Yeild data is coming in for F-series room.

[Rocket Soul]

Cant say exact vegg time would have to check w my buddy. Our cycle is 10 weeks: get clones from plants heading into flower thru topping, root, slow vegg (if wwe vegg them hard they are too big by the time they go into flower) over about 8 weeks but this time they got a bit more since we had some problems and had to delay flower=they got a bit too big but it worked out great.

Trays are 1x1.1m cannopy almost 1.2 wide we have them in 2 aisles:. 1 w led, the other w hps. So no rreal light mixing.

The irony is: this grow space was prepared in to be a space heater of some sorts: it wwas on flip flop cycle with 2 other spaces drawing hot air from it for their dark cycle, sort of to use those amps for for lights in stead of radiators. Hps lights are just space heaters that happen to make light as well. And the grow space we had just to heat the others beat out everything. But we had looooads of co2

[randorson]

Yeah I see higher yields as well, but only with longer veg times (and other strains) which means at least one fewer run per year, and significantly lower annual yield.

Light movers do not raise or lower. The light hangers do of course. I keep the lights 7" above the canopy. I also have around 820-930 ppfd, depending on which part of the canopy I measure. I can turn the lights up to 1000PPFD If I wanted, but I do not run CO2 in this room and thus my efficiency would decline past what I find acceptable. I used CO2 for years in my DWC room and the economics of using CO2 are interesting. It seems not many actually check their return on investment. Personally I would not run CO2 unless I had over 950 PPFD. Not that you wont grow more, you will. But the cost to produce each gram rises.

For the record, we do get higher yields with other strains. Comparing Gavita grown mimosa to Gavita grown Ice cream cake for example, the ice cream cake was a far better yeilder. I don't have the data on hand at the moment.

Hanging an HID light closer to the canopy is not really advantageous. If you use a light meter you can see why. They already produce high enough PPFD at the height the are intended to be placed, at least in the middle of their footprints. Hanging them lower changes the angle of incident at which the light rays strike the canopy, favorably, but this is a tiny factor. However hanging HID's lower can really hurt you when it comes to overlapping the footprints. To provide an even lighting over the entire canopy when using HID's the lights have to be at both the correct distance apart and the correct heights. Moving the entire bank of lights allows you to cover more canopy space with the same amount of light. That is the advantage of light movers. They also allow the lights to penetrate the canopy by providing light at varying angles to the canopy.

The grams/sq foot was 7491g/271 sqft = 27.54 that's including some "accessory/head stash" plants that were not planted in the garden beds. That's dried and trimmed, not counting trim in the weight.

I can do that 5 times a year by going from a cutting to rooted in a 6" pot, in a separate space (LED lit of course) before planting in the garden beds.

What I am truly chasing is grams/kwhr. Shit, my dad sometimes grows 3 pounds per 1000 watts. That's 1.362 grams/watt, but his grams per kwhr would be horrible because of the veg time required.

What other tips do you have for massive yields?

Our best grow was around 700g per 1x1.1m tray with about 375 board watts but it was a dream run, 1g/w even on the hps side. Plants had some vegg problems that let them grow big as they regained health.

It was a winter grow with 24/7 gassheater just to maintain temps. CO2 galore as a consequence.

Up to 2000 lm561c diodes per tray, running diodes soft on nominal, less than .2w per diode. Like running a 4 foot f-strip around 50w each.

Since then weve done well, but never that well.

We also did really well with bridgelux vesta, using only the 2700k 90 cri diodes, again .2w per diode approx.

My best guess is get rid of the movers and cover your whole cannopy in light, looooads of diodes run soft, keep them a bit closer if spreading the watts made it less intense.

Also try the meijiu fotop (aka qb800) they generally go cheap, like 80$ plus china shipping and taxes. Max 6 boards a packet, this makes for besttt shipping per board.

Strain was amnesia haze, elite clones, 10 week strain so realistically only 4 runs per year. But even so the numbers seems to give a bit more than what you do on 5 runs a year. Around 55g per square foot.

System was coco dtw, 7 l pots, 6 per tray, hand watered first 5 weeks.

Thanks for the reply!

I'm wondering if light movers could save money on electricity by using less fixtures as @randorson said and have a similar yield though? I feel like movers will increase efficiency with all lights, even say the softest LED build with no part of the canopy left uncovered. Seems like the movement of light and angles of it would still reach further into the canopy and hit more leaf area than that ultimate LED fixture being stationary. It definitely would be more effective with HID lighting or even COB's because of the hot spots though.

I was thinking I may be able to get away with using less lights as the LED's would cover more space by moving back and forth and therefore get way with using say two EB Gen 2 builds instead of 3 on one of my beds, that is about 10' by 3'. One EB build would be 4' by 3', 16 BXEB-L1120Z-35E4000-C-B3 strips at 400 watts instead of two of the same builds covering 8' by 3'. The other light would be a 2' by 3' EB Gen 2 build, 22 BXEB-L0560Z-35E2000-C-B3 at 250ish watts instead of 3 of lights stationary for one of my beds. I'm thinking of running both on opposite sides of the bed alternating with the movers. If I were to get a similar yield with the movers then I would be using 38% less electricity. As well as the LightRail Mover 3.5 with Add a Light being able to do the job for about $220 which is less than the cost of an extra fixture and saves the time building one.

@Rocket Soul how long was the veg time for the 700 gram, 1 meter tray yield if you don't mind me asking? Also, were you using HPS in the same room when you say HPS side? If so, do you think that might of added to the yield possibly from any mixing of the lights?

If you move your lights over the same canopy that a static light would cover, you will have increased yield. If you use them to cover a larger footprint that you would be able to with static lights, you will have increased yield. Seems you understand an aspect of light penetration that few people grasp. Light does not penetrate solid stem, bud or even leaf. Light only penetrates gaps in the canopy.

With HID lights, the uneven light distribution can be pretty well mitigated by following the advice of gavita engineers. Using the correct light height and spacing, allows the week margins of the footprints to overlap, providing a fairly even lighting over the canopy. That is why you want to move an entire bank of HID lights, rather than each light moving individually. "Hot spots" can refer to the center of the lighting footprint (where light is naturally the strongest) or to smaller spots of intense light caused by poorly manufactured reflectors. I suggest hanging your lights about 1 meter above the canopy, taking a PPFD reading, and adjusting the height as need to get the desired PPFD in the middle of the footprint. Then adjust the distance between lights so that the areas of overlapping footprints read as close to that PPFD as possible.

You can cover up to 30% more canopy than you would with statics lighting, The yield will be the same or better than it would be if the same canopy were lit by static lights.

LED's and light movers have a lot in common. Even when my friends see the results first hand, for years, well you know what they say, you can lead a horse to water . . .

To be fair I do have a couple local LED converts, and one shop I consulted for took my advice and has light movers in all their flowering rooms now. They love them. Slightly increased yields and significantly lowed electrical use.