So id say its like Kilowats pr Month.
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Tom,
I would say grams per decimeter per week.
You need a more granular measure then a meter. A tenth of meter is good.
A month as a unit of work. Does not work for task planning so take to a week. The problem with a month is each quarter one month in that quarter has 5 weeks.
We number each week of the year. I will find my calendar math formulas. I have used them so often you think I should know them by heart.
From the voices in my head
Ethan Kayes
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Did you sell it as wet “bucked flower”? If not your numbers are highly misleading.
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No that’s dried. Those numbers are accurate. I’ll give you a hint: our yield per square foot is different than our yield per square foot of licensde canopy area
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Dried and trimmed? So you’re not using all your canopy or just counting your bed sq footage? Since we’re playing games ill take a turn.
What if i told you, The canopy monster is an inefficient concept leftover from indoor grows, birthed by illegality and the inferiority of all indoor lighting. Or that the cannabis industry uses greenhouses that are too square and would benefit greatly from a much longer less wide East to West layout and abandoning the canopy monster entirely.
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I agree. The point is just that we’ve found a way to double our total canopy space (grow area) within a given licensed area.
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I’m a little lost and I feel like I’m missing something. @AmericanWeedwolf’s numbers from above seem perfectly reasonable, unless I missed a post?
But as we talk about increasing canopy space within a licensed area it makes me think of tiered growing…Just to play devils advocate, when you start using tiered grows are you then talking g/sq ft or g/cubic ft? Either way works for accounting/business planning as long as it’s consistent. But when you’re talking in a forum like this, reporting to a magazine, etc. I think it’s important to be careful how you state your numbers. Especially as the industry grows we need consistency across the board for proper analysis. If you tell me me 1000g/sq ft is possible I want to know HOW. If you have a secret you aren’t doing anyone any good to hide it and overstate your numbers (generally, not referring to anyone on here).
I’d also like to give an answer (maybe not the right one) to the time question for accounting, as I think this is super important…Depending on how you operate it is pretty easy to tie in time to the equation. It is important to understand that you can plan your garden tasks on a weekly/daily basis and still report yield on any time frame you want. If you know the total sq ft of your facility, or usable space (whichever you are asked to use) and you know how much you harvested this day, month, or year you know exactly how many g/sq ft/time were harvested. Most states probably require you to track the date and yield anyway.
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I’m a little confused as to why you think canopy is an inefficient concept, if used properly? In agriculture yield is always measured per area. Farmers don’t calculate yield per total farm size either, they calculate yield per acre/hectare of planted space, because that’s where fertilizer is applied, that’s where irrigation occurs, etc. That’s where the cost is at. The “canopy monster” is the same thing indoors, you just need to do a little extra work to determine if the other areas of your facility are included when determining the efficiency of your operation. And sure indoors might not be the best way to grow (depending on your goal), but it’s a fact of the industry right now that cannot be ignored.
Greenhouses being designed improperly is a fair point but seems unrelated to this discussion.
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Not all agriculture is created equal right? If little vertical growth and or low light penetrating power is what you have then a canopy makes senses. But, that’s not cannabis naturally. And i don’t say naturally like a hippie saying ‘let it grow free man’. I’m saying the plant naturally wants to grow like 3-7 ft tall and produce good nugs from top to bottom if not crowded. If it wasn’t for the light bulbs inferior penetrating ability would canopy have been the path so many growing today learned?
Where in nature do we find fruit bearing trees naturally jammed together forcing a canopy? In agriculture do we dwarf the natural size of major crops by planting 200 seeds in a 500 sq ft greenhouse forcing an impenetrable canopy and flowering before 2’ tall? Illegalities fault imo, and if that’s so imagine how everything will change when its gone. When you go canopy you often go soil beds because hydro becomes inaccessible and cumbersome, but both are highly inefficient delivery methods in the case of cannabis.
A light dep (cannabis) canopy grow in fall winter and spring is sun lit from the southern sky. This makes the southern row large, the northern row smaller, and artificial lighting is required over the whole canopy all year. Yet from Phoenix to Anza on winter solstice there’s 10 free hours of sunlight that grows big nugs with no artificial lighting what-so-ever. I get that state lines are currently making markets where they shouldn’t and wont be in a near legal future, but in my idealistic mind i can’t take that into account when designing.
A small percentage of the industry has ever grown in the far south west and i don’t believe realize how much free light there is here and what it can do. I also think most think incorrectly that its too hot. Google image search “sun hours/day zone map” to see, there’s quite a difference in zone 1. Most everyone growing weed will be in the SW eventually so I just choose to think like that today when i call out the canopy monster.
Canopy cannabis immediately makes you one dimensional and forces much more defoliation work than should be required. A rotational crop allows more light in and thus more production per sq ft.
Greenhouses being used today are 20’ tall with a 4’ canopy inside. Paying to treat all that unused air. They’re built square which fucks everything north of the most south row. One long row east to west makes a lot more sense. They’re squareness invites canopy monsters inefficient nightmare. Narrow long tunnels with 6 footers ftw imo.
All this is a moot point if im not getting good output per sq ft doing it the way i see best. I currently get .05 lb per sq ft at $0.22 per gram production cost. The first number is adequate, the second by my research 5-10x lower than EVERYONE. My grow on an industry scale i know both those numbers would be even more favorable. I don’t see how canopy or soil can ever get down to $100 a unit grow cost, but i’ll be here waiting.
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You make a lot of very good points and I think I see what you’re saying, which is that in ideal conditions your cost/g will be very low but your g/ sq ft will also be low.
Still we can talk in g/sqft or g/acre or whatever to understand the cost involved. It sounds like my lack of understanding here came because your points aren’t contradicting the above views of how to value our crop, you just don’t like the practices involved that make the cost so high. Does that sound right? Or do you believe there is a better way to look at your process than yield/area/time? (aka lb/acre/year if you’re in the greenhouse or field)
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At best, that’s half of what it should be imo.
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Yeah I was being cheeky with weedwolf because he was being coy about how he’s claiming 85g per sqft. Yield area time makes sense…
…but what if area to grow wasn’t such a factor like it is today? There’s plenty of sun filled dehumidification cost free desert to grow enough weed for the world without jamming it together in a square sponge, but most licences still come in sqft so most just end up expanding closet grows and cultivating inefficiently like everyone else. The bigger cannabis grows the less time anyone spends tending it. Trimming another story.
Just read an article the other day titled Aurora: ‘No Place For Outdoor Cultivation in Our Global Empire’ They’re getting 6.3 indoor crops a year, but even if it’s $200 a pound production cost anyone doing 5 crops for half that could put them out of business. I wish somebody rich would scratch my itch to Walmart the weed industry world wide soon as borders can be crossed.
I got to remember my .05 is while I hunt through new genetics, trash males and redesign my setup repeatedly. Plant spacing of 1 meter ATM, is perfect for numbers I’m allowed, but tighter would pump out .1 x 6 crops yearly.
Maybe it’s the construction industries standard of building and codes to cover such a tall hedge of cannabis like I grow that would be the downfall to expanding what I built, but it’s common sense could prevail and it be grown more like regular agriculture some pretty cheap tunnels will do the job.
I’ve got a light dep greenhouse 70 ft long 11 ft wide with two single rows of plants East to West. It’s covered with UV-Open ETFE film supposed to last 25 years so you canbdo it without throwing mounds of plastic in the dump yearly… but now I’m rambling :)
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And you’re cost per gram is? Might it be anywhere near $0.22? Cuz if I’m 5 times cheaper half as much per square foot it’s still incredibly worth it. I’m limited by plant number, but not space so I’m not even trying and I’m at .05 with 40" spacing while I comb through new genetics. If I multiple my largest pull it’s .1 per square foot, and cost per gram only goes down the longer a row gets.
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I don’t know what you are putting in those numbers, how you account for labor, how long you veg, or what your market positioning is but yield/sqft is a pretty basic measurement.
Either way, I don’t see the likes of Canndecsent going out of business any time soon.
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With 50 states and all of Canada to hotbox individually even growers of boof aren’t going out of business, till its off schedule 1.
What’s your cost per gram number and what are you putting into it? I put electric, natural gas, nutrients, water, system maintenance, and genetics into mine. If you eliminated your flower light bill would you be down to $100 a pound? As for grams per sqft I’m putting the weight of dried trimmed top shelf cannabis in it. No leaves, no seeds, no stems lol
Is labor commonly factored into grow cost? That’s going to be a hard one for me to figure as a one man legal band with a relativly maintenance free setup. Growing a tall single row hedge like i do cuts down on plant maintenance considerably.
Maybe i could approach labor cost another way. How many pounds per full time employees per yr would be industry standard? That way i could estimate how large my setup would have to grow to meet that and that i could estimate (once setup) how much manpower it would take.
Veg time would be irreverent in the final figure, im assuming space isn’t an issue and all veg costs (minus labor) are factored in. 6 crops a yr .1 lb per sqft @ $0.22 a gram is achievable.
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@kgkind, I’m glad you joined the conversation, because your stance is obviously not well represented in this conversation.
I’m totally with you on utilizing the sun, whether its greenhouse or outdoor. But this conversation has become more business focused, which means profit is important too.
I have no idea the quality of your flower, so I’d like to ask…do you think your $0.22/g flower receives the same market price as indoor $2.00/g flower? If not, how much does it differ? And do you think it’s similar in northern states?
Once Cannabis becomes legal to ship federally we can all source from the SE US or other countries even, but until then we can’t all grow profitably outdoors. Even quality without considering profit can be hard to achieve in some regions.
Either way, I’d love to learn from you and anyone else growing at $0.22/g and get the rest of us down there too. The way I see it, cost is pretty related to our impact on the environment (whether its electricity, water, fertilizer, etc.) so lets get these costs down.
Are there ways we can reduce cost/g even if it doesn’t fully align with our personal motives?
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Dozen years ago i faced same question all new growers do, which method to use. Hydro is more efficient and once dialed in produces more, faster, and for less. Seems like a no-brainer even today, but the industry continues to grow in a different direction.
One day growing indoors i uncovered a south facing window and watched plants ignore expensive lighting in favor of the sun. I bought a blackout shade next day, light dep’ed that indoor, and it was the best crop I’d ever grown, but it still cost 2/3rd what everyone pays to grow indoor. Watts = grams always have.
You gotta pull the plug to get to 0.22. And my homemade hydro setup has me down to $30 (one gallon) in nutes per pound produced. 6 ft plants drink 1 gallon per day in the summer. Res is buried to stay cool, and small volume at only 2 gallons per plant. Hard water and salt build up is annoying, but designed the system with easy root access for cleaning, monthly keep it fresh.
If the environment’s right and sun’s bright how’s it not going to be better than indoor? Why isn’t most light dep confused with indoor? Temp swings, low winter light coupled with the canopy monster. How many greenhouses, growing inefficiently in soil and dealing with NorCal or CO winter weather can afford to natural gas heat, still come in at .22 and never drop below 60F? And keep roots in the 70’s when its 120 in summer. And never pay for dehumidification. If its like indoor conditions with superior lighting its going to get confused with the best indoor anyone’s ever had.
I’ve had so many arguments that what im smoking someone out with isn’t and couldn’t possible be light dep that at this point i just say you’re right its indoor, and grin.
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Hi,
An indication can be found in two studies. The overall cost of production for a 1,500 sq ft facility should be in between 1.54 and 1.35 USD per gram (including lighting). Aurora actually produces for 1.42 USD per gram at the moment.
In a greenhouse scenario something a bit below 1 USD per gram should be possible in a 30 years scenario!
See:
cheers
Christoph
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Good eye ! Of course its not possible 85g/sq feet , that guy is talking non-sense . His average of photos is 55 and autos 30 , and he claim average of total 85g/sq feet lol … his math is bad too … :@
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55g/sq ft from photos and 30g/sq feet from autos = 85g/sq feet total . WOW impressive math lol
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