Munki's Ebb n Flow 3 x 3 SCROG 400W HPS Grow

two things.

i am going to grow a local strain here soon and it is probably a 1 millionth generation clone. no hermies, no loss of vigor. shes a beast. however she will not have the hybrid vigor of an f1 seed. I cloned my SC a bunch, and in the end she was getting weak. the bottom line is it depends on the strain and the skill of the person taking clones. If you stress them alot each cloning, i think eventually you will lose the vigor.

the reason i asked if you were going to let them run is basically just because 420fied did in his journal, and it seemed to work well. he tried to time it so that the tops were exactly as tall as they could support with his light. Your light has a zone, maybe 12-16 that is the sweet spot, not just one point. so if they run up 12" or so, the whole cola would still be in the sweet spot for light.

anyways just adding my 2 cents. your looking great already.
420fied could probably elaborate on this better than I.
 
WheeloFortune said:
two things.

i am going to grow a local strain here soon and it is probably a 1 millionth generation clone. no hermies, no loss of vigor. shes a beast. however she will not have the hybrid vigor of an f1 seed. I cloned my SC a bunch, and in the end she was getting weak. the bottom line is it depends on the strain and the skill of the person taking clones. If you stress them alot each cloning, i think eventually you will lose the vigor.

the reason i asked if you were going to let them run is basically just because 420fied did in his journal, and it seemed to work well. he tried to time it so that the tops were exactly as tall as they could support with his light. Your light has a zone, maybe 12-16 that is the sweet spot, not just one point. so if they run up 12" or so, the whole cola would still be in the sweet spot for light.

anyways just adding my 2 cents. your looking great already.
420fied could probably elaborate on this better than I.
Click to expand...

OK. My thinking has been that a fair amount of the buds would form just below the screen with some tops growing above but that may not be the case after all. I don't want to lose all my leaf mass yet but I will continue to thin it out.

420fied said:
munki,

By the way, now that they are flowering, clear anything that is beneath the screen and getting light if you havent already. You want the plant to use all of it's strength to feed the tops and create big flowers, not to feed the leaves/ bud sites that are under the screen.
Click to expand...

Do you mean to clear out everything under the screen or just material that is NOT getting direct light? I'll do some more clearing tonight (I've removed several leaves each day). The stretching isn't complete yet but I want to make sure that all the branch tips have access to direct light.
 
Here are a couple of excerpts from the ScrOG Bible found in a post on another forum and was posted there back in 2004.

"Well, nothing new under the sun, the method has been used for years. In modern terms, the method was first popularized on the internet by the work of pH on the usenet group Alt Drugs Pot Cultivation, or ``ADPC'' for short. You can access ADPC from several web-based sources, and pH still posts there regularly. But the method as initially used by pH was designed to tweak production from a large area under fluorescent lights, like the ``multi-shelf'' method explained in his article on N.P. Kaye's Lycaeum site. N.P. Kaye is in fact credited with the term ``screen of green'', which pH shortened to ``ScrOG''."

Note how the method was popularized to maximize yield from using floros. Minimizing the vertical growth would seem to be the most beneficial reason to use ScrOG.

"Scrog is a production method, and it's not designed to produce photogenic buds. A fair number of grows I have seen recently on the boards used the screen more to locate and support tall bud wands. You can get away with that with lights of 400 watts and over, but even then I haven't seen the kind of weight a tight, short scrog canopy can produce."

I see this happen too. The screen is useful for spacing out the vertically growing buds but isn't the original purpose of the screen in ScrOG.

So, this is where I've been getting my ideas about how to do ScrOG along with an archived file of the ADPC posts on this topic from back in 1997.
 
If I may add any advice for scrogging:

You have to be familiar with the strain you're growing and how it stretches(Sativas will stretch more than Indicas). With my Snow White I knew that I'd have a 4 week stretch but I made the error of letting them go vertical too early and it cost me. I let them go vertical on day 13 and I should have waited until day 22-24 to let them go vertical. My colas ended anywhere from 7 to 14 inches tall, therefore some were shaded and it cost me a little. Ideally, you want your tops in that 4-6 inch range, a tad bigger is OK if you're running 600's or 1000's.

Also, munki, clear anything that is shaded. If it's getting direct light, leave it.
 
420fied said:
If I may add any advice for scrogging:

You have to be familiar with the strain you're growing and how it stretches(Sativas will stretch more than Indicas). With my Snow White I knew that I'd have a 4 week stretch but I made the error of letting them go vertical too early and it cost me. I let them go vertical on day 13 and I should have waited until day 22-24 to let them go vertical. My colas ended anywhere from 7 to 14 inches tall, therefore some were shaded and it cost me a little. Ideally, you want your tops in that 4-6 inch range, a tad bigger is OK if you're running 600's or 1000's.

Also, munki, clear anything that is shaded. If it's getting direct light, leave it.
Click to expand...

I did a pruning last night. I'll post the pics in a bit. Since the strain(s) I have are really unknown to me, observation becomes my only tool here.

BWC BayArea said:
Munki Iwas reading ur very 1st post in this journal and was wondering what a phototron is. I was also trying to see what type of medium u r using? Look like the screen is the sole support of the plant.
Click to expand...

Check out my other grow that was halted in my sig to see the phototron. They still sell them new but if you saw the prices, you would laugh.

Media is hydroton. Two plants in one bucket but each plant is in its own grow bag.

Chameleon1 said:
Looks great Munki... I'm gonna be taking the box I built and using it for a Scrog with some bag seed! I have my new closet almost setup for now... Should be getting my mazar babies here in about a week or so maybe less!!!! Looking great though +reps
Click to expand...

Right on. ScrOG is ideal for microgrows and anyplace that has cramped space as that was the original intent of the design. As PitViper has shown, Mazar can grow beautifully. Will be interesting to see how it adapts to ScrOG. Do a journal on it if you can and thanks for the reps. Right back at you on that!

DeadTour09 said:
Munki it's been great watching this baby grow! Keep up the great work, there are sure a lot of budsites there!
Click to expand...

Thanks for reading my journal. I'm excited to see some magic happen before my eyes.
 
Here is my latest experiment. I did NOT come up with this idea myself. It has been posted elsewhere on the net and it makes good use of the most basic hydroponic method out there.

08-13-09_09.JPG


It uses the principle of a wick to draw in water stored in the bottom tray through holes in the upper tray that have been stuffed with strips of cotton. Perlite fills the upper tray. It only takes about 20 minutes for the bone dry perlite to become uniformly damp. This has got to be the simplest and cheapest cloning device out there save just using a cup of water. From what I have read, it is also one of the most effective cloners as well. It is just not as fast an expensive machine but I don't mind waiting two extra days for completed clones. I will post a test I did to find the best material for the wicks in a separate thread and will link it here.
 
OK everyone. I'm going with the advice given here to give the plants one more good pruning. It is really hard to get to all the places under that screen effectively, so I did some out of the box thinking and decided to remove the plants from the screen and tent to ease the pruning process. Got some good pics of this bush. I spent over two hours going over this making sure I got all I could. Kept finding undergrowth. Surprising how well some leaves seem to hide in plain view!


Before Pruning ...

08-13-09_02.JPG


08-13-09_03.JPG


08-13-09_07.JPG


08-13-09_22.JPG


08-13-09_23.JPG



After Pruning ....


08-13-09_24.JPG


08-13-09_25.JPG


08-13-09_08.JPG


08-13-09_01.JPG


08-13-09_05.JPG


08-13-09_06.JPG


DANG that was a lot of pics.
 
As promised, here is a link to the wick cloner test I did.

Wick Cloner

Note to moderators: I looked at the forum categories and thought this thread would belong in "Seeds, Clones, and Strains". Please move it if it belongs more in a DIY forum or "How to" forum.
 
My my ... what a difference a day makes. It appears that the plants are indeed concentrating their energy to the tops and kicking it into high gear.

08-14-09_01.JPG


08-14-09_02.JPG


08-14-09_03.JPG
 
At first, i thought you took off too many leaves, but they're bouncing back and i think they'll do fine. Lookin good, i wanna see how that wick cloner does.
 
Wow, great job with the plants. Its amazing how those two grew. I love the pics before the manicure. Great job...
 
wow, that looked like it was a pain in the ass. lol.

looking good, are you going to keep them under the screen for a bit longer to let them stretch more, it looks like your letting them run up already?

looking great though, keep up the green work!
 
CharlieMopps said:
At first, i thought you took off too many leaves, but they're bouncing back and i think they'll do fine. Lookin good, i wanna see how that wick cloner does.
Click to expand...

Oh they are vigorous and it does appear that the trim just forced the plants to concentrate to the tops.

Here is a pic of the clones in the cloner. Over thirty hours in and lookin good.

IMG_01011.JPG


:dreamy:

sonzor said:
Wow, great job with the plants. Its amazing how those two grew. I love the pics before the manicure. Great job...
Click to expand...
Chameleon1 said:
Looks better everyday!!!!
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. It was a labor of love but would not do it like this on subsequent grows. Just learning, having fun, and looking forward to the little pot of gold at the end. :rollit:

WheeloFortune said:
wow, that looked like it was a pain in the ass. lol.

looking good, are you going to keep them under the screen for a bit longer to let them stretch more, it looks like your letting them run up already?

looking great though, keep up the green work!
Click to expand...

Ya know, I did more reading into the ADPC archive I have, and their journals have a pretty long period between switching 12/12 and the point where they stopped pulling the growth back under and outward on the screen. Here is what author pH wrote back in 1997.

"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."

He did use floros though so he could not afford the vertical growth. A 400 watt HPS will allow me more leeway in the vertical growth, but I would like to keep them under a foot if I can.

obxgardener said:
Can't wait to see the buds!
Click to expand...

Oh ain't that always the case! ;) Especially with this one as they are approaching two months of age already.
 
sounds good munk, looks good too.
 
It's my experience with most Indica/Sativa hybrids that it's best to train them under the screen for the first 18-20 days of 12/12 and then let them go vertical. I let this last batch go vertical on day 13 and that was 8 days too early.

He says his screen gets 70% coverage in the flower stage munki but here's something you have to think about. He was probably using the gold standard of 1 plant per sq ft of screen(ie: a 4x5 screen like mine would take 20 plants).

Folks who grow like this flip to 12/12 as soon as the plants hit the screen and in that case most of the screen coverage would indeed come during the flowering stage.

However, for guys like you and I who have big screens but a small number of plants, that rule does not apply. Our screens will need to filled out a little more during veg. I used 9 plants on a 4x5 screen and vegged until the screen was 60%-65% full before I flipped to 12/12 which was the correct call.

Just something to ponder. Best of luck.
 
Back
Top Bottom