Why do outdoor plants grow so big?

[RandyL]

This may seem like a dumb question, but let's think about this.

Why do outdoor plants grow so frickin' HUGE compared to indoor plants?

My guess is that natural sunlight kicks the shit out of anything we can make with HIDs, CFLs, or LEDs, no matter how much scientific wavelength / lumen / par value BS we tell ourselves.

Indoor and outdoor plants can be nuted the same, grown in the same mediums, use the same size pots, etc.

But I see grows like dirtfarmers and others, and I just have to wonder, is the natural sunlight the ONLY factor we cannot control, or is there more to it than that? I imagine that airflow may play a part, but we can always put lots of fans in an indoor room.

I've seen photos of indoor rooms using many 1000 watt HPS bulbs, and the plants are nowhere near as big as some outdoor grows I've seen.

 

[TorturedSoul]

~10,000 lumen per square foot on a sunny day.

Remember the inverse square law? As it applies to Sol and the illumination that reaches us - and our outdoor plants - the fact is that the distance of 93,000,000 miles is so, err, astronomical (lol) that the distance from the top of the tallest sativa to its lowest branch is miniscule and not worth considering.

Add to that the more or less unlimited root space allowed when one uses Terra as a planter and it's easy to understand how a healthy and well-nourished sativa can grow to 20' tall or more.

 

[gittergreen]

No ceilings man! lol just kidding. I love Gods grow room also.

 

[RacerX]

You have to give some credit to the fact that cannabis has grown naturally in the wild for thousands of years.

I would assume through natural selection genes would adapt to growing in 'certain' conditions (Outdoor, Sun-light, ect..).

Not to dismiss that humans have likely encoraged certain traits but in long terms indoor is relativity new.

Just my opinion.

 

[miwa]

The sun has spectrums that hasn't been duplicated in growing rooms..we are more concerned with the red and blues...what about the yellows...greens...blues...etc...that b een said its possible to grow a tall plant...if u have the lights and the room

 

[EgaPega]

because roots have more space to spread and they grow bigger and bigger

 

[norman]

In addition to the above, there's also the issue of mycorhizzae- every root in real soil is covered with and often penetrated by fungi that act as root augmentors- they increase the efficiency of nutrient extraction from soils. Its an essential, but still relatively poorly studied, interaction of plants with their environment.

 

[Ncfinestbud]

added to root space and the intensity of the light, the outdoor season if planted in spring is a much longer season than indoors.