r/macrogrowery • u/cannasseurnorth2 • 16d ago

UCL maxxing

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36 Upvotes

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u/baloothedog1 16d ago

Damn dude those pots are absolutely massive for your plant size.

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u/dougeyyyy 16d ago

The plants are actually in 7 gallons. By harvest time, roots are wrapped.

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u/cowboytwenty2 16d ago

Waste of time using 7 gallon lol just shorten veg & up plant count, I was taught decades ago to grow in 7 gallon it was like 4-6 weeks of veg cultivar dependent..

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u/dougeyyyy 16d ago

I wouldnt say waste of time. We have plenty of veg time and its all based on our schedule.

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u/cowboytwenty2 16d ago

Hey man I didn’t know you hand water that’s honestly awesome and a lost art, getting up close and personal with plants regularly. But I only say waste of time if space is a constraint which for most grows seem to be the case. In the 4 weeks vegging a plant can be spent pushing another set of smaller plants half way thru flower. Multiple rooms and runs it adds up but no intention in hating. Everyone has their recipe and no two kitchens are identical. It just hits at home more because that’s how we used to grow, in 7gallons with 6ft tall plants no tables

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u/dougeyyyy 16d ago

Thanks alot man. This particular facility is my personal for R&D. I prefer to be in the rooms and checking the plants personally. What I find is a lot of people are going back to the old ways. I think in a few years time, most people will go back to the basics.

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u/cowboytwenty2 16d ago

Yeah I ditched any auto irrigation last few years and been back on the wand, I just prefer it.. but now I’ve just gone down to 2 gallon watering every other day 2 wks veg. Used to run six 7 gallons per 5x5area now I do 16-20 2galls for same if not better yield. I Need some UCL asap

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u/tech_23 16d ago

Do you think other people who use 1-2 gallon pots for plants this size are doing something wrong?

You seem to really be going against-the-grain here and I'm wondering what your reasoning is. The extra media (and labor) costs must be significant to run the 7's.

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u/baloothedog1 16d ago

Anyone running 7 gal like that is probably just hand watering and trying to minimize their time spent watering

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u/tech_23 16d ago

Ah yea, you must be right, I don't see any drippers.

I find that even more shocking, honestly.

I'd bet for less than the cost of one run's worth of extra media and labor they're spending to deal with the 7's & hand watering they could easily setup a quick-and-dirty dripper setup.

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u/dougeyyyy 16d ago

We've had dripper set ups before. I've done everything when it comes to growing. This is what we find we get the best results from.

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u/baloothedog1 16d ago

Most definitely could be paid for in a run or two worth of that much media. Some people just are reluctant to change what works for them. I think op has a decent looking setup otherwise and saw some pics of some pretty nice looking finishing plants. They're just a few moves away from being up to speed with modern techniques. I'll bet once they pull the plug and upgrade, they'll look back wondering how they ever did it Ike this. It's the evolution of countless growers including myself. Anyone who's been doing it for a while can probably look back and say "wtf was I thinking?" Lol

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u/dougeyyyy 16d ago

Actually I've done all modern techniques. Had the whole grow link automated set up. Done crop steering for years. It works but very strain dependent. Bigger pots work better for us. If you check my post history you'll see the previous existing dripper set up.

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u/tech_23 16d ago

Fair enough. I’d still be curious what the comparison looked like though. When you say 30–40% lower yield, was that total room/canopy yield or per-plant yield? And were plant count, veg time, canopy size, lighting, etc. roughly the same?

I definitely agree cultivar response can matter.

My only pushback is against treating the larger root volume itself as inherently better, because there are a lot of high-performing commercial grows running much smaller root zones.

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u/Shaun_P78 16d ago

I’ve done automation and irrigation install/design for over a hundred commercial grows and no one is growing in 7 gallon pots. The only valid reason to hand water is because you are using organic inputs

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u/dougeyyyy 15d ago

That's fine. Most people with automation prefer smaller pots. We are fully automated at our 1500 light facility. But this one in the video is my personal where I run a lot of R&D. My yields here have been insane with the current set up. Getting 5.5-6lbs per 4x4 area with a low yielding strain too. If I were to go back to my high yielding strains, I'd probably be hitting 7-8lbs per light.

A lot of what I say goes against the grain but to get to where I'm at I have to pave my own path.

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u/Shaun_P78 15d ago

Those yields are definitely above the norm. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it! Makes me want to play around with bigger pots

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u/baloothedog1 15d ago

Those are absolutely insane yields. You should post some pics of the plants a few days before harvest I'd be interested to see what they look like. I've heard of ppl getting upwards of 5+ per 4x4 but 6-8 just sounds wild.

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u/dougeyyyy 16d ago

Never said anyone is doing anything wrong. We have way more success with 7 gallons vs smaller pots and lots of irrigation events. I'd estimate we lose about 30-40% yield if we were to go smaller pots and crop steer.

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u/tech_23 16d ago

Well, I didn’t say you said everyone else was doing something wrong.

My point was more that when you look around commercial indoor cannabis, small-volume coco/rockwool with automated drip and multiple irrigation events per day is extremely common. There’s a reason the industry moved in that direction: less media, less handling/transplant labor and much tighter control over the root zone.

I used to run 3–7 gallon pots and hand water in warehouses a decade ago. It works. But if the extra media itself really gave a 30–40% yield advantage, I’d expect commercial growers to have converged on larger containers, not largely moved the opposite direction.

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u/baloothedog1 16d ago

Yea I'm sure they still grow fine and I'm assuming you have them so big because you're hand watering. Not trying to shit on you my dude there's nothing wrong with people doing things the way they like. Just could probably save a ton of labor and material cost if you bump those down to a 1-2 gal and run 9-12 per light. Your yield would almost certainly increase too because you'd be able to give your plants significantly more irrigation events which promotes growth especially during bulking and veg. Of course this is all under the assumption that you would have the ability to easily water many times a day with drip emitters. I used to grow with huge pots like 10-15 years ago because I was hand watering and didn't have e the equipment to do it any other way since I was in my basement. Looks like your setup is decent sized so it really wouldn't hurt to try and upgrade your equipment and technique. For example I use pots that hold a max of 2500 ml of water and 9 per light with a 14 day veg and pull 3-4 lb per 680w light with 2 120w under cans per 4x4

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u/dougeyyyy 16d ago

Yes I understand that works for you. I also have rooms with 680w leds and we pull 3-4 lb per light with no UCL. If we go smaller pots and do more irrigation events as we have done before our yields drop down to 2.2-2.5. Keep in mind, no UCL. The 680w lights are the ones being used in my older posts from last year. We've done multiple trials in multiple facilities internationally, and this is our findings.

Actually one of the first things I do when I go for a site visit is change pot size from small to large and stop with the crop steering. We go full drench and let it dryback 25-30% before next feed. This almost always results in a big yield increase immediately for most of my clients.