Experienced Growers' Yields for Comparison

[Happy Retiree]

if you have 16 plants under three 1000 w lights they should be trees and producing a lot more than 3 oz. How long do you veg and how big are your pots?

Although I'm pleased with my older grow logs, and they were quite productive, my most recent logs show how I'm doing it now. FYI, I have put 16 plants under a single 400 watt, and that's after an eight week veg period.

Yes, check out the grow logs, they will answer all your questions, usually with photos.

We veg for 4-5 wks in 6 inch pots & the plants are about 20 inches tall. We then transplant into 5 gal pots for Flowering. In 8 wks, they grow to 3+ feet. We keep them about 6 inches from the lights which are 27 x 33 inch Big Kahuna air cooled fixtures.

[Farmer Rich]

I'm running with 2 x 600 + 2 x T-5 (4' - 8 tubes), which creates a light footprint 4' x 8'. Under this I use 4' x 2' carts that with 2 plants that average 8-10 oz per cart, or 4-5 oz per plant. I generally use FIM quite a bit to increase the number of bud sites and ultimately the yield. Running 3 carts with ~2000 watts of light, this works out to .34 - .42 grams per watt. I don't use any CO2, feed on the light side and give the plants nothing but water for the last 2 weeks at a minimum. I also use 5 gallon containers for 2 plants in a cart. For big sativas, I go with a 7 gallon and limit it to one plant in the cart. The biggest yield I had from a single plant was a G13 Haze that produced 13+ oz.. not bad for 600 watt lights and a "hobby grow." You'd probably get a bit more yield if you were pruning your plants a bit more aggressively during veg. Farmer Rich

[Farmer Rich]

I'd also like to know what other's are weighing to determine the yield/watt.. me, only final product and I'm pretty liberal about tossing crappy little buds into the trim. Compared to the other yields mentioned, mine is tiny.. Though I'm not overly anal about packing as much under the lights as possible. I'm more about bigger plants having room to grow more naturally. @shovelhandle, I'd really like to hear more about this 2.5 grams per watt. A lot of this seems strain dependent to some degree, though 2.5 gram per sounds like heavy fertilization to me. How was the bud?

[Shovelhandle]

2.5? no, not me. I admire that!
I am closer to 1 gm/watt. I've gotten as much as a lb(454 gm) from one 400 watt but average about a gram per watt. I presently run (2) 400 watt with a 2' x 4' 4 lamp T5HO for side lighting. Total there is 1016 watts. I don't have a weight yet but I expect to see 1 gm/watt. I keep a journal but for some reason I do not write down my yield. I know how many plants and what strain. I do not trim as close as commercial and I do throw small budage in the jars. It gets selected, inspected, prepared and smoked as necessary.

[Shovelhandle]

I don't often talk about what I've not done myself but in this case... Retiree, my opinion is that you could stand to improve a few things. For 3kW I would veg longer and use much larger containers, like 15-30 gallon totes. Experiment with let's say, 10 gallon and double what they have now, and finish veg two weeks later.

Otherwise, your yield of of 3 oz in a 5 gallon pail with a 5-6 week veg is better than what I'd expect to get with a 400 watt and 2-3 weeks less than my normal veg time. My recent grow went nine weeks veg and twelve weeks to bloom to finish.

[Farmer Rich]

I'm skeptical that gram/watt means very much.. Seems to me it is only meaningful when you think about it in terms of gram/watt of a particular strain, grown in a particular style, which reduces the variables. Until it's approached this way, IMHO, gram/watt is pretty much BS. Just sayin'

As far as the thread, all good advice for increasing yield..

Farmer Rich

[Shovelhandle]

the internet, conversing with strangers is bs too, for the same reasons.

[low_rdr]

Well, I mean, you've got to agree with FR... you can't compare a high thc low yielding strain to a low thc high yielding strain, and expect to have the same results. Its all about genetics, and knowing what to do with them. That's why the best advice is 'go with whats the best for you'. We can debate all day about soil vs hydro, or clf vs hps vs LED, but at the end of the day, what matters the most is YOUR BANG for YOUR BUCK.

Go with what you know, and then make it better.