400W Alaskan Thunderfuck SCROG

ScrogThis

Active Member
Well.... had this post all but previewed when Micro$oft decided to initiate a spontaneous reboot! Of course I hadn't saved a thing yet... dammit, was good too! (better than this one written only under the influence of coffee) All the pics are reduced to 800x600 to respect RIU's courtesy in hosting the pics, etc. Please let me know if you want to see any particular one in a higher res.


This initial post is to catch up as I wasn't aware of these forums until I'd had a problem, wish I'd found it sooner... After this initial post I'll continue real-time as they grow. Hope my mistakes can help others, please feel free to comment, praise, suggest, poke fun at, or generally abuse my grow as I learn too. Grower for quite a while but this is my first scrog and I've already made a bit of a mess of it.

This grow is populated with clones taken from a plant which was grown from a single seed, paper towel germinated and grown in Fox Farm Ocean Forest (don't forget a calcium supplement if you use this, thought my baby was gonna die!). Due to her height and my lack of space she was sadly sacrificed to the gods of knowledge and experimentation once the clones proved viable.

Started with 6 cuttings taken when she was around 6 weeks (she didn't clearly display her sex until week 5). Four went into the grow, one was saved as a mom and the other I managed to drop a small fan on! She survived with a little tape and a stick to prop her up but I culled her before the transplant.
TIP: Do not perform construction around your babies! Someone could get hurt! :wall:

SYNOPSIS:
Alaskan Thunderfuck from clone
4 plants total (2 per screen/tub, 1sf/plant)
400W HPS @12/12 (vegged under 400W MH)
Hydro (bubbler)
Technaflora "Recipe for Success" nutes @ 100%
supplemental CO2 (via yeast/sugar generator)
13 days into flower (6 weeks from cutting)

This is the conceptual drawing for the cabinet. I say conceptual as it didn't end up quite like this and I've "tweaked" it a bit to correct flaws that emerged, the next one will be a little different... I think the materials and equipment ran about $800 after all was said and done, more than I wanted to spend, less than I thought I would. Not the prettiest thing I've ever built but have to admit I was sort of excited to start my first scrog.

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These pics are from the end of August when I transplanted the girls to the flower room, 16 days from cuttings. At 12 days they had no visible roots emerging from the rock wool so I added 1/4 strength Root66 to the 1/4 strength nutes I was using (1-1-1), tons of roots in about 2-3 days. Probably just impatient...

I don't know what you'd call the hydro setup - SWC maybe? Got the idea from Overgrow (thanks Tick) many years ago but life happened and it's taken 8-10 years to get around to trying scrog. The containers are 10 gallon as I recall but are only about 6" deep. A large piston-style air pump delivers TONS of oxygen to the containers via a 4' flexible air stone arranged in a figure "8" in each tub.

Started with 1/4 strength nutes and increased by 1/4 each week to 100%, ran 24/0 the first week until I saw roots emerge from the net pots then switched to 18/6.

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WOO-HOO! Roots emerging from the net pots, it's on now... :bigjoint:

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The cabinet is situated in a basement with little ventilation and limited access to fresh air. Under the 400W MH the girls began to show signs of heat stress so I added CO2 until I can resolve the heat issue. I'm working on a chiller and if it works out I'll post it here as well. This was accomplished by sugar/yeast CO2 generator(s) - 4x 1 gallon jugs injected at the forced air intake (red arrow) Not going into detail there, plenty of threads on that subject already. These pics are 6 days from transplant and they seem to be recovering from the heat stress.

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These pics are the following week, no sign of heat stress and they really seem to be digging the CO2 and hydro! The small potted clone in the pics was rooted at the same time, I'm working to "bonsai" her and keep her around for a mom, would hate to lose this strain as I really like it. The clone room is big enough for her also and she's doing well under 3x 18" under-cabinet florescents I had laying around.

I drain & refill the containers each week with fresh nutes and flushed w/ Clearex and H2O2 before switching to bloom nutes, switched to 12/12 a few days after these were taken. I keep a calendar also if anyone wants the actual exact number of days, what day I switched, etc. Let me know if you want more detail.

In retrospect I believe this is when it started to get out of hand, should have topped and started training by now...
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These pics are the following week, I've been training them to the screen every day and they are really filling out. I was a little worried at first, as after training they always look to me like a hail storm hit them, but they recover in hours - amazing to watch.

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The rest of these pics are after the switch to 400W HPS as you can tell by the color. I've appended the date to the pics so you can see the progress. As of today the canopy is still getting taller and I'm concerned I just won't have enough room for the colas. Once this journal is posted I'm planning a major training session to get the canopy height back under control as well as removing the remaining veg under the screen. I'll post pics of that later.

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That's it for the moment, I just heard the cooltube fan come on, time to wrestle that canopy! I'll follow up later with some pics of the results as well as the BEAUTIFUL little pistils emerging every where! Looks like 20 or so bud sites / square foot right now.
 

ScrogThis

Active Member
As promised here are the pics of my sadly overgrown scrog in the top view you can see why I call it "hail-storming" when I train them down. My next grow will be topped when it hits the screen, all the main branches trained under and work it everyday. An overgrown scrog has proven to be difficult to recover.

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This is a pic of the mom I'm trying to bonsai, took this 2 days after topping to get her to bush, looks like it's working.

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And finally a couple of the buds just starting, frosty man!

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reggaerican

Well-Known Member
yo man im real impressed with your grow and the amount of detail put into your setup. +1 rep for your quality work
 

ScrogThis

Active Member
Thank you machnak for the kind words of encouragement!

@reggaerican - Thanks! No not the first, I've grown indoors & out w/ soil & soil-less (much longer than I care to admit), this is just the first scrog and I have to say despite my numerous mistakes I'm very impressed with this method so far. Please let me know if you'd like more details, I have many pics of the cabinet construction and such. I built a cabinet about 8 years ago but never got to use it (changed jobs, moved out of state, etc.) that was a much "stealthier cabinet disguised as a side board w/ plate rack on top. Probably still have the drawings for it also if anybody wants them. Please consider this cabinet like "open source" feel free to use any parts of it and contribute your improvements.

@valuablevariable - thanks, pretty nice setup you have yourself! The flower room volume is ~23.5 cu. ft. I'm planning NL #5 & Super Lemon Haze for the next go...
 

mistaphuck

Well-Known Member
nice grow! but atf or mtf is a myth, your strain may have come from someone who grows in ak, but matinuska thunderfuck is just what we call good ass weed from the valley.
 

ScrogThis

Active Member
Thanks ShowStopper, appreciate the feedback!

@mistaphuck - you may be right, candidly I'm aware it's considered a bit of a unicorn strain though the bud I found the seed in was (legally) sold as Alaskan Thunderfuck and surprisingly was exactly as I remember from soooo long ago. The taste as well as the buzz being exactly as described also, creeper with a ridiculous "holy crap I shouldn't have had that last hit" high and a chocolate aftertaste. It might not be ATF but damn it's good, it'll do man, it'll do.
 

ScrogThis

Active Member
Not much has changed in two days, the training was apparently more traumatic for me than the girls... here are a couple of pics showing they just keep making pretty flowers.

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woodsmantoker

Well-Known Member
MTF = Mattanuska Thunderfuk (Original Legend)

The original MTF was a pheno cut that made its mark in cannabis history after it was wide spread throughout the state of Alaska and parts of the lower 48 (states). It was only offerd in clone form at the time and after the first major raids in Alaska, the idea that MTF was gone was generated. Fact of the matter is that every bit of the original legend is hidden away in the mother plant that created it. Where might she be is the better question! ;)

Contact me for further info. Woodsman
 
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