Two growers, Simon from Montreal and Ian from Michigan, have completely opposing views on vertical growing. Simon loves it, whereas Ian loathes it. We thought it would be fun to get them both on a conference call and let them hammer it out. What follows is an abridged version of a two-hour-long heated debate! Brace yourselves—this ain’t gonna be that polite or pretty…
Vertical Growing in a Nutshell
“Noob” growers often scratch their heads when they first hear about the concept of vertical growing. “Don’t plants grow upwards normally?” they ask. So let’s get the difference between horizontal (regular) growing and vertical growing sorted out straight away.
Horizontal growing
Vertical growing
Horizontal growing is how most gardeners (indoor and outdoor) work. Plants are grown in pots or systems along a horizontal plane, and the grow light/s are positioned above the plants, mounted in a reflector so that the light gets beamed down to where it’s needed.
Vertical growing involves positioning the plants in a 360-degree formation around a grow lamp (sometimes in a cool tube but using no reflector). The general idea is that you maximize the use of the height in your garden, and make the most all that precious light energy without the use of reflectors. Plants in vertical growing systems tend to be a lot smaller, meaning shorter veg times but far greater plant numbers.
Growers’ Backgrounds
Everest: Okay guys, thanks for joining us. Now I know you’ve been blasting each other on the forums and you’re probably bursting at the seams to get going with this one, but first, can you each talk a little about your growing experience so the folks out there have an idea about where you’re both coming from?
Ian: Sure—I’ve been growing indoors for just over ten years. I started with potting soils, played around with most hydroponic systems (NFT, drip, ebb and flow, aeroponics) and a huge variety of growing media, and now I grow with coir using pots in a homemade drip system. I’ve stood by while some of my friends tried, and mostly failed, with vertical growing systems and even helped a few manage them for a while, which is why I would never recommend one to an interested grower.
Everest: Easy now Ian, we’ll get to all that. What about you Simon?
Simon: Well I’ve been growing on and off for around 15 years. I started with soil; I think 99% of people do. Then my local grow store switched me on to coco. I’ve tried clay pebbles too, sometimes mixed with rock wool croutons. I’ve run ebb and flow, NFT, drippers you name it. I’ve tried and failed with aeroponics but, to be honest, it was down to my ineptitude rather than anything else. But unlike Ian I don’t dismiss a technique out of hand just because it didn’t work for me. I’ve been running an Ecosystem since they came on the market. I’ve got my best results ever from vertical growing—it rocks!
Ian: Hang on, I’m not ‘dismissing’ vertical growing and, no disrespect, but personal bests are relative to the person. I’m just here to argue that vertical growing systems are not all they’re cracked up to be. I’m not even going to bring into the argument the phenomenal cost of vertical systems, which is enough to put a lot of people off. I want to focus on the practicality of using these systems, and why they suck.
Practical Considerations
Simon: There you go again. Why do you have to say “they suck” like that? I’m here to, hopefully, participate in an intelligent discussion about vertical growing. You mentioned practicality. Well, first off, vertical growing systems are a cinch to set up. Take the Ecosystem and Ecosystem 2 for example. They are ready to go gardens: lights, growing media, irrigation, reservoir—ready, steady, grow. All you need to do is take care of the growing environment.
Ian: You make it sound so easy! Ha ha. But ok, this I’ll give you. Some vertical growing systems are very quick and easy to set up. Others though, are a horrible arduous chore! I’ve had the joy of filling a Coliseum—300 plant sites with 3 x 1000 W lights—with a 265 gallon mix of perlite and vermiculite and, boy oh boy, it was a nightmare! It took the two of us the best part of four hours, and I’m not talking transplanting, just filling the system with growing media! Never again!
Vertical hydroponic systems are great for growing leafy herb crops in a small space as well as fruits and flowers. Note how this grower chose not to utilize all the planting sites.
Simon: You’re talking about growing 300 plants. And duh, guess what, that involves preparing 300 plant sites. Sorry if you’re work shy Ian but, of course, it’s going to take some labor to prepare! If I could find a system that filled itself with grow media, emptied itself, and replanted itself, I’d probably go for that, but …
Ian: Now you’re being both dumb and facetious Simon. But at least you’ve made a salient point against vertical growing on my behalf! Aren’t we really talking about making the most from your grow lights—in this instance, 3 x 1000 W. Don’t we need to ask why 3 x 1000 W grow lights should necessitate 300 plants in the first place!? It could just as easily light 18 large plants in five-gallon pots, spread over three, 5 x 5 ft ebb and flow trays. It’s going to take me … what … 10 minutes to fill 18 pots, not four hours to fill 300 plant sites?
Simon: And how long to veg up those “18 large plants” you mentioned?
Ian: Well, with six plants under a 1000 W … 10 days, maybe two weeks?
Basil gone crazy in a Coliseum! Regular cut and come again harvesting will keep this wall of basil in check!
Simon: (Cackles) two weeks! That’s ridiculous! Compare it with my two-day veg time for micro-plants in a vertical grow. My crop cycles are nearly half a month less than yours. You’re getting what … a maximum or five crops a year, whereas I’m always pushing six, using less energy too as I don’t have to have veg lights on for 18 hours a day for two weeks—ouch! I wouldn’t like to see your electricity bills!
Ian: But what about your plant numbers dude! They must be astronomical! In vertical systems you need anywhere between 80–300 identical cuttings for a two- or three-light system. In my four-light room I grow 24 plants, and to prepare for this I take 40 cuttings from one donor plant. Seems a little excessive to some but I only select the healthiest 24 with identical branch and node formation, the others I trash or give away. This selective approach helps me achieve a very uniform crop, level canopy and consistent yields.
Everest: That’s all cool and the gang, but what about Simon’s point on veg times and energy usage? Doesn’t that concern you at all, Ian?
Ian: Well it all sounds so wonderful in theory doesn’t it? Veg under metal halides for a few days and transplant into the system and bosh—straight into flower on a 12/12 light cycle. That’s what my buddy did and he found, due to the small veg time in the system, that some plants did not establish well enough and got left behind while others over grew and over shadowed them.
Simon: I’ve had that problem too. I overcame it by making sure that roots were simply exploding out of the rock wool cubes before transplanting into slabs. (Not just one or two.) I make sure those slabs have been pH adjusted and I water in my transplants individually with some CANNA Rhizotonic and a mild, balanced bloom formulation at around EC 0.8 and pH 5.5 – 5.8. I veg in the slabs horizontally for a couple of days, allowing the cuttings time to anchor in a little. Some plants will always outperform others—that’s natural. But I still end up with a beautiful canopy, either way. The trick with vertical growing is to select the right sort of phenotype that doesn’t stretch and get all gangly. You need to really know what you’re dealing with.
Ian: Yeah, yeah, but back to uniformity of cuttings for a moment; it’s easier said than done. And it’s so important to get right with vertical gardens, where plants are grown very close together and need to be kept small and squat, so identically sized cuttings are even more essential. This means for a 300-plant system I would have to take at least 400 cuttings (preferably 500), which means needing loads of huge donor plants to take them from. For my four-light room, I have a two-tiered shelved propagation tent, which is 4 x 2 x 4 ft, this houses two short stocky mother plants and my cuttings. To take a batch of 400 cuttings you’d need an additional two-light grow room! How is that saving space, let alone energy? It’s just shifting it all somewhere else! The whole thing’s a poorly marketed gimmick.
Simon: Yeah, you need lots of uniform cuttings to make vertical growing work, and not all plant species or varieties are suitable. Yeah, you need to know what you’re doing. I wouldn’t suggest this technique to a beginner. But the fact remains, I’m pulling six crops a year, you’re pulling four or five. I produce the 140 cuttings I need for my Ecosystem from two bushy mother plants under two x 400 W metal halides. Perhaps they aren’t always as uniform as I’d like though. More mother plants would help. I root them in several standard propagators under two banks of High Output T5 Fluorescents. And I veg them into rock wool slabs for two days under 250W metal halides.
The Ecosystem 2 boasts many improvements over its predecessor including a separate reservoir, increased number of plant sites, and more versatility with choice of growing media.
Ian: But two days isn’t enough veg time. The plants can’t lay down good foundations for their flowering cycle in such a short space of time. Also, wouldn’t you agree that with vertical growing it’s not about less work for the grower, it’s more that all the work shifts to propagation? Stressing over hundreds and hundreds of cuttings is not my idea of enjoyable indoor gardening. I’d rather be chilling and admiring my plants in my flat bed garden.
Simon: Well I guess we’re going to have to agree to differ on that one. Chill all you want with your five crops a year. I’ll happily “stress” over my six crops a year, thanks very much!
Ian: Yeah, I know yearly yields can be increased with short veg times, but six crops a year can be done with sea-of-green growing in horizontal gardens too, not just in fancy vertical systems. I’ve played around with higher plant numbers using ebb and flow trays, and can appreciate the quicker turn around, but as I’ve already said, the time and effort invested in preparing the garden and propagating the plants to get these larger yields is not worth the effort in my humble opinion.
Cool Tubes
Everest: Okay, let’s move on to another key component of vertical systems: cool tubes. Most vertical systems use glass air-cooled tubes to remove the heat from the lamp so the plants can bask closely to the light.
Ian: Yeah, but surely these tubes lower the amount and quality of light reaching the plants? I chatted to the guy at my grow store about this and he reckons that curved glass reduces light intensity by around 5% in comparison to flat glass which is around 3% compared to the open style reflector. Also, light tubes are not user friendly; I like to veg and finish my plants with metal halide lamps, using HPS in-between. Ever tried to swap out the lamps on a vertically mounted cool tube when there are loads of plants in the system? Trust me, it’s not easy.
Simon: Sure, glass stops UV (which promotes the development of essential oils) and diminishes light intensity a little, but this is all more than counteracted by the fact that you can get your lights closer to your plants. Also, many Ecosystem growers here in Montreal don’t use cool tubes at all; they simply drive lots of fresh air through the system. I’ve seen plants just inches away from 1000 W lamps! With enough air movement, they’re okay.
Ian: You’ve got to wonder about the potential for all those plants crowding out a cylindrical vertical growing system; there’s a fixed distance between the light and the canopy, which cannot be adjusted on most designs. This means as the plants grow from the system toward the light, the total canopy size decreases as the crop grows! Think about it. Most vertical systems are circular; as the crop grows it gets closer to the light so the circular crop canopy starts off the same size as the system and gets smaller as the canopy approaches the light. Not to mention the plants grow into an area of high light intensity, perhaps too high, as well as into an area of higher temperature. The only way to get around this is to have the option of moving the plants further away from the central light column, and most vertical systems simply don’t have this functionality.
The Shark Cage also uses rockwool slabs but can also be stacked.
Simon: You need to get multiple factors right for a good vertical grow: a plant variety that doesn’t stretch and go all leggy; the right number of those plants, and the right amount of veg time. Most growers who mess up in vertical simply over-veg their plants.
Ian: Yeah, but all the planning in the world doesn’t make up for a hot spell that causes your plants to stretch. There’s just a lot less margin for error in vertical grows. Whereas in my horizontal garden, I simple lift the lights when I need to, with no reduction in canopy size.
Simon: But what about efficiency! Growing plants 360 degrees around a lamp means every photon has a direct path to a leaf, rather than relying on reflectors (which can reportedly shift spectrums and collect heat) to bounce them.
Ian: This argument for vertical growing is the most common and convincing—you get to make the most out of the light emitted from the whole lamp, without the use of a reflector.
Vertical Grow Species Selection
You HAVE to use plants that grow short and stocky, and have extremely tight internodes. Experience with growing the variety in horizontal gardens is a must. You need to know the ins and outs of every aspect of the plant before attempting to grow it successfully in a vertical garden: Is it particularly susceptible to transplant shock? Does it produce fast, anchoring roots? How much stretch does it put on when triggered to flower? Does it respond well to frequent pruning into a single stem? Can it support its own weight without any plant supports? It is resistant to fungal diseases, particularly botrytis?
Simon: Finally, you’ve managed to say something positive about vertical growing.
Ian: Don’t get too excited. I’m not done yet. With almost all growing systems, the workload is more at the beginning and end of the cycle, but with vertical growing the workload can easily lead to a lack of motivation to get going again. The timing has to be spot on to get the crop cycles right and it’s no easy task. The buddy I helped with the Coliseum took at least a week to turn around a harvested crop into a newly planted one, which obviously ate into the salesman’s promise of six crops a year.
Vertical Grow Environmental Control
Maintaining short, stocky plants in a vertical growing system is a must. Poor control over temperatures in your indoor garden can easily lead to high day-time (lights on) temps and comparatively low night-time temps; the exact opposite of what you want for good short stocky growth. Tight environmental control can help prevent overcrowding. Having a small or zero temperature difference (dif) between day and night will keep plants short.
Simon: Nobody said getting bigger yields was easy Ian, unless you believe the less scrupulous nutrient manufacturers who just want to sell you three different bloom boosters and nineteen bottles of supplements.
Ian: That’s a whole ‘nother story! The only real advantage of vertical growing, as far as I see it, is a saving on floor space. Similar yields can be achieved with horizontal gardens with the same amount of light, and a lot fewer plants. It maybe true that once completely dialed in, the increased lighting efficiency can help increase yields, but certainly not by double as I have seen in some marketing literature for vertical grow systems. I would rather use an extra light and a few extra plants in a horizontal garden, than go vertical.
Great article. lots of give and take
To say a system is good or bad is not fair to objectivity, however, the dichotomy of the two opinions is a reality to some, and entertaining enough. A more objective statement, in my opinion, would be to say the vertical grow systems can be either optimal or detrimental based entirely on the circumstances of the grower. The consumer needs to realize some of the hidden or unanticipated issues you two provide – but aside from a polar viewpoint there is also the notion of “everything in its place.”
Would have been aces if “the right place” was better illustrated for readers, so they are not just prepared to argue rhetoric on the subject.
Hopefully the reader with a small spare bedroom manages to realize on their own that their circumstances may very well justify the extra effort of a vertical garden if they desire a satisfactory yield. If someone in a warehouse or garage thinks it’s nifty to piss around with a handful of pre-fab 360º systems, that’s their baby, and they’ll probably be quite happy with it, if they know what they’re doing.
I wouldn’t think most people need to be put off by the work load of 300 cuts and transplants. If three lights is a lot of work, that’s a good sign you should try less, or maybe even none. It is not as if all vertical gardens have 300 plant spaces either. A grower can build a vertical grow system to their own demands, or simply buy a smaller unit.
Don’t be put off by effort whichever way you go, just realize the effort you give is one limiting factor in the equation, ultimately leading to your production results. The total possibilities of various systems are, in all likelihood, still unrealized to date; and what systems are known and utilized each have merits suitable to a condition, in which another system will not work as well.
Ultimately, several key limitations (conditions, factors) are often the leading variables in the determination of a systems suitability; and every growing system is optimal only when chosen for highest efficacy given the circumstances, which include the capacities and interest level of the grower.
I enjoyed reading the opposing conversation between the two growers Simon and Ian. It makes for a very educational and entertaining article! Bravo! I felt I was there in the room listening to the two in a heated discussion!
Nice article. I enjoyed the opposing viewpoints and the back n forth discussion.
Personally, I prefer horizontal gardening because I can easily get to each of my plants for inspection and individual care. That and the fact that these vertical grow systems are so darn expensive.
It is an interesting article if you are discussing single yield plants. Tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, squash, beans, and a plethora of other veggies are perpetual yield tame those in a vert grow. Grow corn in a coliseum, or amaranth. Vertical growing was intended for herbs, and one herb in specific. What was being grown and argued about was for single yield plants. How do other plants fare in those conditions. Have you really tried all the options?
I am a huge fan of vertical gardening. I have seen several new systems come on to the market geared towrad the less tech home gardener. Aerogarden started the trend but will get blown away by the newer more practical products coming on.
with what you were saying about the glass stopping uv reducing essential oils could you not blow oxygen on the roots . Provoking plant responses such as essential oil production, fruiting and flowering are better manipulated when the substrate can be dialed in. For example, higher exposure of the root zone to atmospheric oxygen can help trigger a plant to increase oil production as a means to conserve water, and can also apply mild root stresses that are often interpreted by the plant as reproductive cues. While higher water levels can cause plants to focus more energy on vegetative production, particularly fan leaves, which in turn speeds transpiration and photosynthetic potential.
New i see it somewhere or am i off track,
When I first started reading this article, I was prepared to dislike Ian, since who could hate vertical growing? Turns out Ian is absolutely right. Who wants to clone 300+ plants (five times a year) just to squeeze out an extra harvest? If that were necessary in order to grow vertically, there’s no way in hell I would.
There are several flawed assumptions in this article. First off, there are many different types of vertical grows. There are two or three main styles with infinite variations thereof. Coliseum style (as pictured in the article) is only one of them, and while it is more efficient than a horizontal grow, it does have flaws–some of which Ian points out, such as the decrease in canopy area as plants grow larger.
Another flawed assumption is that vast numbers of plants are necessary to use this system. Absolutely not. You could surround a bulb with as few as six plants if you wanted to.
A better type of vertical grow is the stadium, so named because it resembles a stadium, with a ‘line’ of lights hung down the center, and shelves on either side with plants. This type of setup is better than the coliseum because each and every plant is illuminated by multiple lamps. This is the real key to vertical growing efficiency, not simply “using 360* of light from the bulb with no reflector” as some proponents mistakenly believe. The problem with horizontal growing isn’t the reflector (though that is one of them), the real problem is intense shading on lower branches below the canopy. With multiple bulbs illuminating each plant from various angles, each plant grows more efficiently with less shading, less stretch, and much better development all around. Oh, and who cares if you have different plants with varied growing habits, some tall, some short, etc? The stadium setup handles this fine.
Vertical growing is a up-and-coming thing and even with the imperfect setups people are using now, it outperforms traditional horizontal grows. It is still the Wild West though and nobody is close to fully fleshing out this growing method. Don’t be put off by these people with their ridiculous 300+ clone coliseum setups and think that’s the only way to do it; those people are basically doing a vertical form of horizontal growing, not using vertical growing to its full potential.
One last thing: cool tubes are NOT necessary or even desirable to cool vertical bulbs. Some people put fans underneath the bare bulbs blowing upwards, but that is counter productive. Cooling a vertical bulb properly is easy: get an air duct T-fitting, oriented like the letter T, cut a hole in the top, then hang the bulb through it. Block off one outlet (or chain together multiple T’s) and attach the other to your ventilation fan inlet. Heat will rise naturally into the T, and when the fan is on it will draw that hot air directly into the duct and out of your grow, instead of scattering it throughout the room as would happen with an ill-advised fan blowing AT the bulb.
Great article and comments. Does anybody know where I can find more info on Stadium type systems which Nate C mentions?
I think even Simon is missing the main point of vertical growing. This is simple physics, a sphere of plants around a bulb would be the most efficient possible layout of plants in relation to the light source, in terms of both physical space and energy utilization. However a sphere has other impracticalities, a tube shape is still apprixmately 2.5 times more effecient than a flat shape, with less headaches than a sphere.
Certainly there are varying levels of increased difficulty and/or work w/ a vertical grow depending on the system design, as there is with flat grows. But the main point is the closer you can get to surrounding the light source with plant the more efficient the utilization of energy and space will be. A stadium type is more efficient than flat, but still not close to a tube shape or a sphere.
All arguements about difficulty, number of plants, etc. are meaningless. Any approach, flat to sphere, can have the exact same types of issues, it depends on the quality of the system design. Either can be awful or great, its just flat design have been around for longer and are understood better by most people, it wont stay that way though. Eventually all grows will be circular I would think.
This reminds me of how people used to think the earth was flat, and also of the importance of wheels being round.