My first Scrog

Hello Everybody,

I am relatively new to the forum and have spent several months reading. First of all - I encourage any new members to read the FAQ section. What an amazing way to get up to speed. I see lots of newbies posting questions that are easily answered in the FAQ section. I know that has got to drive people crazy. I am grateful to have a place filled with so much information.

I am a medical user. I have chronic pain and neuropathy from a horrible car accident 20 years ago. I am also an older guy at 50 years old and have been a marijuana enthusiast for some 35 years.

I use (4) 4' flourescent tubes for my veg room and a high pressure sodium light fixture for the flowering room. I started with 2 female clones that were given to me by another medical user. I started with a small setup and have been flowering 2 plants at a time for personal use. Learning to clone seemed like baptism by fire, but eventuall I got the hang of it. My first 2 grows were vertical. The first grow was marginal at best. Low yield and lots of mistakes made along the way. The second vertical grow was much better. Good yield, excellent flavor and potency.

Now that I felt confident about understanding the needs of the plants and the overall process, I decided to go to the advanced growing techniques section and see what else I might try. I decided to try a horizontal grow. I took 2 clones and topped them each 2x in the veg room. At the same time I anchored the base of the plant stalk and tied the main stem completely horizontal. When I had an appropriate amount of growth I moved them into the flowering room. They needed tying back every couple of days. I ended up with string tied everywhere by harvest time. It was a very successful grow and I decided that I would take the next logical step.

I know that technically in a scrog you keep the plants under the screen. I decided to try growing the plants on top of a grid. I made the grid using thin pieces of bamboo held together with zip ties. I trained the clones horizontally as before and when they had sufficient growth I moved them into the flowering room and pulled each of the plants through the grid so that the grid is resting on the 2 containers. I fanned out the branches the best I could and trained them into position using zip ties. I bent as many fan leafs as I could through the bottom of the grid so as to focus the light on the rest of the canopy. The attached photos are 1 of the 2 clones in the veg room growing horizontal and then the 2 clones after they were 3 weeks into flowering. It has been about 5 weeks now and everything is going well. You have to really get in there every couple days to adjust the canopy, but it is a labor of love.

My next grow will be a real scrog with plants growing under poultry netting. This site has inspired me to push the envelope on what can be done and the therapeutic value for me is priceless. Having free medicine isn't so horrible either.

I also wanted to add that I am a vaporizing fan and own a Super Vapezilla. It can reallly stretch a bud until it screams.

Peace -

nice plants man! that grid must have taken a while to make..

Yes, it took about 2 hours. Just another labor of love.

Dont feel bad about being a geezer here,im a bit older than you are & there are a few other geezers like us here.

I think we need to start a section of the forum for AARP members

Hahahaha - you said it. Experience is the best teacher.

nice screen........

pretty nice fill there... i have loads of questions for you... how tall or when did you start the flowering cycle...??

what light system did you use?.... how long did it take to fill in to that spot?... how can you tell if its a branch or a bud coming up?... thx in advanced man

Nice screen and plants. First picture looks delicious, like a birthday cake with lots of candles.

Oh and hello fellow geezers.




qc

Here are some answers for you.

When the plants reached 5 nodes I topped them and started the horizontal training.

2 clones were used in this experiment.

Each plant was topped 3 times during veg cycle.

Plants were vegged under (2) 4' flourescent tubes on 16/8 cycle.

If the plants were made to stand vertical I would estimate they would have been about 16" - 18" tall when they went into the flowering space.

They are flowering under 400 watt HPS light.

A week ago I introduced CO2 by setting up my 7 gallon beer fermenter in the room. I placed a combination of de-chlorinized water, sugar and activated yeast inside the fermenter. I have a hose that runs from the top of the fermenter and travels up inside the grid and pokes its end out 2" above the center of the grid.

The flowers are growing nicely and I have a relatively even canopy.

My next grow will be with poultry netting and I will keep the plants under the screen. I will post some new pics showing the bud growth. I probably have 2-3 weeks left until harvest and will start flushing soon.

I got a deal on a hand held microscope with a built in light that goes to 100X power at Radio Shack over the weekend for $11.00 so that I can keep an eye on the peak time to harvest.

Everything I have done, I learned here - Props to Roll it Up!

Update -

These 2 photos were taken this morning. One picture is the scrog in all of its glory and the other is my Co2 Maker.

Looking really nice!

Little Tommy said:

Update -

These 2 photos were taken this morning. One picture is the scrog in all of its glory and the other is my Co2 Maker.

Click to expand...

very nice... I need to get mine out of lock state right now.. but i cant wait...

tommy when you topped you took it back to the 5th node right?

I did the first topping at the 5th node. After those 2 new branches developed I waited and topped each one again after 3 more nodes each. Once all four new branches were developed I waited for 3 more nodes each and topped again. In this way I ended up with eight total colas which I fanned out on the grid. You could probably top more but eight main colas on each plant was plenty to try and manage for my first scrog. It also adds extra veg time as each topping slows the growth some as there is recovery time. I hope that helps you.

Okay, the results are in and the dry weight was a little over 3 ounces total from the 2 plants. The flavor is marvelous and it leans towards the couchlock end of the spectrum. All samplers gave it 2 thumbs up! I am jar curing.

nice grow man, +rep to you. keep me tuned in for your next grow.
also am interested in what soil and nutes were used?

Soil I used was 2/3 Sunshine Mix #1 and 1/3 Perlite. The nutrients were General Hydroponics Flora Nova. I usse the Grow formula for veg and the Bloom formula for flowering. Easy to use and great results so far. Thanks for stopping by.