Icemud, you might try picking up some sand at a craft store or Walmart? etc. By making a layer over the top of your soil half an inch deep or so, and keeping your soil covered this way, you may be able to get rid of the sticky traps by creating a inhabitable environment for surface area egg layers/larva dwellers.
What are your thoughts on your V-screen? Would you do it again, or would you opt for a flat run?
One issue that folks run into if the set up is not designed accordingly, is that once the growth on the sides reach full length in flower, the colas then prevent the light from being lowered down to meet the growth on the flat surface at the bottom of the V - U Screen. What you see then, is a large portion of the plant stretched as a result of light being high enough to avoid burning of the side wall colas, but too high to avoid the stretch elsewhere. Further, the colas on the sides end up being closer to the light and grow larger, complicating the issue.
If you could elaborate a bit on your experience, it may greatly help others who are considering the same or similar option.
Thanks for sharing brother, keep us posted.
Woodsmantoker~
Hey Woodsmantoker...thanks for your advice, comment..etc...much appreciation...
As far as the fungus gnat issue, they are under control for the most part, I have been using the yellow sticky's to catch and kill of the adults and they work really well, as well as using BTi and an organic/natural pest spray made up of (neem, water, peppermint tea, habenero hot sauce and 2 cigarettes) and seems to keep them at bay, I think next run I will be getting some womans nylon's to stretch over the top of the plants containers to keep out the pesties, but for now the attack on fungus gnats has been working...last run I got them as well...Im starting to think its the Happy Frog soil, but may be from outside as well... I used azatrol last round and it worked great, this time I think I am going to lay off unless it is really necessary...
As far as the V-scrog vs a flat one...I have both pro's and con's about it..... A flat scrog would offer much better secondary lateral growths because of gravotropism as well as phototropism and I find without LST pre screen, its hard to get the sides to fill out and promote side branching. I think for this the flat scrog would be better...
On the plus side, the V-scrog allows me to get my lights closer to the outside edges of the tent vs a flat screen which will let less lumens/intensity hit the outer edges due to the square inverse law. The best way to visualize for me was to imagine a string tied to the corner of each light....about 18" long... if you were to swing the string on back and forth 180 degrees...it would make a semi- circle, very similar to the pattern of the V-Scrog I assembled... (now your probably thinking this pulls the center of the screen further away??) Yes the center of the screen recieves less intense light due to the square inverse law, however, since it also sits in the Sweet Spot of BOTH lights, it is actually recieving about the same amount of light as the sides, due to it getting the sweet spot from both lights.... The OTHER plus to this, is with dual lights, it allows me to get better foliar penetration than a single overhead light because the light is comming off 2 main points instead of one, both angled slightly above and to the side of the plant...Less shading of the underfoliage this way..
I very much agree with you about the sides/cola's being too high on the sides of the grow, thus raising the lights accordingly and lowering the intensity of the middle... I solved this issue on my last grow by making a 2-layer scrog....basicly around day 40 of flowering...I supercrop all tall cola's so they lean over towards the middle of the tent... By hanging another screen just below my lights (above the plants) I am able to (hang like puppets) the supercropped cola's so that they create a alsmost 3D scrog. By supercropping the cola's, not only are you bringing the light closer, but you are also forcing those auxins to the lower nodes and increasing the size of the secondary cola's by more than 2x....as well as allowing more light to reach the surface of the supercropped cola's.
As for future grows, with the current setup I have this is the style I believe works the best, but If I ever upgrade to a larger growing area (full room) I would actually Flat Scrog each individual plant...each with its own light above it...
Here are a few photo's of my last grow...check how I installed the screen above for adjustable support to the heavy cola's....you could call it Icemuds Puppet Show...lol
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this is first scrog im doin a jack la mota 75% sativa from med seeds, that being said was tryna figure out when should i throw her into flower, and continue scrogging the strecth? i have 300hps, how tall should the canopy be into transition? and thank you all
