My Experiment

I've never really used forums before but recently I started researching ways of growing that are fast, compact and cost-effective. This forum helped me a lot, so I figured it would be a good place to document my entire process, since what I am going to do isn't all that common and there aren't many examples of it to be found.

Plan:
over eight weeks, producuce a continuous cycle of
FOUR plants to harvst from the eigth week. Rolling
grow. SOG (Sea of Green).

"Sea of Green (SOG) is the theory of harvesting lots
of small plants, matured early to get the fastest
production of buds available. Instead of growing a
few plants for a longer period of time, in the same
space many smaller plants are grown that mature faster
and in less time. Thus, less time is required between
crops. This is important to you when the electricity
bill comes each month. One crop can be started while
another is maturing, and a continuous harvest, year
round can be maintained. 4 plants per square foot will
be a good start for seedlings. 1 plant per square foot
will allow plenty of room for each plant to grow a large
top cola, but will not allow for much bottom branching.
This is OK since indoors, these bottom branches are
always shaded anyway, and will not grow very well unless
given additional light and space."

I have a space of about six cubic feet that I have designated to this project. I've never grown before (aside from a few half-assed plants on the windowsill that obviously didn't make it) but my hours and hours of research have allowed me to develop a system that I think will work out ok to begin with.
I intend to use ONLY compact fluorescents and I plan on starting the 12/12 cycle by two weeks of age. The seedlings will sprout in my kitchen, in good sunlight, supplemented if necessary. From there, they will be moved to a custom built growing chamber, starting off under two blue fluoro's until six weeks old, then moving to one blue-one red for two weeks, then two red.

This system is set up for convenience and deliberately designed to remove as many variables as possible. Here's a rough diagram:


So far I have the frame set up but I still need to attach the lights. I discovered a way (here: Grow Marijuana FAQ, Cannabis cultivation - marijuana growing tips & photos) of taking the appropriate bulbs apart, thereby allowing me to string them all onto one power cable. The one thing I'm not certain of is whether to do that in series or parallel. I know very little about this kind of thing but I know that in a series circuit, which I was originally considering, the bulbs will get progressively dimmer and since I will have eight of them I would much rather use a parallel circuit. What I would like to know though is if standard mains cable (European 240v) and whatever else might be affected could handle all eight 50watt bulbs in parallel. I'd be grateful if someone could let me know.

The seeds will arrive on Monday (it's Friday night now) and they will germinate in jiffy pots, using a planting medium of regular, NPK enriched soil mixed with perlite. I haven't decided what I'm going to do about fertilizer yet but I have on hand a bunch of old coffee, which I have read is a good source of nitrogen. I will probably buy something suitable along the way but for now I assume the soil is enough. I won't be growing for too long.

Ok, so this is my first post. I have until monday to gather up all your advice/comments/suggestions if you have any. Please don't hold back. I have a good feeling about this. I'll update with photos and problems etc as they come up.

P.S. The diagram isn't working. I've tried to attach it.. any ideas?

Firstly, Here is the pic from the first post that didn't work:



The seeds arrived today, rather than yesterday. No problem. I have a selection of Skunk seeds (5), five Snow White and ten miscellaneous. I prefer Sativa to Indica, although I'm not usually a fan of skunk (often too strong) so I decided to use the lucky dip and germinate three seeds, hoping for one female. I'll probably keep a male and label it, in case I decide I want some more seeds from this strain, as I will with each different plant I grow. [edit: Thinking about it, if they're mixed seeds this doesn't make sense. The best I'm likely to get is some unknown hybrid. I'll probably only do that with the known strains]

I used the paper towel method: "Presoaking - Put some moist tissues on a plate. Put the seeds on top of them and then put a layer of moist tissues on the seeds. Cover the plate with another upturned plate, so that the seeds are in darkness and the environment remains moist. Put the covered seeds in a warm place (21°C). Update for paper towel method: germinating marijuana easy and successful. Check the seeds every day, sprinkle the tissues if necessary and carefully transplant the seeds when they open and the tip of the root becomes visible. Put the seed in a growth medium (soil or rock-wool), approximately the size of the seed under the surface (about 5 mm). - AmsterdamMarijuanaSeeds.info
"
. Here are some pics (I hope):




and




So that's it for stage one. I'll Update in a few days when I plant the seeds + assuming they germinate ok.

P.S. 35 views and no help with the light problem. Anyone?

[edit: I added a fourth seed to the plate. I realised I didn't want to wait two weeks or so and find I had all males]

Good luck .. we always like to see pictures .. so keep them coming with your posts . I'll be following this grow

Thanks, Korvette (if that is your real name).

Three of the four seeds have germinated today. The one that hasn't is the one I added about 20 hours later, so I have planted the three and kept the fourth where it is, hoping that it will still sprout.

Here's what the seeds looked like this morning:



Planted in jiffy pots:



So that's it for now. These will stay on that windowsill for about two weeks, when I will germinate four more seeds and move these to their new home inside my 12/12 grow box (which I have yet to build). I have ordered four 65w compact fluorescents (blue) to begin with. I think they will be more than enough for the first two stages, stretching to the third if I can't find more in time. They should arrive next week and I'll set them up in a parallel circuit at one end of the chamber. I'm on the lookout for some high-wattage, red-spectrum bulbs right now, which seem to be pretty hard to find outside of the massively marked-up grow lights that seem way out of my price range. I'll throw in the fourth seed when it's ready and update as necessary.

Well, it's been two weeks and my bulbs haven't arrived yet! That isn't too much of a problem, I'll keep the seedlings by the window until I can move them to the grow box. They should be here within a week. Anyway, it's about time to germinate some more seeds, so I'll probably do that tomorrow. Here are the new pictures:



(incidentally, the four pots in the front are opium poppies - way too late, I know - and in the foreground there are two mushroom casings, ready to go into the cupboard. It's quite a drugs table.)



You can see in this picture the result of a stupid decision to leave the seedlings out on the balcony in an attempt to give them some more sun. The light breeze was two much for the taller ones, and they almost snapped. Luckily, they'll be fine, just a little bent to begin with. This should sort itself out when they reach the veg. stage.



I'm not so confident about seedling No. 3. From the moment it popped through the surface it seemed to just sit there. It hasn't grown an inch since about the third day of planting. Does anyone know why this is? Also, is it worth keeping? I don't know if it'll ever recover. It's certainly not dead, it just isn't moving. I guess I'll wait and see.

Finally, something I forgot to mention at the beginning. About a week before germination, I emptied out an old coffee filter into the soil mix and spread it around with a lot of water, giving it time to dilute and dissolve its acidity before planting. This was an idea I had to add some nitrogen, which I'm not sure was necessary, to the plants. Since the plants will only be about eight weeks old at harvest, I figure they won't need many doses of nutrients and to be honest that's a part of the growing process I'm not very sure of so perhaps people can give me some advice on that too.

Once I've built the growing chamber I'll update this post. I expect it will be about a week. I hope it won't be any more. I have a fluorescent strip bulb above my sink. I'm thinking of leaving the seedlings under that during the dark hours to make up for the fact my bulbs haven't arrived.

I set three "Skunk Mix" seeds to germinate yesterday. No sign of life yet but that's to be expected. My three seedlings are doing well under the fluorescent lamp and have recovered from their windy experience. This post is more for my benefit than anything else, in case I forget which seeds I just germinated. So now I have three seedlings of unknown origin and three skunk seeds almost ready to plant. No pictures necessary!

P.S. I'm a little disappointed that nobody has offered any advice. Perhaps it's too early on in the process for that.
Expect an update on or around Monday when I should hopefully be planting the three seeds and building my grow box.

i think advice will come if you do something wrong. looks like your doin good. gonna follow this grow..... goodluck

Sounds like you did your homework, thats really going to help.

I'm subscribed, your looking good.

I grow SOG, I really pack'em in, sardines in a can, style.

I'd give you a REP+ but I'm REPped out, I'll hit you later.

Welcome,REP+

Thanks JR!
And TetraHyC, I have no idea what you just said but thank you too. Do you think I should squeeze any more plants into that space? How many plants do you have per sq. ft.?

click the second red link in my sig. box.

Cool, thanks. I was reading that for so long last night I even had a dream about it.

many smaller plants are grown that mature faster
and in less time

Click to expand...

I'm just wondering if you truly understand SOG. I'm not saying you don't, I just got the impression that perhaps you have a misconception, but of course I could be wrong. I've grown SOG for probably 15 years now so I do have a little experience. That, however, doesn't mean I'm right all the time. LOL

Anyway, the plants don't mature faster; the flowering time for a particular strain is what it is. There are ways to alter it somewhat, but for all intents and purposes that simply doesn't change. With SOG, the only real difference from a 'normal' grow is that you veg the plants for less time thereby putting them into bloom at a much smaller size and earlier date. This is how the shorter time period (overall) is established; it is not created because the plants mature faster. In other words, if a plant needs to be flowered for 8 weeks, that time is a constant whether you grow SOG or not. The difference in total time comes because you shorten the veg period.

In reality, SOG is really about using clones, vegged for a few days or what have you and put into bloom. It's easy to keep a cycle going this way. That is also why the turn around time is often described as 8 weeks, more or less - because you are starting from clones and really only need to count the flowering period. (Again, the flowering period stays the same.) My description above was intended for growing SOG style from seeds, as in your case. When you do that, 8 weeks is not realistic as it may take you a few weeks to get a decent, but small plant to put into bloom. From there you have to add the flowering time. Depending on your lighting and so forth you could still be looking at 3 months from seed to harvest.

If I have misunderstood I apologize. I find it almost impossible to let something go when I think someone doesn't understand. If you did, I take it all back - and please don't hit me. LOL

EDIT: A couple other notes after re-reading your posts ...

1. I believe you implied that you are not going to use nutes this time. The soil does not contain enough nutrients to go through an entire growth cycle - not by any means. You will need to get proper nutrients if you want proper plants.

2. Mixing coffee grounds and such into the soil that seedlings are started in is a no-no. Young seedlings cannot tolerate wide variances in what would otherwise be considered 'normal' for a plant of that age. Try your nute 'experiements' on older plants - not with seedlings. I think you are already seeing the results of that decision.

3. I'm quite curious about this 4 stage in one box thing. Can you explain that further? I'd hate to see you mess up your plants with too much experimenting.

I wish you luck regardless.

Excellent! Some criticism. First of all, don't apologise so much. I'm here to be taught. Also, don't worry about offending me or being hit. This is Rollitup, not Snortitup.

Thanks for your post. It's given me a lot of information. You are right, I didn't fully understand the SOG dynamics, and I'm grateful to you for pointing that out. I am also pleased that you explained to me why my little runt stopped growing. I'll be certain to avoid making that mistake in the future. Luckily, my other two seedlings seem to be doing ok, so I hope that lasts.
About using clones - a lot of my inspiration for this grow came from the following excerpt that I read in a post on this site. It sounded like a good place to start, not only for the fact that there seems to be very little information available on this type of grow. Here's the text:

No Mercy Supply 12/12 hour system


Sometimes I can’t understand that growers still stick to old growing techniques.

One of these old growing techniques is to work with cuttings. With those cuttings you have to rely on what the market has to offer you.
Apart from that, you have to ask yourself if you really got what they told you they should give.
Also you often get spider mites and/or thrips for free.
And on top of that the price of cuttings has gone up dramatically over the last years.
And then…….. you have to hope they “catch on” immediately.
Most of the time this is not the case and you see them “catch on” only after about a week to 10 days.
Years ago I wrote: we are returning to seed culture instead of cuttings.
And see… I’ve seen signs left and right that I was telling the truth back then.

GO AND WORK WITH SEED!
It’s cheaper, easier, anonymous and legal, no more waiting and carrying around suspicious wet boxes, no more spider mite/thrips. Your growing rooms don’t stay empty unnessarily, and for sure you harvest more than from cuttings. And if you do it right, you can harvest 7x a year, etc, etc, etc.

How?

Just by using the tricks of Mother Nature!
Assume that seed in cold ground needs 5 to 10 weeks before it chooses its sex.
With 12 hours of light you can force them to choose there sex right away.
Mount a preferably in height-adjustable light fixture with 4-5 fluorescent lights over your seedlings in your flowering room.
The best fluorescent lights are 3x Philips cool white 33 ( NOT "deluxe") and 2x Philips 83 or 84 !
Your “lighting store” knows exactly what you mean and they are not expensive.
Have the tubes run on the same 12 hours as your flowering space by using a timer.
This way you prevent bad light and getting herma`s.
Use pots size 9x9 cm or 10x10 cm in which you put 1 seed.
To read how to germinate your seed follow >THIS< link.
Sow 3 seeds for every 2 females you need, 20 days before you harvest. Use good sowing/cutting soil with clay in it!
Be sure your medium isn&#8217;t overfed. An EC of 0.5-0.7 is ok, and in this figure I include the ballast from the tapwater.

With the fluorescent lights right above their heads you&#8217;ll be amazed how well the seedlings will develop on 12/12 hours&#8230;.. and directly choose to be male or female.
That&#8217;s why you can weed out the males on the 16-17th day. After 20 days even the biggest noob can recognize the males and get them out.

Don&#8217;t be afraid of pollination&#8230; females are always receptive a bit later than the males to release their pollen. In the worst case there can grow just one seed in a node of the plant through pollination of a female that chose sex.
They always show their sex in the node by creating one female flower. (Apparently there is a reason for this)
After you have harvested your flowering room&#8230; you can put the female seedlings right from under the fluorescents into the 12/12 flowering regi me the same day, so you don&#8217;t lose any time.
Because the new &#8220;batch&#8221; of females are already flowering for 2,5 weeks&#8230; you only have 7 weeks to go to your next harvest!
In the meantime (20 days before harvesting) you have again sown seeds and the process repeats.
The result: You get more compact plants without all the lateral branches that take lots of space, take away light and cause a lot of cutting work.
A seedling which is put on 12/12 straight away will only make one big bud of 50-70 cm without lateral branches.
SO&#8230;you can put more plants on a square meter because they don&#8217;t stand in each others way!
If you start realizing that 85% of the weight comes from the main bud&#8230; you&#8217;ll understand this system and will seriously consider using it.
Bigger growers can always make a deal about the price of the seed. (Think about that)



Resuming this story: harvesting 7x a year without spider mites/thrips and all that trouble, a much better end result and a lot less bud cleaning to do.
Don&#8217;t forget that seedlings have a taproot by nature&#8230; and that makes a big difference.

There will be questions about this&#8230; we will see.

If you are one of the naughty boys that puts 6 instead of 5 plants make an appointment and get yourself some info.

And here's the link to the thread I got it from.

So I guess I'm trying to do something that resembles SOG, with a few alterations.

I don't think I meant to imply that I wouldn't use nutes, rather that I wasn't sure I needed them. And now I know. I do. You're proving very useful.

Finally, about the box. I intend to cram as much light in there as possible, with no separate compartments, hopefully allowing any excess light from one plant to be absorbed by another, but with the spectrum moving away from the blue and into the red as the plant gets bigger and is moved along. So there should be a lot of light, with one end almost entirely blue spectrum and the other almost entirely red. As each plant grows, and at roughly two week intervals, I will move them one step to the left (going by the diagram) and add new plants. I'm not sure how to explain it further but please don't hesitate to ask me some more.
I'm well aware that I could have missed some things and that's partly why I'm posting on this forum. Don't shy away from your responsibility as an experienced grower to point me in the right direction!

Thanks for your help

Regarding the post you used as a guideline ... my read on it is simply that the person is suggesting using seeds and growing in a SOG style as opposed to the original SOG method which employs clones. However, the person that wrote it made an unreasonable assumption: that people get their clones from the clone "market." Although this is the case for some/many people, it is also unnecessary and does not apply to a large number of growers. In short, we make our own clones in this manner: After growing from seed, the best female is selected to use as a Mother plant. The clones are taken from her. In time she is replaced with another plant and so on. No thrips, no mites, none of that nonsense. (I think a lot of compassion clubs would be mighty offended if someone suggested they were handing out clones with bugs. I'm in Canada, and the clubs I know of are quite particular about that sort of thing. Admittedly, things can happen however.)

So, if you make your own clones, those types of problems are eliminated. The problem of having a location to keep a Mother (or Mothers) however, is created. Having said all that, there is nothing wrong with growing from seed and using a SOG style grow. You'll be a lot further ahead of those on here who still believe that growing a huge plant will give them a huge yield when they don't even have near enough lighting for a big plant. There are many.

I've got to run so I'll leave it at that and drop in when I get a chance.


Your quote:
"Don't shy away from your responsibility as an experienced grower to point me in the right direction!"

Are you in sales? LOL

Not.. yet?

Canada, huh? I'm thinking of coming to live there for a while at some point.

From what you've told me, I have little reason to change what I'm doing, but I'll keep in mind that I have no idea how long the flowering period for my plants will be. I'm not necessarily trying to imitate a particular technique, instead I'm sort of building up one out of parts of others. I don't suppose I will have a problem keeping a mother plant, assuming she won't need the same light requirements as she would if I was flowering it. I'll do that with any spare female I come across at first, then replace it with a particularly strong one when one comes up. Does that sound like a good idea?

Thanks for your help.

P.S. Les Stroud is really cool

You can't beat Canada. We're all so nice and helpful ... not a rude person in the country ... our jails are empty, no one does anything wrong ... it's the perfect society ... beautiful weather year 'round too, never gets too hot, never too cold, it's absolutely perfect here!

I think keeping a Mother plant and using clones from her to keep your cycle going is a great idea. (I am a little biased however.) It is totally up to you though, you know, personal preference, however you want to do things. Some of the advantages are, no more screwing around with germinating seeds and waiting for them to grow to your desired bloom size, no more buying seeds at all (if you choose) for that matter, all of your plants carry identical genetic characteristics (which means Mommy has to be a good girl, but hey, most Mommies are, and if she isn't, you'll find a good Mom someday) and along that same line - every plant is a guaranteed female. If you are only taking 4 clones every 2 weeks that's nothing. A Mother plant can handle a lot more than that so, that bodes well for the future if you ever decide to increase your grow size. Incidentally, one of the things I was wondering about with your box idea was, what happens if one or more turn out to be male? Won't that throw the whole thing into chaos? Clones would cure that problem anyway.

While I'm at it, I gotta tell ya, I really don't understand why you're doing what you plan with that box. My understanding is that there are 4 plants, each 2 weeks apart in their flowering cycle - all inside the same box. (This assumes an 8 week flowering cycle which is okay, I suppose ...) Every 2 weeks you move the plants to the next spot on the left, harvesting the left end plant and putting in a new one in on the right. As the plants progress across the box (every 2 weeks) the lighting becomes more bloom oriented. Is this right? If so, why? Why do you think it's important for plants further along in bloom to recieve more of a 'flowering spectrum' type light than plants earlier in bloom? This makes no sense to me. I think the better approach is to use the best lighting you can get your hands on throughout the entire bloom cycle. This way the plants will develop at their optimim rate for the conditions they are in. I'll stop there in case I missed something. You can fill me in.

That's a good point. I guess I was thinking that it might take a few weeks for the flowering mode to kick in, during which time the plant would do better with the light it needs for vegetative growth. But you're probably right. Since the light cycle will tell the plant to flower, it makes sense that the plant will need flowering light. That's another excellent point. In that case, I should spread the light more evenly throughout the box. I still think that having different areas for taller plants beats hoisting the lights up every so often though.
Actually, that's kind of good. I'm in Sweden right now (It's not much like Canada - really hot and then really cold. Everyone locks their doors.. Nobody helps anyone out. I just like the lakes. No killer whales here though. Bummer) so I think I trip to Ikea is necessary. I'll go there today and grab a bunch of warm white light if I can find high enough wattage. Keeping in mind that I have 260w of blue spectrum on its way, do you think I need any more, or should I just mix those in with a shitload of red? Do you think they'd benefit at all from the blue at this point?

This is truly excellent advice, I'll have to send you some of my best batch when I'm done!

lots and lots of information
lol
any updates bro?

^^ hey there darkout

have you got your lights and stuff like that ?

have u ever grown before ?

what makes you want to go to sog anyway ?