Continuous growth – involves having a separate veg room or section so that your flower room has no downtime. The flower room lights always run at 12/12, allowing you to maximize efficiency while staying under 4 or 6 plant limits.

Perpetual VS Continuous Growth

Perpetual growth – is an old school method that involves continually adding small (typically 6-14″) plants to your flower room in staggered additions. Thus, the flower room has plants in varying stages of flower at any given time. This gives you the benefit of being able to harvest every week or two, splitting up the otherwise arduous task of trimming.

Perpetual growth was very common with HPS bulbs because young shorter plants could be placed in the center while taller plants would run up the side. This would create a bowl-shaped canopy that was more efficient for the omnidirectional nature of HPS lights. LED boards have even light dispersion, so a flat canopy is preferred.

This article focuses on continuous growth because this website is dedicated to working with low plant counts (typically 4 or 6 plant recreational limits).

Continuous Growth in DWC

The easiest way to achieve continuous growth in DWC is to build a small veg section in your grow box, or buy a 2-in-1 grow tent. A 1′ x 3′ footprint with a height of about 5′ is all you need. I use a light fixture with A19 led bulbs as well as 6500k LED strips going around the side to provide supplemental side lighting. If I were building my box again today I would use LED boards in the veg portion because the options for 4000-6000k printed LED boards have increased dramatically.

Light Blockers

Light blockers are very important when sharing ventilation between a veg room and a flower room. Any light leaks can cause re-vegging or hermaphrodites in the flower room.

Part List:
Black Coroplast
Hot Glue Gun
2x 120mm Box Fan

Make a maze for the air to travel through. Two 90-degree corners are enough to stop light from getting through. 

How to Slow Down Vegetative Growth in DWC

One of the issues you may encounter with a veg room is that your plants overgrow the room before the flower room is ready for them. With DWC growth is so explosive that you will likely need to take some countermeasures.

The methods I use to keep my plants in check are borrowed from bonsai techniques that the Japanese have been using for centuries.

Defoliation – I remove all mature fan leaves from my veg room. They constrict airflow and create an unnecessary nitrogen load on the plant. Removing fan leaves stimulates new growth from the nodes. More nodes = more buds.

Topping – is done by cutting off the very top node of the plant. This results in 2 or sometimes 3-4 new nodes growing out of that spot. This is the easiest way to turn a Christmas tree into a bush. Topping is recommended regardless to achieve a flat canopy.

Trimming Roots – is actually very easy in DWC unlike with bonsai where you need to uproot the plant and trim around soil. Simply use clean scissors to trim off a few inches of root from the bottom. This will slow down growth, promote healthy new root growth and decrease the chance that a big root ball starts to get root rot. This is only necessary when the root ball far exceeds the size of the plant.

Supercropping – is a more stressful method of training but can be extremely effective if you forgot to top your plants or for stretchy varieties of cannabis (typically Sativa dominant). Supercropping is done by gently rubbing the stem between two fingers until it is pliable enough to bend at a 90-degree angle. Over time this bend will harden into a rigid knuckle.

Transplanting Cannabis in DWC

My method for transplanting in DWC is as easy as putting a 3″ pot into a bigger 6″ pot. I use 3″ net pots for vegetative growth and 6″ net pots for flowering. You could probably flower with 3″ net pots but I like the bigger pots to give the plants extra counterweight. If the roots are not tangled in the 3″ pot you can remove the net pot when transplanting.

LPT: Cut a small quarter-sized hole in the bottom of your 3″ net pots. This will allow a healthy taproot to form without constriction. Make the hole just big enough so that hydroton will not fall through. Cut a similar hole in your 6″ net pots. When transplanting you want to pull all the roots through this hole so that they don’t sit bunched up in the net pot.

Continue the Cycle

That is pretty much all there is to it. Once you harvest your flowering plants give the entire room and DWC reservoir a good spray down with star-san. Boil the airstones and hydroton to sanitize. Transplant your 3″ net pots into the 6″ net pots for flowering and you are ready to flower. You can go straight to 12/12 or give them a few days to fill out the canopy if you need some extra growth.

Continuous growth will allow you to achieve 5-6 harvest per year instead of the 3-4 you would get without a veg room.

During the first few days of flower I take clones from the plants using a DIY cloner. If starting a new strain from seed I recommend starting germination about 2 weeks before harvest.