Weaving is actually what I discourage. Several reasons but here are a few: The basket it leaves for you to remove in the end is a pain in the ass. The plant is less pliable and thus less workable when crowding begins and the need to move branches occurs (not all plants will grow the same and you wont predict them all however, you can work them all if you plan for it). Weaving requires sturdy screen of which is not always used or preferable.
I suggest training you’re plants to become bushes prior to screening; this can be done more efficiently using other methods rather than using the screen to accomplish LST. (Read up on the method, it should be your first step in training for scrog.) Learning how to manipulate the plants growth pattern via light stretch (moving the lights away from the canopy to result in stretch between internodes) and various response techniques, LST, FIMM, Topping, Super cropping, etc. take time and experience to master. Experience knowing the strains used, the environment that you are growing in, how the environmental controls such as nutrients and additive will effect each plant how and when, how what lighting will effect the plant and why etc. are all things that greatly effect the outcome of every crop and create the successful professional. Though it may always seem that there is an easy way to master anything and everything, those that have will tell you it took time to create experience and there is no easier way around that.
In soil, I drill holes at every quarter inch around the top of my pot/bucket. I use those holes as an anchor point for pliable yet sturdy stainless steel wire to attach. I then use the appropriate length to secure a branch or stem that I have pulled down and away from center, in order to bring the tops of each to the same height as the lower parts of the plant on a horizontal plane. The result is light penetration to all the lower and newer internodes and growth (each node is a bud site/top) and a natural response of vigorous growth from all parts of the plant via the stress.
Hydro, I use improvised anchor points to accomplish the same effect. Typically training is less aggressive in hydroponics. Branches tend to snap more easily and thus furthers the need for larger clones from a pre trained and already “bushed” mother. I take 3 to 4 foot clones from mothers that have branches fully bushed ready for the screen size and dimensions I plan to run. Once the clones have rooted, they are introduced to a screen. I spend a few weeks allowing the plant to adjust and fill however the clone’s size prior to introduction is as large as it needs to be to fill the space, just not the right “shape” if you will. Once the plant has filled the screen and has become the level plane that we are looking for, flowering begins. It is typically those few weeks before that point that I do all of the “Scogging”.
Basically I have boiled it down to a few weeks of “Screen training”. The rest is pre training mothers, and budding. Or pre-training seed plants in order to be large enough to fill a screen and skip veg screen time.
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