Before I ever first started growing, I read The Cannabis Grow Bible, which is a great place to start. Not long after I started reading the book, I came up with the idea of a perpetual grow cycle independently, even though I didn’t know what to call it. But as someone who had a general idea of how farming and harvesting work, I figured that continually having harvests without the 6-month turnaround lag time the book was describing would be of benefit.
So What Is a Perpetual Grow Cycle Exactly?
A PGC can be best described as a grow in which you have plants in all stages of development at all times, allowing for multiple harvests a year, not just a couple. So let me explain. By the time my plants that are in the flower stage are about ready to be harvested, I also have plants that are in a vegetative state that are large enough to where, once I cut down my plants in flower, I can then take that empty flower room and bring in my plants that were just previously in veg and switch them from an 18/6 photo cycle to a 12/12 photo cycle so that they start their transition to flower. By doing this, I generally get new smokable flower harvested—considering drying, trimming, and curing are a factor—about every 11–12 weeks, as opposed to a full cycle from seed to cure of about 6 months.
Perpetual Grow Cycle Isn’t for Everyone
If you are limited on space and your veg room is also your flower room, this isn’t going to work. You could also make the argument that you won’t necessarily get more cannabis during the same year as if you only had one room for both flower and veg with the same equipment. The reason is pretty obvious if you think about it. Let’s say you have two light fixtures. In a PGC, you are going to need one light for veg and one for flower. If you are not running a PGC, obviously you can have two lights in veg and two lights in flower, creating larger plants. So you will probably get about the same amount of flower, but the turnaround time is going to be much longer. So you may be asking, well, what is the benefit? Well, there are a few. One is that since you are going to be able to do about 4–5 harvests a year, as opposed to 2 on average with one grow room serving as your veg and flower room, you will be able to have a much greater variety of strains. You will also have fresh flower more often, ensuring that your cannabis will be more potent, as cannabis quality does degrade over time. Now, there are significant ways that you can mitigate your cannabis losing its potency, and I have covered that in a previous blog post. So that factor is not as much of a concern.
What Do Commercial Grows Do?
I’ve worked at seven commercial grows in CO, and they all do a perpetual grow cycle, and I’m sure it’s for the reasons that I mentioned above.
What Do I Do?
I’ve done both. In the beginning, I was running fluorescent lights in veg—which I don’t recommend, but you can—and then running HID lighting after that for the flowering stage. Now I run Fluence LED light fixtures exclusively because they are amazing, and I run them in both veg and flower rooms. However, when I started using Fluence (they were much pricier 8 years ago), I could only afford one fixture, so I was not running a PGC, but now I’m running a PGC and using two Fluence fixtures in veg and two in flower. But I alternate depending on what my needs are at the time. If I want a really big harvest because I want to shut down my grow for 6 months to take a breather, I’ll move all of my fixtures to my flower room after veg to ensure I have the most PAR (photosynthetically active radiation) on my plants during flower to get the largest harvest possible.
Why You Need a Consultant When You Start
This is the entire point of my business: growing is challenging, and the challenges that you are going to experience are going to be ones you cannot possibly foresee. But I know what they are going to be, and in working with me in the beginning, I can help you to mitigate the challenges that you will inevitably experience and avoid a lot of the mistakes and pitfalls that new growers experience.
Related Articles:
Problem Solving as a Grow Room Consultant
When to Harvest for Greatest Yield and Highest Quality
Beginner Growers Don’t Need More Information They Need Better Direction
