From nobody@REPLAY.COM Thu Oct 30 16:24:48 1997
Newsgroups: alt.drugs.pot.cultivation
Subject: Re: ScrOG vs SOG and other questions...
From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 22:24:48 +0100 (MET)
Message-ID: <199710302124.WAA29966@basement.replay.com>
>On Wed, 29 Oct 1997 01:05:56 +0100 (MET), pH wrote:
>
<snip>
>>I've been watching this discussion with interest for a while. I'd have to
>agree, ScrOG is the better system for the hobbyist. But in large gardens,
>100 sq ft and up, I only see it as an advantage if there is a height
>limitation. You gotta love getting armloads of 18" long buds as big around
>as your arm!
>
>Bucket fulls of 8 inchers aint bad either:-) I gotta admit I don't know
>what kind of buds ScrOG would produce if it was used with the same light
>and plant that was used to produce the 18" buds. All my personal
>experience thus far is with only fluoros at 40w/sq ft, hardly something
>worthy of 18" buds. With ScrOG I have gotten secondary shoots (not primary
>shoots) with colas bigger than mainstem top colas from fluoro crops without
>a trellis.
>
>The primary trade-offs between SOG and ScrOG are the time and maintenance
>involved with maybe 8 to10 times more plants and cuttings, and probably
>multiple mothers versus the time involved in training shoots; and super
>large colas versus just large colas. It's a subjective call where one has
>to do both to appreciate what real benefits will appeal most to him.
I've gotten around the need for keeping multiple mothers. Details to follow. But I think you also need to add into the equation the extra time needed for fewer plants to fill a ScrOG canopy.
>I found that with using fewer plants, aside from dealing with high numbers
>of clones and the mothers, it also meant fewer pots and much less medium to
>de-root, sterilize, and handle between crops (if you have reusable medium).
>One chore I sure was glad to lessen. With disposables like soil or
>rockwool you still have to replace and handle it.
Joo gots dat right, mang! The biggest job is cleaning the system and medium. Takes a couple of days for a large system. But because each cycle is shorter in SOG, say 70 days from seedling or clone to harvest, it is not necessary to completely sterilize the system each cycle. At least as long as you have good cleanliness habits throughout.
Shutting down and cleaning head to toe is only needed every other cycle. Still a major pain in the ass, though. BTW, folks, you're wasting a lot of money if you're using liquid bleach. Head on down to the hardware store and buy some super chlorinating powdered pool chemicals instead. Much cheaper, much stronger and chlorine in this form evaporates out of solution faster than liquid bleach. Aqau Chem Shock Treatment works very well for about $5 a bottle. Equivalent to literally hundreds, maybe thousands of gallons of liquid bleach.
>The main limiting factor regarding garden size with ScrOG is how far one
>must reach across or under the trellis to train shoots. If the trellis is
>so broad that any of its inner regions are more than an arms length away,
>it then becomes impractical. I find two feet to be my limit. Training
>would be too prohibitive if one had to be air lifted to the center of his
>ScrOG, or had to crawl under the netting:-) As far as 100 sq ft goes,
>it's up to ones imagination as to how the "arms length rule" could be
>applied, circular, rectangle, or square shaped gardens, whatever.
I still use a trellis, of sorts, and therefore pretty much follow the arm's length rule, but I don't train the plants much at all. The only time I bother is if a few individuals are much taller than the rest. Otherwise it's grow, baby, grow!
>When I first started my ScrOG I had the flat fluoros in mind. After two
>crops I realized that if they could be replaced with HIDS on a linear mover
>the existing buds could only be bigger. A linear light mover on a track
>9-10 feet long could cover a 2x12 foot (24 sq ft) area and one side could
>be against a wall. So a 12x8ft room could have 2 of them for 48 sq ft of
>canopy, with a 4 foot wide 12 foot long workspace between them. With one
>plant per 2x4 space, 6 plants could be used. Could probably get away with
>fewer but I haven't really used more than 8 sq ft for one plant. Judging
>from the way these things grow under a trellis fewer than 6 is not
>unrealistic.
Afriend of mine (garden B) is using one 1000 watt MH on a light rail for about 35 sq ft (5' x 7') and is getting excellent results. Garden A uses two 1000s, 1 MH and 1 HPS, on a Sun Circle in a 12' x 12' room. The actual canopy is four 47" x 49" tables holding 6 bus tubs each for a total canopy of about 65 sq ft. Garden A generally produces better than 30 grams per sq ft.
>>Moving the lights up and down isn't much of a problem. Neither is uneven
>height, to a degree. Large HIDs penetrate quite far down into the garden.
>Even a 1' difference in height isn't a big deal. The shorter plant will
>still get plenty of light. Plus, if you use a light mover, you can keep
>your lights closer to the tops.
>
>A main point is relative distance. Shorter plants in SOG may still get
>"plenty" of light with HIDs, but they still wont get as much light. How
>much? If you use a light mover and have the light one foot above the tops,
>the plants that are one foot lower are getting 1/4 the light as the taller
>ones. 75% is nothing to sneeze at, even half that is worth a look see. In
>Jorge Cervantes "Indoor MJ Horticulture" there is an excellent light to
>distance chart that kind of drives the point home with a graphic. With
>fluoros I've learned not to take an inch for granted, after all an inch
>could double the distance. When I eventually get HIDs I'll probably do the
>same simply because I'd be better off. Geez, with HIDs I wouldn't have to
>worry that my buds are getting too long:-))
Overall production is so strong in a full flow SOG system that it just doesn't make sense worry about shorter buds not producing as much. Pretty much every available space is used, so it just doesn't matter much. Plus, with as much light as Garden A is getting, the smaller buds are still very tasty with good crystal formation right down to the medium.
At 30 grams per sq ft on a 10 week total cycle, there's no reason to be anal about maximizing the yield of each plant. I know it sounds cavalier, but it's true.
>One interesting thing about ScrOG is that before buds start forming heavily
>all attention is focused to what's under the trellis for training. Once
>buds start filling the attention shifts to just what's above the trellis.
>At this point what's under the trellis is mostly unimportant as far as
>light is concerned, it's mostly wood. Above the trellis there is a sea of
>buds that's literally only an inch or two high. So the effective height
>difference between any two buds in the canopy varies by no more than an
>inch or two relative to the light. And each of the buds that are there
>could be said to be spaced in square inches rather than square feet. At
>this point, the entire canopy is not only closer to the light (+/- 2
>inches), but colas are also spaced closer together.
>
>>
>>I've seen people here say they don't get good bottom buds with floros.
>Gotta tell ya, I've seen lovely, crystal covered nuggets come off the very
>bottom of plants under HIDs. I haven't noticed much of a difference in
>potency or taste, either. 'Course those monster colas are mighty pretty!
>
>You're making me jealous now Bud. True, fluoros just don't penetrate:-(
Like I said, I get plenty of penetration. The plants get plenty of light, too (rimshot, please). Garden A does use a simple trellis, but to support the weight of the buds, not to train tops. The trellis consists of several wires strung across the canopy from wooden dowels. Buds are tied to the nearest wire for support. The trellis can be adjusted up and down by moving the dowels.
I regularly see buds over 12" and often 18". Single buds in excess of an ounce each are not uncommon. The next adjustment is identifying and using triploid clones as much as possible. Triploids have 3 off shoots at each petiole instead of 2. They produce MUCH better.
It is only necessary to train a plant when there is a difference in age. Then older, taller plants go on the outside and get tied down, not up, around the perimieter, extending the canopy a foot or so on all sides. Now, with a 2 garden system, this will no longer be an issue.
The cycle now goes something like this: Plant seedlings or rooted clones in garden A. After a few weeks, cut all lower branches for clones for garden B. After 4 to 6 weeks, put garden A on 12/12 and plant now rooted clones in Garden B. Several weeks later take all lower branches for clones for Garden A.
At week 10 to 12 in graden A's cycle, harvest buds, clean out graden A and plant rooted clones from garden B. This will hopefully fall in the middle of Garden B's 10 to 12 week cycle. Now, just lather, rinse, repeat.
Some adjustment is always necessary to get both gardens in synch, but once everything is on schedule there's no need for keeping mothers around. The only extra is a small fluoro system, say 4 four footers, to root clones. If extra clones are needed for another garden, they can be easily produced in large quantities by rejuvinating harvested plants. A healthy rejuvinated plant can produce 20 to 50 clones in less than a month.
The one area where SOG is a lot more hassle is the number of plants. Takes about 80 plants to fill garden A. I've been using 1 gallon pots in restaurant bus tubs. That's a lot of Geolite! Especially when it's time to wash and rinse it all.
I'm now cutting the amount of Geolite needed by 2/3 or more by switching from 1 gallon pots to silverware holders. You know, the white plastic cups with holes that sliverware sits in at restaurants? They're perfect! Very sturdy, and lots of holes for roots to grow out of. The only drawback is price; they're almost a buck each. 20 oz plastic drink cups are a good temporary alternative for on the cheap. Take a soldering iron and melt holes in the cups.
Cutting the amount of Geolite reduces the hassle to the point where I feel it balances out against the extra time required to train a few plants to fill a large canopy. I don't know about anyone else, but where I am the difference between 10 plants an 99, from a legal viewpoint is squat. 100 plants is the magic number here.
So now you're only using a few cups of Geolite per plant, not a gallon. And each plant still has the same amount of room for root formation, but some of that formation now takes place outside of the container. The other nice thing is you buy your containers from a restaurant supply store, not a garden store or head shop.
BTW, hot tip. 1 gallon pots are often available for free or very cheap. Check nurseries in your area. Many of them have piles of unused pots from transplanting that they will give away or sell for maybe a dime each. Stay away from the cheap extruded ones, though.
So the bottom line is, IMHO, a 65 sq ft full flow SOG system under HIDs producing 5 lbs per cycle from my POV is A OK. Enough acronyms for ya? The next step is 2 garden A's and 2 garden B's. That kind of setup would yield better than 6 lbs per month on an ongoing basis.
But even my relatively simple 2 garden system produces better than 3 lbs per month. Anyone doing that with a comparable ScrOG system? If so, I'd sure like to hear about it.
I know multi shelf systems can approach this kind of yield, measured by floor space, but I'd argue that a multi shelf system is much more hassle. Once the planst are in a system like the one I'm describing, it's pretty much set it and forget it. Maybe add some water or change solution, but otherwise very little work. Hardly even any leaves to pull. I check in at least twice a week, but I could easily get away with once a week or less.
BTW, I'll have a YOR for garden A in a few days. I'll give exact figures as soon as I have them. Garden B is 5 weeks away.
Cannibus Maximus,
Bud
From Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1] Fri Oct 31 17:20:58 1997
Newsgroups: alt.drugs.pot.cultivation
Subject: Re: ScrOG vs SOG and other questions...
From: pH <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]>
Date: 31 Oct 1997 22:20:58 -0000
References: <199710302124.WAA29966@basement.replay.com>
Message-ID: <19971031222058.13847.qmail@nym.alias.net>
Bud wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 29 Oct 1997 01:05:56 +0100 (MET), pH wrote:
>>
<snip>
>I've gotten around the need for keeping multiple mothers. Details to
>follow. But I think you also need to add into the equation the extra time
>needed for fewer plants to fill a ScrOG canopy.
The extra time I understand as meaning veg time.
About 75-80% of the canopy is actually filled 'during' flowering. At least
with the varieties I've used (from stash seed) this has always been the
case. I just checked some notes, here's a brief chronology for two plants,
each with a 2x4ft canopy to fill:
Day 1 - 5 1/2 inch clones put in unit (15 days since taking the cuttings)
Day 8 - Plants hit the 10" trellis (were topped @ trellis 2 days later)
Day 20 - Plants put into flowering @ 12/12 (longest shoot avg 16 inches)
Day 55 - Canopy full, bud heads filling, upward growth has stopped.
On day 20 the canopy was only about 20-25% full.
Variety and technique kinda go hand in hand as far as timing to fill the
ScrOG canopy. That's really where the art is in using ScrOG, the timing,
and it takes a little getting used to. This whole subject is still in R&D
ya know:-) There's much yet to be learned, unfortunately I can only answer
just one question I might have with each crop, using one variety, with
fluoros. The variety I use right now isn't Da Exotic (it's a strange
animal indeed) and has a fairly long internodal length and a long flowering
time by most standards. On day 106 it will be harvested.
Perhaps you can tell from the above data that this variety, no matter how
early it was flowered, would probably still overgrow the trellis if two
plants were used. As it stands now they're only vegging in the unit for 20
days before inducing.
Of some Skunk#1 seeds I recently germinated I have one long and one short
internode plant. The short one has as many internodes as the long one but
is half the height, a perfect example of slower outward growth from a very
compact plant. Probably more mainstream than my current variety, but a
variety I have no experience with. How it will do with the ScrOG I haven't
the foggiest, but one crop with one plant will let me know if the next crop
should have two of these plants per 2x4 canopy.
The point I'm trying to make is this. If after one crop I found that the
short internode SK1 only filled "half" the canopy if flowered on day 20,
rather than extend the veg period to day 40 (or whatever) I could use two
plants of that same variety flowered at the same time (day 20) to fill the
entire canopy. With my current variety it's not worth my time or effort to
risk overgrowth and increase the plant# count by using two plants in hopes
of putting them into flowering at say 10 days. The ten day time saving
doesn't impress me, a 20 or 30 day time saving might IF no overgrowth
occurred.
--snip--
>
>>I found that with using fewer plants, aside from dealing with high
>>numbers of clones and the mothers, it also meant fewer pots and much less
>>medium to de-root, sterilize, and handle between crops (if you have
>>reusable medium). One chore I sure was glad to lessen. With disposables
>>like soil or rockwool you still have to replace and handle it.
>
>Joo gots dat right, mang! The biggest job is cleaning the system and
>medium. Takes a couple of days for a large system. But because each cycle
>is shorter in SOG, say 70 days from seedling or clone to harvest, it is
>not necessary to completely sterilize the system each cycle. At least as
>long as you have good cleanliness habits throughout.
>
>Shutting down and cleaning head to toe is only needed every other cycle.
>Still a major pain in the ass, though.
I totally agree. The real pain is de-rooting and handling the medium.
hehehe I wonder if this is what people talk about just before they turn to
a true mediumless NFT system:-) Hmmmmmm..... Maybe a mediumless NFT
grower would also find ScrOG to be a good technique for anchoring plants.
--snip--
>
>Overall production is so strong in a full flow SOG system that it just
>doesn't make sense worry about shorter buds not producing as much. Pretty
>much every available space is used, so it just doesn't matter much. Plus,
>with as much light as Garden A is getting, the smaller buds are still
>very tasty with good crystal formation right down to the medium.
>
>At 30 grams per sq ft on a 10 week total cycle, there's no reason to be
>anal about maximizing the yield of each plant. I know it sounds cavalier,
>but it's true.
It is true, at least for you, you're happy with your yield so can afford to
be cavalier. For some who might get the same yield/sq ft as you but only
have 3 sq ft grow closet, and smoke an ounce every two weeks, it's a choice
between running out of stash a month before the next harvest, making more
growing space, or getting anal with the space they have. I do see a
difference between having less to sell, and having less to smoke. I would
assume the latter is not a problem for you unless your name is Old Weather
Balloon Lungs:-)))
BTW Bud, I may have overlooked what full flow means. Is that the same as
constant flow?
--snip--
>
>I regularly see buds over 12" and often 18". Single buds in excess of an
>ounce each are not uncommon. The next adjustment is identifying and using
>triploid clones as much as possible. Triploids have 3 off shoots at each
>petiole instead of 2. They produce MUCH better.
You mean there are 3 shade leaves at each nodesite, as with a whorled
phylotaxy? If so, I haven't had success with the two plants I've run
across, and your the first I've heard praise them. One was a slow growing
male, the other was too scrawny and thin to even bother with. I've heard
that's par for the course with them. You must've gotten lucky.
--snip--
>
>The one area where SOG is a lot more hassle is the number of plants.
>Takes about 80 plants to fill garden A. I've been using 1 gallon pots in
>restaurant bus tubs. That's a lot of Geolite! Especially when it's time
>to wash and rinse it all.
I've changed from chlorine to H2O2 for sterilizing. Costs a bit more but
it's not toxic to plants and one rinse does it.
--snip--
>
>So the bottom line is, IMHO, a 65 sq ft full flow SOG system under HIDs
>producing 5 lbs per cycle from my POV is A OK. Enough acronyms for ya?
>The next step is 2 garden A's and 2 garden B's. That kind of setup would
>yield better than 6 lbs per month on an ongoing basis.
>
>But even my relatively simple 2 garden system produces better than 3 lbs
>per month. Anyone doing that with a comparable ScrOG system? If so, I'd
>sure like to hear about it.
I don't think there are that many ScrOGgers around yet, at least none with
comparable equipment. I'm hoping by next summer we'll have heard a lot
more from those trying ScrOGs on for size with various systems and
varieties:-) Regardless of the gross yield it's the per sq ft figures that
one needs to keep an eye on, everything else is a just matter of more sq
ft. hehehe Space... The Final Frontier.
>
>I know multi shelf systems can approach this kind of yield, measured by
>floor space, but I'd argue that a multi shelf system is much more hassle.
I think the hassle is in setting it up and equalizing the fill/drain times
between upper and lower elevations. Once that's done it's just a matter of
a step stool to get to the upper shelf canopy. Other than the step stool I
actually find it more convenient working in an upright position for a
change:-) Now if there were 20ft ceilings with 4 stacked shelves, hmmm
that could be a hassle.
>Once the planst are in a system like the one I'm describing, it's pretty
>much set it and forget it. Maybe add some water or change solution, but
>otherwise very little work. Hardly even any leaves to pull. I check in at
>least twice a week, but I could easily get away with once a week or less.
>
>BTW, I'll have a YOR for garden A in a few days. I'll give exact figures
>as soon as I have them. Garden B is 5 weeks away.
Great, send 'em on in.
pH
>
>Cannibus Maximus,
>
>Bud
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