Faic
New Member
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.
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 -
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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~!