LB's Wildly Mediocre DWC/ScROG Grow

Cool thanks Stltoed! I have a number of budsites that I can definitely bend and tuck back towards the center, like some of the budsites that have sprouted off of the larger branches.

Just some update pics here, I pray to god that these babies are getting towards the end of stretch! I'm going to switch my 1k HID over from a MH to an HPS, I was hoping that so much blue spectrum from the CMH's and MH would help reduce their stretch and I think it has. Only a few more rounds of defoliation and I'll leave these girls be for the remainder of the grow.

Logan Burke said:

Just some update pics here, I pray to god that these babies are getting towards the end of stretch! I'm going to switch my 1k HID over from a MH to an HPS, I was hoping that so much blue spectrum from the CMH's and MH would help reduce their stretch and I think it has. Only a few more rounds of defoliation and I'll leave these girls be for the remainder of the grow.

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Looks pretty good man

Thanks Stl, just found a damn Leafhopper on one of my leaves so it looks like I'm going to be on bug catching duty the rest of the night!

Logan Burke said:

Thanks Stl, just found a damn Leafhopper on one of my leaves so it looks like I'm going to be on bug catching duty the rest of the night!

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I had inchworms earlier this season just a few. I found a hole above a shelf where the mother must have gotten in. I havent had a plague yet, other than filchy hydro water, I had that once so bad I gave up and grew the plants in soil

When you say filthy hydro water, do you mean root rot or bad bacteria of some sort? I hate to hear about the inchworms, but at least it didn't turn into an infestation! It seems like when plants are healthy, bugs aren't able to infest them quite as easily. Unfortunetly, I'm just far enough along to not be able to spray any pesticides, so hopefully this doesn't turn into a problem.

Logan Burke said:

When you say filthy hydro water, do you mean root rot or bad bacteria of some sort? I hate to hear about the inchworms, but at least it didn't turn into an infestation! It seems like when plants are healthy, bugs aren't able to infest them quite as easily. Unfortunetly, I'm just far enough along to not be able to spray any pesticides, so hopefully this doesn't turn into a problem.

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By filchy water I mean a funkiness that started killing roots. There was an explosion of crud that went nuts in under a week. Hydroguard didnt help, neither did massive amount of hydrogen peroxide. I pulled the plants which were only a few inches tall and grew them in dirt.

What about peroxide? Its basically water. Start at 2-4 %

Hey Logan, looking good man. If those little bud sites are still getting light then leave them on. They may not produce huge buds but will add to final yield and that’s the great thing about scrog is even the small buds are great quality if scrogged right! Never had leaf hoppers but have had whitefly and spider mites! I found neem oil to be effective and less toxic/stress free on the plants. You may still get away with spraying a bit of neem oil or white oil on the plants!?

Stltoed said:

By filchy water I mean a funkiness that started killing roots. There was an explosion of crud that went nuts in under a week. Hydroguard didnt help, neither did massive amount of hydrogen peroxide. I pulled the plants which were only a few inches tall and grew them in dirt.

What about peroxide? Its basically water. Start at 2-4 %

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Sounds like you had root rot stltoed!? I’ve had root rot bad on a 6 foot tall northern lights! I trained her for nearly 3 months in veg! She was nearly as tall as she was wide! Took up most of my room in a 2m x 2m x 2m tent! She started getting a horrible smell when topping up or doing a bucket change out, roots turned dark brown and started getting slimy. Leaves yellowed and plant pretty well died at week 4 of flower! I was gutted lol. I too used hydrogen peroxide etc to no avail. I now try to keep my res cool, ensure I have no light at all getting into my res. And one thing I know helps is having PLENTY of fine bubbles (like a fish tank. The more fine bubbles you have, the less chance of algae growing)
Unfortunately there’s always ups and downs to any medium you grow in. I went from soil to hydro because of fungas gnats! Don’t get them with hydro! Nor having to worry about over or under watering
Trust me man, don’t let a bad run of root rot turn you away from hydro, learn how to prevent it and you can get highly rewarded with hydro once dialled in! Just my 2 cents worth stltoed. Could always look into a water chiller to prevent root rot too

Hydro4life said:

Hey Logan, looking good man. If those little bud sites are still getting light then leave them on. They may not produce huge buds but will add to final yield and that’s the great thing about scrog is even the small buds are great quality if scrogged right! Never had leaf hoppers but have had whitefly and spider mites! I found neem oil to be effective and less toxic/stress free on the plants. You may still get away with spraying a bit of neem oil or white oil on the plants!?

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I believe I've carried the damn leafhoppers into my garage from outside as they are on some outdoor plants, but I'm just going to try and ride it out as there haven't even been any symptoms of the leafhoppers, literally just the site of one or two. No damage or symptoms yet, thankfully. Oh and yes as for the handful of bud sites that are just barely underneath the screen, unless/until they begin blocking or taking up space from other bigger budsites I will leave them be. I suppose the learning curve with ScROGs is learning what buds to remove and what ones to leave in relation to how much screen space is left.

Stltoed said:

By filchy water I mean a funkiness that started killing roots. There was an explosion of crud that went nuts in under a week. Hydroguard didnt help, neither did massive amount of hydrogen peroxide. I pulled the plants which were only a few inches tall and grew them in dirt.

What about peroxide? Its basically water. Start at 2-4 %

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Some people advocate sterile res's using peroxide, and for some it works. But I've found that, unless you can afford a chiller and can keep your water at a consistent 60-68F, keeping a sterile res is like chasing your tail. I have concrete floors which help a lot, but even at that I still routinely get 70F water temps, and what has worked for me for the past 5+ years is a product called Great White. It is cheaper than Hydroguard, contains the exact same bacteria + myco's, and stretches much further. It also has a longer shelf life than Hydroguard. I agree with Hydro that you shouldn't let root rot turn you off of hydro, it really just takes finding the route that works prevent root rot from ever starting in the first place. Once you do, it is smooth sailing and you'll be happy you hung with it! But hydro isn't for everyone and I can understand why some don't prefer it. It may also be worth mentioning that I use a 110lpm industrial air pump that feeds air to all 4 of my buckets, each bucket containing two 4x2" micropore airstones (5-10$ each from amazon). With that being said, if you can design a waterfall system, they will aerate equal to or greater than an airpump with less added heat.

If in doubt Logan, don’t remove. In another 2 or 3 weeks you will see what will thrive and what won’t. And as long as you don’t go crazy removing leaves or lower bud sites half way through flower then you won’t cause your plants much if any stress removing a little every few days
Something else you could try is rhino skin from advanced nutrients. It’s good stuff and will make your plants a little more resilient to bugs. One dose and in a few days you will notice your branches harden a lot!!
And couldn’t agree more with the reply to stltoed!

Yeah I used to use GH's Armor Si, and I loved the stuff, I was just curious how my grow would do without using it just as a comparison. I am noticing my plant's seem more susceptible to heat stress while not using it though, my temps don't go above 80F and I see what looks like minor heat stress on some of the higher up bud sites towards the center of the grow room. I was worried that if I didn't remove certain bud sites right now before full blown flower starts, that it wouldn't be worth removing here in a few weeks. But if you're saying that it shouldn't affect my yield very much to wait another week or two before removing some of the lower down bud sites that have literally just barely made it to the screen, then I'll just wait and see. I'm dieing to hit my .75GPW goal, but then I remember that this is a totally new style for me and that I shouldn't be too mad if I don't hit my mark haha.

Logan Burke said:

Yeah I used to use GH's Armor Si, and I loved the stuff, I was just curious how my grow would do without using it just as a comparison. I am noticing my plant's seem more susceptible to heat stress while not using it though, my temps don't go above 80F and I see what looks like minor heat stress on some of the higher up bud sites towards the center of the grow room. I was worried that if I didn't remove certain bud sites right now before full blown flower starts, that it wouldn't be worth removing here in a few weeks. But if you're saying that it shouldn't affect my yield very much to wait another week or two before removing some of the lower down bud sites that have literally just barely made it to the screen, then I'll just wait and see. I'm dieing to hit my .75GPW goal, but then I remember that this is a totally new style for me and that I shouldn't be too mad if I don't hit my mark haha.

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If upper buds /colas are getting a bit of heat stress, I recommend gently bending them away from the light slightly. (Obviously trying not to block budsites underneath too much) your better off doing this now rather than later. Using B52 can help a little with heat stress. Or supplementing co2 (which I do) like you said Logan, it is a new style so you will only improve! But I think if you keep them happy and healthy to the finishing line, you will be pleasantly surprised!!
You WILL beat .75g a watt if you scrog a few more times. Your yield and technique will only get better!
I’m personally disappointed if I get less than 1 gram per watt growing in dwc and using scrog. For me, I like to grow bigger plants, really fill the net in and focus on about a 1.5 foot tall canopy. I try to create an even height canopy (can’t stress enough how important this is!) to get the most of my lighting. I take off anything underneath that isn’t getting light and lightly defoliate big fan leaves once I see tiny flowers forming to allow better light penetration and airflow. I may still remove a few fans here or there till harvest time. But after the 3rd week of flip, I pretty much sit back and watch with amazement! All the hard work would’ve pretty much been done.

I'm pretty close to that 3rd week post-flip point you mentioned, so I've been scrambling to get all my ducks in a row so that I've set them up for success. I have a couple of branches that stick up a bit higher than the others, like the ones on the outter edges of the screen. But I've been running into issues with light penetration below the second screen, I've been doing my best to remove leaves but I don't want to strip all the leaves off of certain bud sites either. I remember you mentioning doing 2 harvests, and that's starting to look more and more like what I'll end up needing to do. Even in the best case scenario, I don't see the bud sites that are at the first screen come harvest time having gotten as much light as those at the second. I can't wait for my next ScROG, I feel like veggying for just a week less would've made this grow far less complicated. I never even observed my GPW growing autoflowers, so truthfully I have no idea what I yielded with them, not giving me much of a baseline to go off of. But as you said, being both DWC and ScROG, I would have to have done something seriously wrong to pull under .75GPW, or maybe even 1gpw given my lighting.

*Side Note* I'm going to put my HPS in at the end of the week, so by then I hope they'll be through with their stretch! I've already noticed a decline in their rate of vertical growth, so I'm getting excited to start seeing some real colas.

This is what I was talking about when I said I had some heat stressed looking leaves...any thoughts anyone? With canopy temps rarely, if ever, exceeding 80F, not sure why I'd get any heat stress.

Logan Burke said:

This is what I was talking about when I said I had some heat stressed looking leaves...any thoughts anyone? With canopy temps rarely, if ever, exceeding 80F, not sure why I'd get any heat stress.

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Possibly light a bit too close? Have you got a breeze across top of canopy Logan? The 1000 Watters put out a lot of heat, I found a fan directly on the light itself helps too.
Looks like you Could strategically remove a few big leaves too!?

Yeah I've been letting them recover for a day or two and I'm going to start in on a final defoliation over the course of the next 3 days as not to shock or stunt them. And yeah perhaps that's the issue...I really don't have a lot of height left to raise the light, I could raise it another 8-12 inches by removing the hangars themselves and hanging the light directly from the brackets that the clips hook too. This heat wave hasn't been doing me any favors...I've had a 12,000 BTU AC unit duct worked directly to the intake of my tent, running on full blast for over 4 weeks straight now! I keep a large oscilating lasko fan in the corner that the last pic's plant is in, but I may try and get a second one to sit in the opposing corner. Surprsingly, the 315w cmh's output almost equal heat just because they aren't air cooled.

Logan Burke said:

Yeah I've been letting them recover for a day or two and I'm going to start in on a final defoliation over the course of the next 3 days as not to shock or stunt them. And yeah perhaps that's the issue...I really don't have a lot of height left to raise the light, I could raise it another 8-12 inches by removing the hangars themselves and hanging the light directly from the brackets that the clips hook too. This heat wave hasn't been doing me any favors...I've had a 12,000 BTU AC unit duct worked directly to the intake of my tent, running on full blast for over 4 weeks straight now! I keep a large oscilating lasko fan in the corner that the last pic's plant is in, but I may try and get a second one to sit in the opposing corner. Surprsingly, the 315w cmh's output almost equal heat just because they aren't air cooled.

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I’ve been in the exact same position your in. I removed hangars and manually tied lights as high as I could and it definitely helped! I now use inline air cooled 600 Watters. (I know the air cooled tubes aren’t as effective as open bulbs, but really keeps the heat down!) I went for a 600 watt setup as I felt I did not need the same light penetration when scrogging and can efficiently cover more floor space.

Under the left hand light I’ve already harvested just under 12 ozs of chemdawg and am letting the smaller popcorn stuff go another 7 to 10 days to mature and dense up a bit. Should be around a pound under the middle light (ww x bb) but I’d say I’ll have to do the same with this one as I let them get a bit tall and it’s a thick canopy! I’ll try and find a photo of my 1st scrog I ever did. Was pure big bud and the colas were huge! Grown in a 2x2x2m tent with a 1000w and 600w hps (that’s the grow I had to remove the hangers lol)