Quote Originally Posted by PharmaCan
I think larger plants are the way to go. If I have to devise some supplemental side lighting, so be it.
Yes, larger plants definitely are the way to go for you with the limits you must work with. However, I think you can reduce the effective plant height through pruning or cleverly tying branches down rather than trying to mix HPS & fluoros to deal with the lower branching that is shaded or gets insufficient light because the plants are too tall.

So, figuring an eight-week growing cycle, and two weeks veg, you've got what, five trays? Obviously you have a lot more space than I. I'll have essentially 10'x10' for flowering. I'm figuring approx 2/3 of that space for plants finishing their flowering and 1/3 for plants starting their flowering. That should give me a harvest about every four weeks.
My entire op is 7' tall x 8' wide x 9' long. My 4 flowering trays are 820mm^2 (~2.7'^2) and each hold 23 x 8" dia pots. The mother tray is only 1' x 3'. Because I don't need to veg the clones I'm going to flower, I need no vegging space outside of what is afforded to the mums. You, on the other hand, are going to need some space both to veg mums and also to veg up the plants you're going to flower. You can probably do your vegging in that very fine cabinet you recently built. They won't be very large at that point and won't need a lot of space. The plants will continue to grow vegetatively a bit for the first 3-4 weeks of 12/12 but stop gaining height and then start to bulk up with buds after then.

It'd be possible for you to obtain a harvest every 2 weeks as I do, but you're going to have plants in veg for a week or two elsewhere before they can go into your flowering area. If you're stuck to 12 in flower at any given time, you'll put 3 young'uns in to flower every 2 weeks and harvest 3 mature plants every 2 weeks.

I thought I read somewhere that California has a sog provision in the law that goes by the total square footage rather than number of plants. (It was like 6 plants OR 99sq.ft. in a sea of green.) Anyway, I need to check into that.
oooh, that'd be good if it works that way. Do let me know how that works out.