Downhill pulls a true SCROG out of his ass

4/19/20
(3) Critical Orange Punch clones, (1) Blue Steel & (1) local cross, Blue Hulk.

Soil grow (FFOF and / or Roots Organics Original). I run 2/3 of the General Hydroponics line-up (will specify later in journal). Water is dechlorinated tap, PH’d to 6.0-6.5. My rez is a 32 gallon Hefty, with a cheap pump moving the water around in the rez. PH pen was a HM Direct, around $45 via Amazon.

Clones are sharing a 4x4 tent with my vegetable seedlings, under a 4’ 8-tube fluorescent fixture.

4/27/20
Up-potted. Girls are doing well. Blue Steel kinda shot up - nodes not very close.

5/4/20

5/11/20
Up-potted to 5 gallon pots.

5/14/20

5/16/20

Have topped a couple times, now loosely tied down with twine on hand. Not an ideal product with which to train plants, but it was on hand (no new $) & I avoided constricting any branches. At this point in the grow, my intention was to use these plants as mothers & do a pheno hunt. Later in the grow, I change my plan. I follow the GH Drain to Waste (soil grow) nutrient schedule to the letter for the nutes I use. This tent does not supplement co2. I started out with the steel shelves occupied 1/2 the tent, to more efficiently use my space for clones, seedlings & vegging cannabis. As the vegetable plants get moved out for planting, & the clones get bigger, I roll out the shelves & put all plants on the floor.

18” oscillating fan on floor. Off-brand 4” centrifugal in-line fan near top of tent blowing out, IN air is passive through lower vents on an off-brand fan controller.

5/26/20

5/30/20

6/3/20

6/5/20
New equipment: Inkbird ITC-608T simple environment controller ($70 Amazon) to address temperature & RH. I found it easier to program than anticipated. This unit is not the newest model, & is not WiFi enabled. It does have a quiet alarm for exceeding programmed parameters. It now runs the 4” extraction fan top of tent. Separate probes, which hang down close to the meager canopy.

6/10/20
Note the shitty little 8” fan hanging on my Hydrofarm Agrobrite (consumer version, not commercial quality). Trying to moderate temps between top of tent n bottom of ten. I have 2 of these little fans, & they are crap. Even on high setting, they barely move any air. I do NOT advocate buying plastic 8” fans. Fuck them - buy a real fan.

When plants are young or seedlings, I supplement RH with a humidifier. As the plants begin to produce enough moisture in the air, I move out the humidifier & later use a dehumidifier. I get close to 99% RH in my clone dome, I look for 50-60RH a bit later. When we move into the Flower room, I’ll decrease RH.

6/13/20

6/21/20

Big day!! These 5 plants get up-potted again, & moved into Flower room (6’x7’x7’)!! (4) 30-gallon fabric pots & (1) 20 gallon fabric pot. I ran out of the big ones. Note that I also ran out of soil, & (2) closest bags are short. This gets corrected at payday, just a few days from now. Shortly before 6/21, I decided that a legit pheno hunt is not practical for a guy at my scale. I have taken clones from all of these plants, & if one of these plants proves awesome, I can always leave a few leaves @ harvest, & re-veg. Pulled the 1000w Hortilux HPS & installed new 1000w Ushio Daylight Blue MH bulb from my local hydro store. Set temp to about 75 & RH 50. Started out with MH dimmed to 600w & hanging quite high. Later, I lower lamp / hood closer, increase to 750, & then 1000.

6/24/20
My last cycle was 1st cycle in this room, & I had to leave it open to obtain temps I needed. Since then I installed an LG 8,000 BTU window shaker. I had hoped that it would be adequate to handle (2) 1000w HPS + heat from C.A.P. Gen-1 co2 burner & dehui. This proved inadequate, so I can run only one of my two HID’s this cycle. I CAN close up the room, run everything except the 2nd HID & maintain my temps & RH. This is substantial progress, & perhaps next year I can upgrade my ac. The room is pretty air tight, with a bit of negative pressure (I think the air cooled hoods are sucking some room air in, & then blowing it out to the basement, my lung room). Currently no carbon scrubber in the 4x4 tent or the flower room. Will add when the smells start to be an issue.

6/24/20
In the absence of running 2nd light (don’t have enough mature plants, either), I puzzled on how to replace the expected yield of 2 lights, & decided to try my first SCROG. Slapped together a frame from on-hand 2x4s & ordered a 6’ wide Hydrofarm trellis net with 3.5” squares. Had hoped for maybe 2” or 2x3 squares, but couldn’t quickly find one. That was $11. Cable-tied it to frame. Bent plants to fit under it. They didn’t seem to mind their new structure.

6/25/20
Did some under canopy trimming.

6/28/20
About this time, got my co2 (NG) burner running, about 800ppm. Had to buy a new thermo-couple for it for $10.

I put plant strain info on tags that tie around the “trunk” or stem. I used to use the little tags in the dirt, but sometimes they seemed to get lost or buried.

6/30/20
Started shortening light cycle over a few days, rather than a straight flip from 18/6 - 12/12. About this time my 2-year old HM Direct PH pen puked, & I couldn’t immediately replace it (no $ ). Plants got abbreviated nute regimen because I had to use liquid ph drops, which are not helpful if one has colored nutrients. Waiting for pay day to buy a new pen.

7/2/20
More challenges. Bought a new BlueLab ph pen on sale for $85 from my local hydro store. Much nicer pen than my old, solid but utilitarian HM Direct pen. Watched the salesman “calibrate” it @ the counter. SELECTIVELY read the instructions. (This is where you can crack me in the head). PH’d nutes & Fed my plants. Whoops! Pen was off by 1.0-1.1, & my plants locked out nutrient uptake. Don’t be an asshole. Read the instructions.

7/8/20
After flushing plants with correctly PH’d water, they responded pretty much immediately & became “jazzed,” as I call it: sharp, hyper-defined edges to leaves, bold veins. I am relieved. I still have quite a few ugly leaves, but the plants continued to grow during this period, & I had a lot of trimming to do. The screen is pretty full, from my inexperienced perspective. Ideally, I would have flipped a bit sooner. Began cleaning up the canopy a bit. Co2 is now @ 1200ppm. Temp currently set to 75. I need to install the shelf for dehui, & drain hose, so I can stop hauling those buckets. Room is set up for this, shelf is painted & ready, but haven’t gotten to it yet. Light is running 1000w, about 18” over canopy (air cooled). Added a box fan for under canopy.