SCROG: Why you want to do it and how, a Faic attempt

[Faic]

The following program is rated Adult, and may contain plant nudity and large images of plant nudity. Viewer discretion is advised.
Any typographical or grammatical errors are due to the writers laziness or lack of attention in English class.​

Hello all,

This is a post in response to a few questions I've had, many pictures of grows I've seen, and what I've been able to find out through various sources on the net. And to ask for answers to a few questions I have about the situation I'm in now.

I'm a journeyman grower, this is my third grow. I don't claim to know everything, I just look for the real information. I think strategy not tactics. If I'm incorrect anywhere, I'm hoping (confident is more accurate though) the 420 folks will set me straight. That's why I'm here and not elsewhere, just like everyone else.

I'm going to stay as basic and on topic as I can, I will not go into various techniques of supper cropping or lollipopping into your scrog in depth. I will say what I think may be optimal and why, and what's worked or not. This is not SCROG 400, this is SCROG101 and if you're on your first grow, you want things simple.

SCROG is an advanced technique.

I'm doing this because it is one of the best ways to increase your yield with minimal expenditure of resources. And posting because most new growers are drawn to it for that reason. Remember, this is only my opinion. I wouldn't recommend you try this on your first grow, but so many people seem to, it's best to shed light on the subject. My apologies for any less than optimal photos, I hope they at least provide enough detail to get the subject matter across clearly. I hope you find something useful in all of this.

Now that the mundane is taken care of , lets see how Faic is doing with his first scrog attempt!





RET'S GEKICAN-IN!

If you're growing for meds or leisure, it's all good in my book. Me, I'm growing for both, so my grows are mission critical, which also will explain why I am taking things one step at a time and am being as methodical as I can. And why I don't do what I should in a perfect world. My first grow, I knew I'd need more yield. As a first time grower you can try the tricks the experts use. You'll be lucky to pull that off. This is why I'm scrogging on my 3rd grow, not first.

In todays episode we'll be looking at a 3rd grow, under 18 23w CFLs, in weeks 1 to 3+ of flower. DWC 5gal individual buckets with GH flora series (heavy flower), calimag (10ml/gal), tree savior (3mm/gal). (tree savior is a new suppliment I am trying over the first two, which were GH flora 3part, hydroguard and silica blast, the tree savior basically replaces the hg and sb and adds molassas as a major difference). These are running at 1200ppm. Temps are stable at 71-78f, RH 42%.

Known issues: (things to avoid, fix or watch out for) No pests, but res temps are at 76f, this is too hot for comfort, but the hydroguard and tree savior bacteria keeps the rot away. This is being addressed. RH could be higher, but the basement was loaded with mold, low humidity and less than optimal transpiration is better than more mold.... (for new growers, this is what I mean by mission critical. I shouldn't plant until I resolve the temps, or resolve that before anything else. But, I've opted to place my bets on my ability to keep it under control; point is, this is a well thought out decision wether it's good or bad- Do Not Attempt This At Home )

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If your limited in space or number of plants, a SCROG or screen of green, sounds like the plan! Most people think a horizontal screen does the trick, set one up, and say you have a scrog. Remember, SCROG is an advanced technique.

To do it right takes a lot of experience. Lets' get some!

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-NOT a SCROG-

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This image below is circulating around as proper vs the above picture, but it is not a SCROG either. I usually see grows manicured like this through lolipopping, bare stems to coalas, growing through a screen called scrog.

- Still not a SCROG -

====

Our main plant to illustrate a scrog, ANNA00. She's a healthy Sharkshock indica hybrid. This is her 6th day in a bucket. She was transplanted into a bucket from soil in the veg box and placed into the flower room the same day (don't get distracted by transplanting from soil to hydro at switch to flower). When her tap root hit the water the second day, it was time to get ready to weave.

The 20"x20" screen was placed about 4 inches above the top of the bucket. This is to keep the plant vertical growth to a minimum. Line was run about 2.5 inches apart to make sure I had room to pull tips through. When you make your screen, you can really use anything handy to put it together. However, you want to make sure the whole thing is rigid enough to stay in shape as the plant grows and tries to pull it apart or raise it up. 20x20 was chosen based on the grow space.

Some people set up a screen as soon as they plant. I'm constantly changing my grow area as I learn, so I decided to put the frame onto the bucket when they were ready to be woven. This allowed me to manipulate the buckets during veg easier. I attached the frame with hot glue, then strung the lines, threading them around the plant. In hindsight, I'd still do it this way, but would do it a week earlier to better control the growth. Search out images of scrogs, there's much more ingenious screens than mine.

ADVANTAGE - 1. I may go LED in the future, this is also an experiement on final vertical height, can I fit a LED in my flower box? 2. Avoid any unnecessary undergrowth or side shoots. 3. a lower screen means quicker entry and easier weaving into the screen.

DRAWBACK - since these are single buckets, and with them on the floor as a interim measure for res temp, it is very difficult to make res changes. I will have to redesign this or add extra plumbing to the buckets. Probably the latter.

Here she is just before I got to work @day 6 of flower. She'd spent the last four days with no vertical growth but was making this:

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When you weave into your scrog, handle the plant very gently. If a branch cannot be placed under a line, secure it to the line with something soft. Whenever you tie down the plant or pass it under a line, you want to leave room, or slack for the stem to thicken. You never want to tie a stalk to a wire tightly. If you kink a branch, you can remove it, but it's not neccessary. She'll just spend a bit of time repairing the damage. If you're a new grower, stop thinking calander time to harvest, it's harvest when your girl is ready.

I don't remove fan leaves. My opinion on this is, they are solar camel humps and she'll loose them when she's done with them. To address the air current issue with such a thick canopy, there is a 8" fan underneath on low, pointing up at the canopy. As flower progresses, the canopy will open up naturally. I give any wilting or shriveling leaf a tug, if it's not ready to come off I won't take it.

And here is how she looked when I was finished. She looks beat up, but she sprang right back. Note I am using heavy smooth string as a screen, and pipe cleaners to tie the stems to the strings if I can't weave them through. I chose string over metal screen because I can cut string. You want to avoid rough twine, it will damage the plant.

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Detail of the stalk in the lower right corner, it's tied along the string with a pipe cleaner keeping a side shoot level and growing toward the next string. This tiny side shoot should get a bud of comperable size to any others. Without a scrog, I'd probably cut this off because it would stay popcorn small. She is still in her stretch , and you weave into the scrog leaving room for new growth. She should fill the screen if I did things right. The purple stems actually happened in soil. Calimag at twice the listed dose, @10ml/gal instead of 5 cleared it up and keeps it in check.

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You Say This is to Increase Yield, how does that work?

Several things I've gathered up till now. A plant's main coala or top gets the lions share of the auxins the plant produces. So it's the biggest bud. I think of it as "water flows downhill", but in this case, "Auxins flow uphill". If there is a peak, they concentrate there.

If there is no highest bud, the auxins will spread out evenly to all buds at a particular strata on your plant, and all those buds will grow uniformly larger. * I may be way off base here, remember this is me trying to figure it out.

This is the strategy. This is the reason people use scrogs, as I understand it, not to simply have giant tops. Yes, you can have a forest of giant tops only, but that requires much more training of the plant and pruning than a new grower can pull off in most cases; manicuring into a scrog is tactical application of knowledge not strategy. If this doesn't make sense, re-read it till it does. I'll illustrate this shortly.


Week 3

Here is Anna00 next to Jessica01. Two weeks later, and a few missed weaving sessions, and I'm behind the power curve big time! Both plants are outgrowing the screens, can I get the tips on ANNA to grow past the edge of the too thick screen frame before she stops stretching!? Stay tuned! In the picture you can see some dark objects on the floor between the buckets. The one on the right is a coffee maker. The one on the left is the 8 inch fan. Stop laughing about the coffee maker! I put that in there because it's heavy, and I knocked EVA over by accident because she was on a cardboard box.... orz. The teal solo cup between the plants (just above the thermometer on ANNA's frame) is an EVA00 clone I'm growing in a solo cup for the experiment. She'll be introduced properly later.

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Jessica01, a unknown sativa hybrid cloned to bucket. What can I say. I knew she was going balls out but I completely underestimated her growth with the new tree savior additive, and she exceeded the screen in a few days. I've added dowel rods to provide support for the outer buds. Her canopy fills the 20x20 tightly and goes 2inches out around the frame, the side toward ANNA is an extra 5 inches of support.

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Stay tuned for more hair raising excitement~!

 

[Faic]

Ok, here we are back, um. Where , when are we? I think this is the week of Dec 20th? Hectic times, so the staff wasn't around to keep things documented properly. Yeah, I know right?

So, lets get into some detail on weaving.

Here's a picture of the front left corner of ANNA00. This is a good spot to illustrate how we'll try and manage the buds. Remember, we're not doing any heavy defoliation or removing 'all' "lower buds", we're after many uniform buds this round.

Here's a side shot, halfway through bending and tying off the two tips.

Here is a shot of the corner from underneath. This is some seriously thick canopy and the reason I have the extra fan on the floor blowing up into this. It has mold and mildew written all over it :X I'm happy to say that the low RH and extra fan does work, fan leaves shrivel and dry out and I pluck them fairly easily. But it still worries me.

Here is a very blurry photo of the end of the tie down. Sorry but that's all my camera got that was useable at the time. It did capture the drywall screw clear enough though.... >.>;

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EVA00-1

As promised, lets introduce our intrepid little cannabis that could. She's in the middle there, growing in the solo cup. You can see five of her eight buds. She was cloned out and flowered to sex her. EVA came from my first ever batch of seeds I germ'd, she survived my horrible first attempts growing in soil. The ensuing fungus gnat infestation, mold, root rot, nutrient deficiencies and lockouts till she looked like a stray dog with mange... But she survived the last seven months, and is now happy adding her genes to my cookies.

And it would be lax if we showed her offspring without showing herself right? (and we're low on materiel it's a holiday ya know!) Mother EVA00 and her... selfs. Thats a 2gallon bucket and it's my mysticloner. I'm so glad I found Roach's thread before I started making a cloner (I needed something as 3/5 clones in soil died). Litterally brainless cloning. I don't even use rooting hormone, or pH the water. Cut, stick in cloner, check daily for roots (can take 1-10days). The only way cloning could be simpler is if she'd cut her own tips and load up the bucket herself.

 

[Faic]

Re: SCROG - why you want to do it, and how. A Faic Attempt

Akemashite Omedeto~

These were taken New Years day,

WEEK 5 - flower

Here's a picture of one of ANNA's buds. I had a nice frosty Christmas dispite what el-neenwhoever has to say.... I can't get over the amount of frost on the fan leaves. Those will be going into cookies for sure. She has the nicest light lemony scent and her buds are so soft!

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You can see how ANNA has filled out the screen, and her tips for the most part did make it under the edge of the frame.

--------------------------

Jessica has started to bulk out, she's about a week ahead of ANNA. Both basically now have stratified layers of buds. And they are all uniform.

--------------------------


Now, before we press on, lets take stock of where we are at. The plants got through veg (what there was of it) without issue, got into flower and into the screens.

But your scrog looks like a flattened out hedge?

Yeup.... And that's because of a few things:
1. I was not dilligent enough and was not able to tend to the plants for several hours a day through stretch. A weaving session depends on a few things, but mostly how well you did the last time. If your growth starts to get out of control, it will snowball rapidly, since you're doing everything to allow her to grow as quickly as she wants right?

2. I did not do heavy defoliation, so it may not look like many picture of scrogs, or "scrogs". This has its pros and cons, and for this grow, it worked out. More on that shortly. The downside to leaving the plant 'clothed' is that it becomes very difficult and time consuming to thread the branches through the screen undamaged. It takes a long time.

3. By the time I was able to do anything remotely close to actual pruning, the plants were already in week 4 of flower, I decided to grow them out as is, vs possibly hermi'ing one or both with vicious pruning. I've ended up with what amounts to basically two layers of buds. And they're everywhere

And here's a shot of ANNA's side where we tied down those tips, remember the drywall screw? That's in the left of the picture. Look at all the buds... My thinking here is:

Uniform buds = uniform meds

Hopefully~

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And a similar shot of the side of Jessica. Pulling back the fans on either plant you find tons of buds.

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OK Whoah there... This seems too good to be true? Whats going on?

Well, that's sort of what I'm thinking as I'm watching everything develop. A few things have come to light as I've gotten this and the expansion completed before the end of the year. First thing is, the canopy is really tight. I actually slid under the plants to pick out dead/wilting leaves, and they've outgrown the screens so much, they basically can't move till harvest. I did start to pick the tiny popcorn buds below the screen that were basically micro buds. I'd guess that 70-80% and 10% of the buds are one size or larger, the other 10% are pullable popcorn that's pointed down, below the screen.

My goal here was to see first hand, if my idea of what scrog is, and what it's used for, is correct. And in that respect, this grow is a success. Since I am seeing uniform growth of every bud on a particular level, for the most part. As far as having a neat and tidy plant to tend to, it is an abject failure. That bit, is all skill though, and isn't a big issue. The biggest concern I still have is of course, mold. Everything is packed so tight, it's litterally right behind me ready to pounce I feel.

The one huge thing that's worrying me, is that there's so many buds on each plant, is the plant going to be able to support it all with normal feeding, or will I have to resort to something drastic? The whole balance of weight/prune I'll work on in the future, the idea that they'll develope some problem in week 7 though, just won't go away.

The other issue is that Jessica has developed a nasty habit of dropping pH to 5.1 in 24hrs. My first thought was temps, but my first two grows were the same conditions more or 5 degrees less.... The other was that I stopped using hydroguard for the tree savior, and that the tree savior may not have enough oomph to get the nasties in such heat. She looks healthy, the first grow I did her in soil, so maybe this is how she is in hydro, I'm not sure. But I'm wondering if it has something to due with the sheer number of buds she's packing.

And here's a close-up of EVA00-1. Like her mother, EVA's life has not been an easy one. After being cloned and put into a solo cup within a week, then immedeately she was placed between two plants that were 5x her size or better, on a cardboard box, to lift her tiny tips past the canopy, only to be knocked to the floor by yours truely.... Orz This happened 4 more times.... WTF IS MY PROBLEM! By the time I picked her up the 5th time, she had sand in her hair, so I had to try and rinse her off. She looked so miserable ; ; So I got an old coffee maker and put her on it. Now she's happy and starting to bulk out. Sorry for how blurry this is.

And a nice close up of her top. Without knowing this is a pic of a bud that's only 1/4inch across, it looks mighty tasty! And the impromptu LST-to-level worked as well as a scrog for a bonsai weed.

======================


WEEK 6 (current and appended since someone jacked the next post~!)

OK, here's a current picture of the flower box. Everyone looks really happy, and I'm satisfied so far they're doing fine, aside from the pH plunges of Jessica....

I went under the plants on my back plucking micro buds and leaves, and on Jessica, I noticed several growth tips under the screen. I was going to pinch them off, ran my fingers to the end of the branch and lo and behold... A big BUD??

Wait, I thought growth under the canopy was going to be stunted etc etc?

I did too, but here you have it. I found these buds, and pushed them up through the canopy gently. Aside from the lovely neon green color, they're the same as any other top, or lower bud. I was shocked that CFL's have that much light penetration (they may not), then thought that it's because it's a scrog stupid! (I think this is probably the most correct, since auxins will spur growth without direct sunlight [my inference here]) Then perhaps that it's because there were plenty of fan leaves to provide enough juice to the whole plant to get this type of growth from bottom buds. I think that the fans on the plant definately allowed lower buds to grow the same size as higher buds, because I have a few fan leaves that have stalks over 6 inches long lol. One bud on the same level of the screen has one 'arm' raised really reeeeallly high.

It's the other side of amazing to watch a plant grow.

So what now? The plan is to ride this out. They should have between 3-5 weeks to go, both are already 70+ cloudy. EVA should be right on schedule too, with all of her 8 tiny buds. I'm fairly confident that Jessica will outdo her first harvest easily. She's in hydro now, not soil, and is several times larger than she had been, so no brainer; except that if she doens't bulk out more, then I've stunted her with so many buds. A real possibility, and one to build on in the future if it turns out to be the case. You see, I'm after particular consistant buds for meds. The weed I grow for unwinding, I will want potency first. One reason the sex cloning turned out to be a sog experiment. I could easily do a dozen little clones in half the room. And yet another reasion I got this finished with 28minutes to spare, last year.

Left back by the pump is EVA, her clones infront of her. The other potted plants and purple cups are ANNA clones, you can't see Jessica's clone (mother), and EVA's baby in the bucket that just poked her tap root out of the hydroton. I have lots of 1/2inch pvp tube to make her screen with.

This space is roughly 3x5x4 so there's very little head room, but as a veg box, or CFL box, it will do just fine. The intake you can see behind the cloner (the black tape on the wall right?) is attached to the Mother/dry box at the begining of the complex. The marble tile under the pump hasn't resulted in any change of res temp, so I'm probably going to have to look at some sort of chiller eventually. It's 18 degrees outside, six inches away, and I can't tap it ~_~; If I can get through the winter with 76-78degree res temps, I may opt to see how the summer pans out before I install a bunch of plumbing.

 

[Icemud]

Nice post on scrogging

And a few photos of the full scrog

 

[Faic]

Mmmm lots of nice looking plants :3 But that's not a scrog, it's just a big trellis mate.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Scrog is a term that may have expanded a little from the original definition of the practice, and is used a bit more loosely these days. Personally, if it looks to me like a screen of green, I call it a scrog. The goal is to use the screen as support/restraint to shape the plant and maximize the amount of budding canopy under the lights. Some of my scrogs are just a plant grown into a candelabra shape and held loosely in position by the screen. Others are woven extensively through the screen. More often they are not woven, just tied down flat with pipe cleaners throughout early flowering, as this is much easier on the plant limbs. A Pineapple Chunk I recently grew started out as a candelabra type situation, but the buds got so floppy and out of control that I ended up just arranging and laying all the buds out horizontally, since that's how they wanted to be anyway. A couple had to be tied down but most just lay there obligingly. Here's a pic just before I harvested it last week- a mite blurry as it was getting dark.

It would seem to me that the goal of a scrog is to end up with a screen full of bud, and how we arrive at that screen full of bud doesn't seem all that important. Not that I really care much one way or another, and I certainly don't mean to sound argumentative. It's just something that I've bumped into before and been confused about. If you think that the definition of scrog needs to be narrower than this- could you please explain?

 

[Faic]

...
It would seem to me that the goal of a scrog is to end up with a screen full of bud, and how we arrive at that screen full of bud doesn't seem all that important. Not that I really care much one way or another, and I certainly don't mean to sound argumentative. It's just something that I've bumped into before and been confused about. If you think that the definition of scrog needs to be narrower than this- could you please explain?

I hear what you're saying and that's precisely why I'm posting this

First off, I think people can agree that it's incorrect on many levels to simply redefine things to suit your current situation or lack of whatever. The whole tendancy for society to do this of late is disturbing. In keeping on topic, it is one of the things that lead us to the 80+ years of where we are now yes?

So, in all things cannabis related, it is everyone's responsibility (if you acknowledge it or not) to speak factually on the matter, no matter what it is. Especially to those with little or no knowledge. Unless you like how things are now....

As I pointed out, SCROG is an advanced concept, and the strategy is to increase yield by having uniform bud size. The fact that so many have jumped at it, and failed at it, should not mean a SCROG should no longer refer to a SCROG. If a person wants to call themselves expert or pro, or even arguably 'in control', they should know what they're talking about and discuss it correctly.

I think that covers several reasons why people should not be lazy dumbasses when they want to sound cool talking about their grows

 

[Faic]

Ok A few more things to point out at this point while I wait patiently for the first amber trichs.

I did not top the plants. Since each runner is going to turn into a top on the screen, there's no need to actually top the plant. This would also increase the number of branches that have to be woven, and you can see how a badly practiced first run can be.

I'm planning on single stalk clones next grow so I can get them into the screen and keep them there (as long as I don't 'need more yield'). Stop laughing. Well, try to once I can.... >.>; But clones should be easier to guide around in a 4" wide 'lane' I hope.

I won't be able to have numbers to compare with the previous grows, but that's sort of elementary at this point. This is only my 3rd grow, so it's never going to be an apples to apples comparason for a good while yet, but dispite the workload, I think I like everything about a SCROG. Particularly when one considers what you can do with a SCROG beyond simply increasing your yeild.

Sooner than later I'll be running three strains up a screen. I just have to learn how to wrangle weed a bit better first

 

[TheNarrator]

It's hard to focus on the issue being discussed with the plant photos that have been posted in this thread so far

you guys are all growing some awesome stuff, regardless of what a true SCROG is

 

[Weaselcracker]

I hear what you're saying and that's precisely why I'm posting this

First off, I think people can agree that it's incorrect on many levels to simply redefine things to suit your current situation or lack of whatever. The whole tendancy for society to do this of late is disturbing. In keeping on topic, it is one of the things that lead us to the 80+ years of where we are now yes?

So, in all things cannabis related, it is everyone's responsibility (if you acknowledge it or not) to speak factually on the matter, no matter what it is. Especially to those with little or no knowledge. Unless you like how things are now....

As I pointed out, SCROG is an advanced concept, and the strategy is to increase yield by having uniform bud size. The fact that so many have jumped at it, and failed at it, should not mean a SCROG should no longer refer to a SCROG. If a person wants to call themselves expert or pro, or even arguably 'in control', they should know what they're talking about and discuss it correctly.

I think that covers several reasons why people should not be lazy dumbasses when they want to sound cool talking about their grows

There's a limit to the amount of bud that can be grown in any given area, no matter how perfect the conditions are. Scrogging tries to maximize the area of budding surface to catch the most light. Once you get above one gram per watt, you can make slight gains, but there are no 'weaving' methods that will make much difference to your yield. The difference becomes one of creating more tiny buds instead of a smaller number of larger ones. Trimming a few hundred small buds and getting the same amount as trimming a few dozen medium sized ones loses its appeal very quickly, believe me.
I'm unsubscribing to help increase the focus, and avoid polluting the purity of the thread with my lazy dumbass opinion, which is a symptom of the general malaise of society that got us where we are now. However, it's too late for me to remove my original post as the 7 hour editing window has timed out. Good luck with your quest.

 

[Icemud]

Mmmm lots of nice looking plants :3 But that's not a scrog, it's just a big trellis mate.

Ummm... Yep it sure is a scrog I'm removing myself from this discussion as well because I don't choose to be insulted from someone who is doing their 1st scrog.

 

[Emilya Green]

With those two exiting the conversation I see a vacancy down here in the front row, so I am going to take it. A couple of observations if I may... first the distance between the bucket and the screen seems to be causing you difficulties in several areas, maintenance of the buckets, and most importantly under the canopy. Generally the recommendation is for 10" between soil and screen, and this gap provides for airflow underneath that you are now realizing is very important to reduce the chances of mold.
Second observation is to do with your screen sizes. I think you underestimated the power of scrog in making these, and you now can see that it would have been easy to fill screens 3x as big. There is also no reason to separate the screens from each other... one could easily work right next to another, starting one in one corner and another in an opposite corner, working the two plants toward each other during the stretch on a single large screen. This does make it more of a challenge to work under the screen, but that is one of the downsides of this method. Another advantage of scrog is you can go with fewer plants, thereby fewer nutes, water, etc... with higher yields. SCRog is not so much about producing huge buds as producing lots and lots of medium to small buds, all at the same height, taking maximum advantage of a light source. You can get much better yield using SCRog under florescent bulbs than any other method, and I believe it was T5 lights that made this method gain in popularity. Here is a picture of one of my successful scrogs, I believe that I yielded just over 11 oz with this one, with an 8 bulb T5 array and 2 plants.

 

[Faic]

Hi Emi, thanks for stopping by, I had a front row seat reserved for you regardless And please, any observations and recommendations are welcome.

Mmm yes, I can see where I made a very bad estimation of growth. And I understand what you mean by the size of the screen. I'd chosen individual ones, so I could move them room to room as needed. From what you're saying about SCROGing under CFLs, I'll have to re-evaluate my need for mobility.

... SCRog is not so much about producing huge buds as producing lots and lots of medium to small buds, all at the same height, taking maximum advantage of a light source. ...

Thanks, I knew I was on the right track. And this would conceivably result in more uniform potency yes? I know this is a capt. obvious type question, but is there something 'not' intuitive about this aspect of scrogging and auxins?

 

[Emilya Green]

Hi Emi, thanks for stopping by, I had a front row seat reserved for you regardless And please, any observations and recommendations are welcome.

Mmm yes, I can see where I made a very bad estimation of growth. And I understand what you mean by the size of the screen. I'd chosen individual ones, so I could move them room to room as needed. From what you're saying about SCROGing under CFLs, I'll have to re-evaluate my need for mobility.



Thanks, I knew I was on the right track. And this would conceivably result in more uniform potency yes? I know this is a capt. obvious type question, but is there something 'not' intuitive about this aspect of scrogging and auxins?

by bending the top growth tips horizontal, the auxins are definitely sending messages to the plant, but most of that is to increase the growth of side and bottom growth. The screen forces the plant to branch out, and pretty drastically so. As far as potency, this I think has more to do with how much light and air they get all limited by the genetics of the plant. The "training" has little to do with this equation. There is some argument that you get less overall potency by topping, and forcing the plant to have more buds, and of course treating the plant like there really is no dominant bud and producing hundreds of usable buds with a scrog does that too... but to a very small extent, IMHO. If you grew one vertical plant with one big major bud, it would no doubt be stronger in potency than what you will end up with... but you will end up with 8-10x as much product and with a difference in potency that it would take a connoisseur to discern. I would treat this as something not to worry too much about.

 

[Faic]

Thanks for clearing that bit up. Since this crop is for meds for someone else, I've been trying to keep things as consistant as possible, since my Mom isn't a 'stoner' per se (I mean, technically she is,but you know ;3 ).

So while bud level on a plant will equal potency (lowest buds being least, top =best), you're saying I'm over thinking that. Good to know I can get that newbie conception back to where it belongs and not in the forefront. So I need to get on getting some different strains to really make meaningful potency decisions for the meds I'm working up. Got it.

 

[doctor green]

Ummm... Yep it sure is a scrog I'm removing myself from this discussion as well because I don't choose to be insulted from someone who is doing their 1st scrog.

I've argued with icemud before so I'm not biased, what icemud posted is a scrog and it's a better example of a scrog then yours, I'm not being an a**hole I'm being honest, look at my profile picture it's a big scrog, please give all us seasoned growers your description of a screen of green my 4.48lb description is in picture mode above

 

[mojuan]

I've argued with icemud before so I'm not biased, what icemud posted is a scrog and it's a better example of a scrog then yours, I'm not being an a**hole I'm being honest, look at my profile picture it's a big scrog, please give all us seasoned growers your description of a screen of green my 4.48lb description is in picture mode above

thats awesome