Trying this SCROG thing all the cool kids are doing

[bettygreen]

I'm working on my 2nd soil grow. I have 7 fem girls at 24 days from seed. They've been topped once at day 19; I will top again in another week or so.

My last crop ended up growing too big, even with double topping, only 42 days of veg, and picking short strains. My tent is 6ft tall, with 4 feet of actual growth area (2ft needed for hanging light). I ended up scorching 3 pakistan valleys to death, b/c they stretched waaaay more than was expected.

So, this time around, I thought I'd try scrog, especially since I have 3 haze plants growing.

I'm planning on just buying a vivosun scrog net, and going from there. I'm a bit nervous about trying this, b/c I already ruined part of my first grow; it's really disheartening to spend so much time, only to kill it, anyway.

I have a 2.5x5x6 tent & a 2x4x5 tent. I have 7 girls which I will split-up: 2 strawberry cake in small tent; 2 fruit punch, 1 amnesia haze, and 2 o'haze reds in bigger tent.

Could I do scrog with these tents, strains, plant #'s?

I'll probably end up killing one of them at some point, so...take that into consideration. It seems to be my thing: killing at least one plant each grow.

Also, finally bought a tds tester to help me dial in my nutes. I test & adjust my pH to 6.5 (comes out of my well at 8.5). I use advanced nutrients mgb & their recreational grower supplement group. My lights are 1 600w led & 2 300w leds. I use various fans for ventilation, air flow, and temp control. For odor control, I'm using a winix whole room unit which is kicking ass!

Welp, that's that. Any expert advice regarding setting up a scrog using my grow parameters would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Scientific]

Hi BG -- I'm just starting my first SCROG grow myself, hoping like you to join the cool kids, so I can't/won't try to offer any SCROG advice except to say that it sounds like you have a nice setup (tent, nutes, lights, fans).

You say that you have a TDS tester now. I'm wondering what number that's giving you with your pH 8.5 well water.

Good luck and have fun (and BTW, it's not "killing," it's "learning" (or maybe "learning by killing"? ).

 

[bettygreen]

I use an aquarium pH test/adjuster kit (with the vial & pH solution drops). I just ordered my tds pen; I can't wait til it gets here, b/c I really need a machine to help tell me when it's too much or too little nutes.

I did two bag seed grows, last year, using only 1 300w & my small tent. I used it as practice to get a feel for things. My first real grow is just finishing up. If I had a tds tester, I think half my issues would be caught before they get too bad.

Anyway, this should be a fun adventure! I finally watched a few how-to videos on scrogging, and it seems really easy. Well, at least easier than I thought it would be.

I'll be switching over to flower in about 3 weeks. How about you?

 

[bettygreen]

The Amnesia Haze is already showing pH issues. I flushed her. This was a free seed, otherwise a newbie grower like me wouldn't even dare try growing this strain. From what I've read, she's a real type A prima donna.

There's a small Pakistan Valley cutting that I got to root, but who knows if it'll grow, as I took it off one of the scorched girls who was 3 weeks into flower. Hoping it'll monster crop itself. That's a thing, right?

 

[Scientific]

> I use an aquarium pH test/adjuster kit (with the vial & pH solution drops).
If you can stand to buy one more piece of test gear, a pH pen and a bottle of calibration fluid may give you more accurate pH readings. I kept fish for years and got really good and reading the blue to green scale of pH you use there, but reading the yellow to orange scale for the pH range of my plants for some reason is much harder. When I got a pH pen I was surprised how far off my reading were when made with drops. I can tell you though, having used pH meters in a lab and even having designed one myself that if you're going to use a pH pen you MUST calibrate it carefully and maintain it (by keeping the glass tip immersed in calibration fluid), otherwise you get junk data.

> If I had a tds tester, I think half my issues would be caught before they get too bad.
I went from thinking that a TDS test was a "nice to have" to thinking it's a "must have," at least for hydroponics, but they sure give you useful info and help you to see and think about what's going on if you are of an analytical bent. Of course people grow great stuff without any instruments, so to each his own!

> Anyway, this should be a fun adventure! I finally watched a few how-to videos on scrogging, and it seems really easy. Well, at least easier than I thought it would be.
I think it's going to be fun to try, and I can see where it could really help to have a nice even layer of flowers making illuminating them much easier, which I think might translate to being able to use less light and thus lower cost. We shall see, but yeah, it should be really fun to try.

> I'll be switching over to flower in about 3 weeks. How about you?[/QUOTE]

At this moment I have one white widow seed with a root that's 7 millimeters long, so this grow is only just getting started. I have already built my screen. Now I just need the green!

 

[bettygreen]

I am looking into getting a pH pen, for sure! I want to buy a mid-range one. Eventually. Right now, $20-30 is my budget, so I have to go with a cheapie. Most of them look like the same thing, just packaged differently. Any advice on brands?

 

[bettygreen]

Decided on the Apera phb3. It's about $35, and gets tremendous reviews. I was going to splurge on a better model if theirs, but they won't ship it to me.

I looked at all the cheapies, and decided to go with quality & value.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Well I'll give you some advice based on two unspectacular scrog grows using nets.

I've had most experienced scrog growers not recommend those vivosun nets. The squares are too large, and it's not rigid enough to force the branches into a level plane. Might want to look into something else if you want to learn to properly scrog. I've tried it with the nets twice (first time with a home-made net), and not to say I really know what I'm doing, but I didn't really see a dramatic difference over just regular growing when just tossing a net over. It's nice to have it for sativas with a lot of stretch to keep the canopy nice and even, but that's not really true scrogging where you end up with a sea of green poking up through the top of the screen. I think some people have probably done scrogs with these nets with some success, but from what I've seen rigid screens are the best and probably a lot easier to work with for newbies to the method. The slack in these nets means colas often come loose and fly up when adjusting one under one portion of the netting or another.

My last attempted scrog with the Vivosun netting to give you an idea. That's a 4x4 tent, the squares are 5" x 5". If I'd have trained these plants properly and had more tops it might have made a full "sea of green" effect, but instead it basically just acted to keep the canopy level. I think that's an important difference, because if you don't have the "sea of green" effect going up on top above the screen, then there's no reason to defoliate bud sites beneath the screen that would receive light. Normally with a scrog you want to cut out all the growth under the screen and allow the canopy above the screen to catch all the light, but unless you get that effect going on where you've actually fully filled the net, you're really just going to bite yourself in the butt and reduce the total yield you could get if you left the budsites lower on the branches that wouldn't have been shaded. See how there's these big open spaces in the net where my colas are next to each other? It's trellis'd, it's an even canopy, but it's not a sea of green, and so removing the growth beneath the screen only served to rob me of my yield, and it never really came to be a "scrog".

With that said, from my mistakes, and from all my reading, I think the most important factor of scrog growing is training and topping. You need as many lateral branches as you can get to spread throughout the grid. You have to time this right as well, because if you let the plant get too big before topping and fim'ing it for more branches, then you won't get enough lateral growth. The LST type training for fluxing (or mainlining) is how I trained the first plant I scrogged which had a much better starting structure, but ended up lacking because I over defoliated.

So yeah, I can definitely tell you how NOT to do it

 

[bettygreen]

Oh, wow! Thanks for that advice. Truly.

I've seen where people use sturdy twine to make their own screens. I think I read/saw a video saying the squares should be 2x2?

Hmmm...time to McGyver the poo out of this!

 

[bettygreen]

Actually, I found some trellis netting on Amazon that has 2" squares, 3.5" squares, and 4" squares. I'm going to check which is the best size, then order one.

I've McGyvered enough, and it often is only a stop-gap measure. Until I get one good grow under my belt, I think I'll try to do as little McGyvering as possible. Lol!

If you're interested, just search for "plant trellis netting" on Amazon. Super cheap, too.

 

[bettygreen]

EcoTrellis, Trellis Netting, Cucumber Climbing, Tomato Trellis Netting, 5ft x 15ft

 

[MickFoster]

A trellis net and a scrog net are two different things. A scrog net is pulled very tight and placed 8-12 inches from the top of the pot to hold the branches down in order to train them to grow horizontally. PVC and mason line is all you need.

 

[bettygreen]

You do understand that a trellis net can be pulled taut & hung horizontally? Think outside of the box, man!

Also, just to point out: from every video and blog I've been researching, from the looks of your set-up, it's not a true scrog; you're not actually using the screen properly for scrog. You actually have to keep the canopy below the screen, tucking the tips & budsites into the net, filling in that whole screen. You're letting your plant grow straight up into the screen, rather than spreading it out. You actually have to still train your plant, not just let the mesh push it down.

Shall I share some master grower videos with you?

 

[TheFertilizer]

Actually, I found some trellis netting on Amazon that has 2" squares, 3.5" squares, and 4" squares. I'm going to check which is the best size, then order one.

I've McGyvered enough, and it often is only a stop-gap measure. Until I get one good grow under my belt, I think I'll try to do as little McGyvering as possible. Lol!

If you're interested, just search for "plant trellis netting" on Amazon. Super cheap, too.

EcoTrellis, Trellis Netting, Cucumber Climbing, Tomato Trellis Netting, 5ft x 15ft

You do understand that a trellis net can be pulled taut & hung horizontally? Think outside of the box, man!

Also, just to point out: from every video and blog I've been researching, from the looks of your set-up, it's not a true scrog; you're not actually using the screen properly for scrog. You actually have to keep the canopy below the screen, tucking the tips & budsites into the net, filling in that whole screen. You're letting your plant grow straight up into the screen, rather than spreading it out. You actually have to still train your plant, not just let the mesh push it down.

Shall I share some master grower videos with you?

��

They really don't stay taught, and it becomes to be quite a pain in the ass when you're trying to move one branch over underneath a portion of the net, and then it lifts it up because the net doesn't have enough resistance, and thusly allows some other branch you tucked previously to escape, so you have to tuck that back in, and push the corners of the net down to get enough tension on the whole thing to hold it... Seriously, it might seem harder to build something with a rigid screen, but in the long run messing with the net wasn't really that convenient either.

 

[bettygreen]

Thanks for the input. I do appreciate it! If I make a simple frame for it, it'll be just fine for my purposes. I'm stilI weighing all my options. If I have any success with it, the next grow I'll spend time making a fancier screen.

 

[bettygreen]

Hydrofarm HGN15S Trellis Netting 3.5-Inch Mesh, 5'x15'

This one got really good reviews from cannabis growers.

 

[KeithVi]

A trellis net and a scrog net are two different things. A scrog net is pulled very tight and placed 8-12 inches from the top of the pot to hold the branches down in order to train them to grow horizontally. PVC and mason line is all you need.

I use 2in x 4in square reinforcement wire and it works pretty well for me. It's stiff enough to hold down the colas horizontally growing where I want them to go. But the problem I have scrogging is two different strains one that grows ridiculously faster than the other. In my current grow I'm doing a soil under scrog along with the same strain in a deep water culture under the same scrugg. The deep water culture is growing so much faster than the soil it is made my canopy uneven.

I attached my pictures in the wrong order obviously.

 

[bettygreen]

That's nifty! I saw a few screens/trellises like this for a good deal; plus, I have a roll of this exact stuff just sitting in my shed. I'm wondering : how hard is harvest going to be? For the sturdy factor, I'm very interested in this!

Some growers have said they actually love using chicken wire, except during harvest time.

There are just so many options!

 

[KeithVi]

That's nifty! I saw a few screens/trellises like this for a good deal; plus, I have a roll of this exact stuff just sitting in my shed. I'm wondering : how hard is harvest going to be? For the sturdy factor, I'm very interested in this!

Some growers have said they actually love using chicken wire, except during harvest time.

There are just so many options!

I don't find the reinforcement wire to be a problem. I generally snip each branch one at a time then do the three bucket wash, hang it to dry. By the time I'm finished cutting almost at the wire level or below and it's not really been a problem.

By the way this is amnesia lemon mostly sativa and I did the scrog to control the stretch.

 

[bettygreen]

You, sir, have helped me decide to go with the reinforced grid! Outstanding!