Vertical Growing

Vertical cultivation is ingenious and a real sign of how progressive indoor growing has become. If you are an experienced grower who is lacking in floor space, this approach might just be worth considering.

What does vertical Канабис growing actually mean?
At its most basic, stacking a few plants around the edge of your horizontal grow room to soak up the spare light is an effective method of vertical growing. However, in this instance, we are talking about utilizing vertical cultivation systems.

There are a number of specific vertical growing systems on the market, all of which involve positioning the plants in a 360-degree formation around two grow lights, (usually encased in a cool-tube), with no reflectors. The idea is to maximize the height in the grow room, rather than the floor space - this is done by hanging the lights vertically and using all of the available light energy. Plants are stacked around the lights, usually in rockwool cubes. To extract the maximum amount of yield from the available light and space, very high plant numbers are used. Plants are kept very short - vegged for only a few days - and then flowered.

Think of it as sea-of-green (SOG) growing, with the lights hung in the middle of a cylinder of plants. Used successfully, incredible yields are possible.

The Pros and Cons of Vertical Systems:
Pro #1 - Yield
The whole concept of the vertical growing system hinges upon that fact that the grower is able to achieve more yield per light than if they were growing horizontally. However, when the systems first hit the market in the UK, for example, there were some ridiculous claims flying around, such as an ounce per plant from a 140-plant system - not exactly realistic! If you have a look around at some of the more popular growing forums online, you will find that there are a few experienced growers using vertical systems who are maxing out at fifty to seventy ounces per crop, from two lights - that is pretty incredible, given that the veg time is only two or three days, and the system fits into a 1.5 m2 tent.

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The well-known 'EcoSystem' in action

Con #1 - Cost
Compared to a regular horizontal growing system (or even a top-of-the-range horizontal system), the vertical growing systems are very expensive. The smaller units that fit 80 to 140 plants can be picked up online in the UK for around £1,800 (ca. $2,720), and the larger 200-plant versions go for around £2,200 (ca. $3,325). Yes, you do receive two 600-watt lights for that price. However, it is still a hell of a 'chunk of change'.

Pro #2 - Easy to set up
The better, more expensive vertical systems are almost 'plug-and-play' and can be set up in less than an hour. Some of the models on the market even come with their own grow tent! The lights, rockwool slabs and drip irrigation lines are already integrated into the system; all the grower needs to do is rig up a filter and extraction system in their room, fill up the nutrient reservoir and add their plants. This leads us to...

Con #2 - Time-consuming to fill
One thing that you have to think about if you are considering using a vertical system is the time and effort it takes to propagate those extra plant numbers, and then physically put them into the grow room. The smaller systems on the market are optimized for around eighty plants. So, if you follow the rule of cuttings where you take an extra twenty percent and only select the strongest plants to cultivate, you will be taking ninety-six cuttings and propagating them. This is a lot of work - and that is just for the small vertical system.
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Pro #3 - Extra crop cycle per year​

This is a huge positive for the vertical systems and, for many growers, the reason they buy one in the first place. Once they are propagated, plants going into a vertical system only need to be vegged for two to three days before they can be triggered into flowering. Most growers will be used to vegging their plants for around two to three weeks. If you are not operating separate veg and flower rooms, this massively shorter veg period would allow you to squeeze in an extra crop each year. That expensive vertical system has just paid for itself!

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Grow tent with in-built vertical system – max yield from minimum floor space

Con #3 - Extra plant numbers
Now for some unfortunately bad news: whenever you have a grow on the go, it is always worth having a little think about the worst case scenario... what if the door gets kicked in? If you have 140 plants under twenty lights, it is pretty certain that, in many states, you will still have 'the book thrown at you' - and most growers are well aware of this possibility. If you have eight large plants under two lights, there is a relatively strong case to argue that you are growing for personal consumption. How, then, would the cops view 140 plants grown under two lights?

Pro #4 - Better use of space and electricity
The vertical system allows you to run a successful two-light grow room within a comparatively small area. For example, a regular (horizontal) two-light room would usually cover a space measuring 2.4 m by 1.2 m, as each 600-watt light is used to cover a growing area of 1.2 m2. The smaller vertical systems operate within a space covering 1.35 m2 - although realistically they would probably be utilized within a 1.5 m2 grow tent. The vertical system is designed to produce more yield than a two-light horizontal grow, while using less electricity. Plants are only vegged under eighteen hours of light for a few days, compared to a longer period with a horizontal grow. This could save some serious cash on electricity.

Con #4 - Need more mother plants
Although it is certainly correct that a vertical system uses space and electricity more efficiently than a horizontal grow, it does require far more plants. Unless you are willing to purchase large quantities of cuttings, these young plants need to be provided by mother plants. If you plan on putting eighty plants into a vertical system, you will need at least two decent-sized mother plants to provide that many cuttings. These mother plants need additional space and lights; in addition, your eighty cuttings need to be propagated - this all requires extra space and electricity.

Pro #5 - Efficient use of light
This is where the vertical system plays its trump card over horizontal grow setups. Plants surround the lamps, 360 degrees; there is no loss of efficiency from light bouncing off of a reflector, then back onto the canopy - all of the plants in the system receive an equal amount of light and are kept close to the bulbs, so there is reduced loss of light. The bulbs are housed in cool-tubes with the heat being extracted away, allowing the plants to get nice and close to that intense light.

Con #5 - You must use cool-tubes
Cool-tubes are a great product which, for very small grow rooms or rooms running lots of lights, can be the only option for running high-intensity discharge (HID) lighting. However, they do have their downsides. Compared to an 'open' reflector, the curved glass in a cool-tube reduces the amount of available light that reaches the plant. Also, glass will block out the UV light that reaches the plant and it is UV that causes Канабис to create and release her lovely essential oils.​