The key in the early days was fully understanding how plants really work and how they can be manipulated. After each harvest that was achieved the next one was wanted either quicker or bigger. Both effects would give us more yield over a years period. What was established very quickly was that yield and time are the same thing.

All the information and knowledge was pooled amongst the group. Slide shows with video footage etc. was common to get the point across. The aim was basically to yield as much as possible per square foot per year but only using a maximum electrical consumption of 4 kW for the whole operation. Obviously the technique can be expanded to accommodate larger grow rooms that can stand a bigger electrical consumption or smaller ones that will only use 600 watts. The figure that was always trying to be beaten was how much do we get per square foot per year, for our watts.

A two-tier system is easy to use and incorporates the use of only two growing areas. There is no need for a mother plant as you are taking your cuttings from your flowering stock. You will need a preflowering propagation area using fluorescent lighting and a flowering area using High Intensity Discharge (H.I.D.) lighting. The aim is to have your clones ready to go from your propagation preflowering area into the flowering area immediately after you have harvested your mature plants. The cloning area should be 25% of the flowering room area in floor space. Turbo Tanks work exceptionally well as your propagation area, but only using a head height of 1.2m and a bank of fluoroescent lights.

If you were to grow one plant in the Turbo Tank you can achieve the same yields as growing a number of plants but it would take a lot longer. You would have to grow it vegetatively longer to fill up your growing area before you could turn your lights down to the 12 hours flowering cycle. By using more plants you achieve a sea of green very quickly and can therefore switch to the flowering cycle within 0 - 15 days of vegetative growth (depending on the growth traits of your plant). The more plants you use the smaller they can be when you turn your lights down yet still achieving large yields.

Your plants aren't as big but because of the number and the fact that all your growing time is concentrated on the flowering cycle instead of the growth cycle, you are reducing the time it takes to reach each harvest. You can now get a harvest every eight weeks, on average six crops a year, depending on the flowering trait of your plant. Remember also that when you grow big plants it is hard for the light to reach the bottom, hence around the base the fruit are small and not producing a high yield.

If it takes you 25-30 days to produce a healthy clone from the day you strike it and then grow it to 8-10" in height, then take your cuttings 25 days prior to the day of harvest this is where you need to know the flowering traits of your plants.

A lot of people will tell you, you can't take a cutting from a flowering plant, don't believe them. Try yourself and you will be pleasantly surprised by the speed of root growth and the low death rate.

If your cuttings are ahead of your flowering room you can slow their growth by changing to a slow vegetative growth cycle, fifteen hours on, nine hours off. Other ways to slow them is to remove any artificial heat from the growing area, or spray with an organic pyrethrum based insecticide, this gives you the bonus of slowing the plants growth and helping to prevent any insects entering your flowering room.

To speed things up sling up some H.I.D. lighting. With this technique we are trying to utilise the entire electricity bill on lighting in our flowering time. This is when HID lights give us our yield. By not wasting a 400 watt light over a mother plant and using it in your flowering area, as well as the other lights we gain an extra 400 watts of yield. More light more yield. The only constraints for how much light we use are, cost of buying the equipment, getting rid of the heat they produce and paying for the electricity to run them.

The secret is:

By only using fluoro's to get the clones as big as you can for the last 25-30 days of your flowering rooms fruiting cycle we save electricity and we can get a clone up to about 8-10" in a very healthy condition as long as the fluorescent are kept right on top of the plants at all times. Watch out for roots meshing into each other. When harvest arrives your new team is now bursting out of your 25% floor space preflowering area and you have to move them on because they are just getting too big.

Using only two areas to grow in, 75% flowering, 25% preflowering

With 4kw of electrical consumption being used as a total draw for the whole operation, we want to make sure that 95% of it is in HID lights and in our flowering time because this is when our electricity bill is producing a yield.

Because we can bend an annual plant in and out of flower by altering the light regime, the "mother" plant as such, is not necessary. The Power used to keep a mother alive is a total waste of electricity. By taking clones/cuttings off root stock in our flowering room we can establish a new team of well established plants simply by growing them under fluoro lights, on for 20 hrs off for 4.

By striking a clone off a flowering plant and putting it back under lights, on for 20 hrs and off for 4, it will push out a root system very quickly and then go back into stem and leaf growth. It is no longer getting 12 hours of night, only 4.

The Turbo Tank works exceptionally well as a propagator with fluoroescent lights over it and you only need a head height of about 0.75m but 25% of the floor space of the flowering room, which has a head height of about 1.8m. The reason for this ratio is if you increase your flowering room area you eat intro your cloning area which means you can't grow as many clones, which means they are spaced out more in the flowering room, and have to be on vegetative growth for at least 1 week more to get the Sea of Green. Which means:

• a) The electricity bill goes up, and
• b) The number of harvest per year goes down.

If its 75% flowering and 25% preflowering in the floor area and we put our cutting in three inch cubes back to back in the preflowering area, when we transfer into our flowering room (approx. 30 days after striking them off our flowering room) we still have a well established clone that only needs another 5 days on vegetative growth with the HID lights before its back on to a 12:12 and in flower again. The timing of when striking a new clone off flowering stock is crucial in obtaining 6-8 harvests a year. This is where you need to establish how long it takes your plant too complete its flowering cycle in a Turbo Tank. The huge root mat that develops in a Turbo Tank can mean an earlier finish for most varieties, comparing to growing them in soil, clay or perlite. The 3 dates a Turbo Tank Two Tier Sea of Green grower needs to know are:

• The day a flowering light regime is induced.
• The Day clones/cuttings are taken.
• The day the flowering plants are harvested.

You will find that there is a slight seasonal variation in the timings in winter, spring, summer, autumn. You tend to strike new clones/cuttings later in flower in summer and earlier in flower in winter due to the seasonal temperatures differences.

By using fluoroescent lights however, it is easy to speed things up or slow things down. Taking into account you want your cloning area bursting with plant growth at the time you harvest your flowering area, you check both rooms 10-14 days before a harvest looks likely. If your preflowering area is bursting already with plant growth and your flowering plants still need another 2 weeks to finish properly you can always cut the "above ground growth" off. It's the roots, which cause the problem by meshing into one another. So on a daily basis a grower might also have to lift each cube up and spiral the roots back down and trap them with the block. To slow the growth up you can put your fluro lights on for 15hrs, 9 hrs off which will not make most annuals flower just slow them up. Take away any heat pad or aquarium heater and hit them with a pyrethrum based insect spray will be all you can do to slow things down. If you need to speed things up, because your flowering area has just about finished, but roots have only just shown themselves out of 1" cubes in your preflowering area. Take away the fluros and introduce HID light.

The TURBO TANK Two Tier Sea of Green Example of Usage of Space.

Turbo Tank works best in the Two Tier Sea of Green method because:

• 1) It can be used to flower plants off and propagate new plants in confined spaces
• 2) In flowering the ceiling can be very low, 1.8-2.0m. By using two nets to hold the crop down the yield goes up by condensing the light on your plants, and not wasting it in high ceilings or corners.

Things to check about to become a successful grower:

Phenotype (Environmental conditions that the plant enjoys on a day to day basis through out its life span)

So things that you can control that need to be thought about are:

• How old are my globes? Are they still emitting a high Lumen output?
• Is my ventilation system powerful enough to maintain in flower, a lights on temp of 25 degrees C and a lights off temp of 5-10 degrees C.
• Is my ventilation system powerful enough.
• Is my ventilation system powerful enough to maintain a 55% humidity with all my lights up.
• Is my electricity bill as high as I can afford and is it begin used 98% of the time for running HID lighting 2:1 HPS:MH in the flowering period.
• I don't need a mother plant, the 400 watts of power used to maintain a mother can now be use in extra light in our flowering period to gain an extra 400 watts of yield.
• Is our ceiling height a max of 2.0m and all walls etc a semi matt white satin finish.
• Is our room airtight and the only air inlets are as far away from the exhaust fan as possible? Ventilation! Ventilation!
• Is our net very taunt in a sideways motion to support the weight of the plant.

Genotype (Genetic characteristics of the plant, Imprinted into every nuclei in every cell in the plant. Unchangeable), you can only bring out the best by getting the right phenotype.)

• How long does it take for your plant to finish flowering, 90 days, 50 days, 35 days?
• What is the internodal gap of your plant?
• What is the Anti rust trait of your plant?
• What is the Anti mould trait of your plant.

The most important trait is the early flowering trait. Plants which begin flowering quickly after inducing a 12 hr night period are 99% of the time, the best individuals to use for cultivation. To cover all bets, with an unknown quality individua,l it is best to strike at least 2 clones off every female showing even if the plant has just started to show female signs on day 21 (the day that cuttings should be taken). A small percentage of plants will start off late butfinish hard and beat plants that bulked up early on. This is the exception to the rule, but from past experiences its best to always keep an individual alive until you know exactly what it can do. i.e. at least 3 runs. So many things are changing i.e. winter, spring, summer, autumn, temp, humidities, spider mite, pH levels, nutrients levels, globes wearing out, rust, mould, aphids, mites, ants, poor water source, until you can identify exactly what it was that changed the end result to give a crop you can't definitely say it was this or that. All plants started from seed are individuals and you have to get to know them. They are all slightly different and in some cases hugely different. When you get to know your plant you will then know:

• When to strike clones off your flowering stock
• When to turn you lights down to a 12 hr night period,
• When to harvest.

The booklet: "Secret Garden Secrets" outlines the whole technique in detail. "Cloning Around" is a 25 minute video showing The Turbo Tank Cloning Method. Both of these, as well as many other products are available from our online store.