My first ScrOG: T5 PAR vs 1000w HPS

@Puppet14,

If the plants arent TOO far along in flower, you could take clones and put them back into veg lighting after they root to utilize a scrog. I plan on doing the same exact thing when I determine the sex of my babies. Doing individual screens is something I also thought about, but for me it wouldnt work because I need to train plants before I start flowering in the 7x7" pots. Once I change to flower and determine sex, the definite females will be going into 13x13" pots and be allowed to start coming up through the net. Also, doing individual screens for each pot sounds much more tedious than one big screen. Thats just my opinion.

Im gonna do a perpetual scrog though since I have a separate cabinet I can use for vegging clones and small plants. The clones will be about 5-6" tall when I snip them, which will be perfect in my humidity dome. This works a little better for me since money is still an issue with the lighting system $400 is a big chunk of change for me right now. Since I am certain they will be females, Ill allow them to grow to 12-15" and put them in the grow tent and begin training immediately.

I returned from doing all of my errands today, pictures will be up when I complete building the platforms in a few hours. My drill is only a 7.2v so I might only get a couple of them done.

I finished the first platform. The platform looks a little rough, but the angle is perfect to allow for gravity draining without the water tray going all over the place. I accidently bought the wrong size tubing the the brass fitting, but it screwed in with a little bit of effort. All in all, job well done.

With the platform, Im also able to begin training 2 of the 4 plants. Awesome!

Pics!

Looking good! I like the idea of of the totes with the nozzle to drain, it would eliminate at least one problem that I see with the SCROG method. In the past I have just transplanted straight from solo cup to either 5 or 3 gallon nursery pots. I've read many contradictory opinions about transplanting, but my current thoughts are that transplanting from solo cups or rapid rooters to like a 2 gallon pot then to a final 5 gallon pot for flower is probably the best answer. It just seems like the plants stall for a week or so when I transplant straight to the larger pots, and I'm looking to maximize my veg time. What I've been doing is topping twice in veg and then just kind of letting the plants grow, but it takes my plants a long time(9 weeks from seed) to get the height that I want them to be going into flower. I need to cut a week off of that time for my perpetual to work the way that I want it too.
My current plan is to veg until the end of sept using a combination of indoor and outdoor lighting to keep the plants in veg then take clones, flower the plants that are already in veg,sex and keep the clones from all females, flower the original plants that were grown from seed, and finally select the best pheno and just keep running the clones from that pheno. I eventually want to end up with 4 strains that help me the most in order to combat the tolerance that happens when I smoke the same thing over and over again for like 4 months.
I've already decided that indica wise I'm going with Ace of Spades from TGA, and I'm going to grow out Vortex and JillyBean for the Sativa side of things. I've smoked jilly before, and really liked the high(fun and very functional), but it really isn't as potent as a lot of stuff that I have smoked. It will be my head stash that I run maybe two plants a year. I'm hoping that the Vortex will be more potent, if I don't like it then I'll be looking for another strain.

@Puppet14,

Thanks!

Ive went straight to larger pots simply because I thought it would be easier but I was wrong since there are longer veg times associated with scrog/LST. Rootbound issues have crept up on me every time. Recovery time for me is 2-3 days at most after transplanting. Make sure you completely saturate the soil with water after transplanting. Topping/fimming takes a lot of recovery time, closer to 5 days for me. I think next time Im going to fimm twice. My first attempt at fimm failed, I didnt trim off enough plant matter. The second turned out much better. This will also help cut down on time spent in veg and giving you more immediate shoots when the canopy hits the net to start training.

What you have going for your plan sounds great except the combination of lighting part. That doesnt make sense to me. Using outdoor light does not sound like its a very secure way of doing things, and also isnt going to have your plant grow much if its just next to a window. What kind of lights are you using in your grow area?

4 strains is a lofty goal for a ScrOG. My max is two since my flower tent is sectioned off into 2 sets of 4x4 grow spaces. Adding more strains would complicate things since different strains need different amounts of nutes, veg times, flower times.. too difficult to keep up with, even if doing individual potting ScrOG.

Jillybean sounds nice. Which breeder? Sometimes I like a functional and happy high more than I like to take away knee pain. I might give that a shot sometime.

I spent this morning and early afternoon putting together the rest of the platforms. I forgot I have a rusty old plug-in power drill that was sitting in my closet. A magnetic phillips bit is rust-welded into the chuck, so its just fine for me. Made the screws much easier going in for sure.

Looks like Ill be needing 3 more storage totes ($61), an 8" high powered fan for exhaust ($50), the lighting system ($400), some tubing for drainage on the storage totes ($6), a few pairs of 1/4" rope ratchets ($45), and I should be good to go. I have a 6" inline fan from LEDwholesalers that burnt out and Ill be asking for a replacement when I have time. Right now, I wanted to finish this post before I headed into work. Theres another $75 cost since Im going to the doctors to recertify tomorrow, and then the recertification fee from the state I believe is another $75. Another $712 that I really dont have. This grow is really going to be make or break for me.

Pic of completed platforms:

Originally Posted by infinitalus

@Puppet14,

Thanks!

Ive went straight to larger pots simply because I thought it would be easier but I was wrong since there are longer veg times associated with scrog/LST. Rootbound issues have crept up on me every time. Recovery time for me is 2-3 days at most after transplanting. Make sure you completely saturate the soil with water after transplanting. Topping/fimming takes a lot of recovery time, closer to 5 days for me. I think next time Im going to fimm twice. My first attempt at fimm failed, I didnt trim off enough plant matter. The second turned out much better. This will also help cut down on time spent in veg and giving you more immediate shoots when the canopy hits the net to start training.

What you have going for your plan sounds great except the combination of lighting part. That doesnt make sense to me. Using outdoor light does not sound like its a very secure way of doing things, and also isnt going to have your plant grow much if its just next to a window. What kind of lights are you using in your grow area?

4 strains is a lofty goal for a ScrOG. My max is two since my flower tent is sectioned off into 2 sets of 4x4 grow spaces. Adding more strains would complicate things since different strains need different amounts of nutes, veg times, flower times.. too difficult to keep up with, even if doing individual potting ScrOG.

Jillybean sounds nice. Which breeder? Sometimes I like a functional and happy high more than I like to take away knee pain. I might give that a shot sometime.

What you have going for your plan sounds great except the combination of lighting part. That doesnt make sense to me. Using outdoor light does not sound like its a very secure way of doing things, and also isnt going to have your plant grow much if its just next to a window. What kind of lights are you using in your grow area?

I should have made myself clearer, I have a 600w veg cabinet in the garage, and am in the process of installing my 1000w in another cab in the garage. Right now I'm waiting for 10 more seeds to pop(the vortex and Jillybean) and they will probably be vegged in my bedroom with the 600w due to extreme heat issues in the garage at the moment(107 degrees here yesterday), If I can't control the heat in the bedroom, they will be placed outside in a spot that is partially shaded in the late afternoon and brought in to the house for an additional 5-6 hours to keep them in veg until the heat lets up and they can come indoors full time- I'm pretty sure that I can control the heat though but it's good to have a plan B. I've already got 4 plants outside right now, and they don't look too bad for the heat so I figured the others could at least survive. This way of doing things is kind of screwed up at the moment, but the purpose of even trying to grow the Jilly and Vortex right now is so that when the heat gets to a manageable level for the 1000w in the garage(first part of October here) that clones will be taken of all the plants and the mothers will be flowered to determine sex and search for the pheno of each type that I want to keep. To me it just seems like the way that I've been doing things up to this point like starting from seed for each grow is very inefficient. I often get multiple phenos, and there is usually one plant that stands out from the others either yield or high wise that I would have liked to keep growing. The answer to this problem seems to be to grow, select pheno, and then just run clones of the exact pheno that I want-by then I should already know how the particular plant reacts to nutes etc...

4 strains is a lofty goal for a ScrOG. My max is two since my flower tent is sectioned off into 2 sets of 4x4 grow spaces. Adding more strains would complicate things since different strains need different amounts of nutes, veg times, flower times.. too difficult to keep up with, even if doing individual potting ScrOG.

I usually alternate between growing a sativa hybrid and indica hybrids. I would continue to do this with the scrog, but keep clones around of the other hybrids for next grow and just have many clones in the veg cabinet. I don't plan on growing all the strains at the same time, just 2 either sativa hybrids or indica hybrids.

illybean sounds nice. Which breeder? Sometimes I like a functional and happy high more than I like to take away knee pain. I might give that a shot sometime.

TGA is the seed breader that I've used since my second grow and have been generally happy with them. I am either really lucky or a germination god because I have yet to not have a seed germinate from TGA, and I also get a statistically significant amount of females(4/5 last grow, 3/5 grow before). Having said that, if you know of a powerful hard hitting sativa that I should try, let me know because I'm not sure that the Vortex is really what I'm looking for.

@Puppet14

That makes more sense, though a bit too much labor for me. I couldnt imagine hefting plants around, especially if the dirt is completely saturated with water. I understand that heat is/can be an issue especially in the summer. I am lucky enough to have a home with a central AC unit that does a great job of keeping my house at a steady 72-73 even in the middle of a god-awful heat wave. My canopy temp with good fan placement stays around 82. I think with the 8" fan I plan on getting it will drop it to 80 or less.

I agree that its inefficient to continue to run from seed every time. It adds about another month of veg. My own problem was that all of the strains I had werent of any particular interest to me. Taking clones from plants that are guaranteed females or very early flowered females from seed is the best and most efficient way to do it. Through watching another persons grow who brought in a clone from someone else, they got a nasty gnat infestation and I decided to only ever use my own clones now that Im already growing. For a new pheno, it will always be from seed. The problem with that is it does take time to cultivate and test the smoke itself to determine if its worth keeping. I am limited to 12 plants right now since I am a registered caregiver and patient, however I have no patients to take care of since I can have yet to grow anything of benefit to patients regardless of symptoms. Third time is the charm, hopefully.

Ive heard many good things about TGA, but ended up deciding against vortex. Kush type phenos seem to have more pain alleviation properties, and I heard that Corleone Kush has a hint of lemon to the taste. It instantly piqued my interest. Yield be damned; if it smells great, tastes great, and the high is even better, thats what Im growing. Plus the name is just badass

Excited to watch, esp with a PAR vs 1kW. Any details of the spectrum of the bulb, sorry if I missed you sayin it already. I hear you on the TGA germination, have gotten 10:10 on a few tries. Frustrating tho, I just saved my first seed from a querk/plush cross and none of the seeds are germinating...25 so far seriously considering taking sand paper to them, no idea what exactly my goal is aside from weakening the seed coat.
Cool platforms too, I'm ghetto and just use milk crates zipped together
mpp