #1 enemy indoors it will zap your bulb life, and bring on a myriad of other problems, like bugs, stress, and additional watering and crappy cannabis.
Much has changed in the field of lighting and you must be careful not to place these super efficient grow bulbs to close to the canopy. Light intensity can cause fox tailing or dreading of the buds and hot spots in the center of the canopy. Keep your high tech hoods and bulbs located at 16-18” above the canopy. Some plants actually perform better and yield more with this height. Sativa strains are very susceptible to this fox tailing trait and the vented hoods allow a grower to keep his hoods very close. This is a wrong application!
I like to use small chain and S hooks mounted to a 2x4 beam I install.
This allows you to secure the small beam to the crossing studs above and hang the lights evenly on the center of the room and not where the studs happen to fall.
Once our hoods are in place its time to mount the fan and hangers for the main trunk lines that bring air into the room and exhaust it into the filter above.
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