SCROG query

[LiberalThinker]

Most scrog formats I've looked at involve nipping the apical shoots a couple of times and spreading the branches out from the centre. I'm not a fan of topping because I loathe to lose the central cola. Has anybody tried placing their plant at one end of the screen, spreading the branches out as it grew across the screen without doing any topping? I imagine the bending would force it to bush out anyway.

 

[PE636]

I have yes and it works just fine. Bend the plant sideways and let it go. You will still lose the big main cola though because keeping it all same height under the screen essentially tricks the plant into thinking it has lost the apical shoot.

 

[Emilya Green]

I imagine the bending would force it to bush out anyway.

Hi YellowBelly!
Bingo! You have hit on why this will work just fine. When you bend down the dominant node, all the lower nodes will attempt to achieve dominance and because of that you will be able to fill out the screen pretty well. You won't get as full of a screen as someone with multiple toppings, but because of the nature of the screen to increase side growth, when I run SCROG I only top once, vs multiple times in a vertical grow, and then I SCROG at 10" above the soil.

 

[LiberalThinker]

I have yes and it works just fine. Bend the plant sideways and let it go. You will still lose the big main cola though because keeping it all same height under the screen essentially tricks the plant into thinking it has lost the apical shoot.

Thanks. That's interesting to know... not! ARRR BOO! I'll still try it though.

 

[LiberalThinker]

Hi YellowBelly!
Bingo! You have hit on why this will work just fine. When you bend down the dominant node, all the lower nodes will attempt to achieve dominance and because of that you will be able to fill out the screen pretty well. You won't get as full of a screen as someone with multiple toppings, but because of the nature of the screen to increase side growth, when I run SCROG I only top once, vs multiple times in a vertical grow, and then I SCROG at 10" above the soil.

Thanks for the welcome Emilya.

I'm not trying to max out yield by filling the screen this time because scrogging is new to me and DWC is as well... I think I will make some mistakes before I suss it. No sense in adding more complications this early in my learning of DWC and scrogging. I shall probably make a 4ft x3ft 3" screen to give myself room to play with the branches and see how they behave under these conditions. My experience up to now is with normal soil grows. Having played with pruning and not liking the longer wait, I settled with supercropping the main branch to bush it when I did that style.