Sog vs Full size

I was wondering if someone could fill me in regarding sog vs growing to full size. Is there a big difference in yield? How long would it take a full size plant, under ideal conditions to reach maturity?

Imagine an area 9 feet by 9 feet, what yield would you expect from both methods?

Thanks.

Double,

Yield is one of those things that's so variable that nobody can really give you an idea of what to expect. The grow I'm about to harvest is a perfect example- this strain should yield around 3 oz per plant on a 12 week grow cycle (4 veg, 8 flower) and the plants should be between 4-5 foot tall. Unfortunately I had a spider mite infestation during the first two weeks of flowering when the plants really tend to put on the growth, and I'm going to be harvest plants that are just under 3 ft tall and that yield maybe 1 oz each.

As to your specific question about sog versus a 12+ week grow, your going to see much smaller yields per plant. I haven't personally done sog, but I understand that the yields are no more then 1/2 of what you would get if you grew it to full size. The idea behind this method is to maximize a small space-instead of growing 4 large plants in a closet you grow 10 small ones. Since they stay smaller you can grow more plants in the same area and end up harvesting just as much as you would have from a smaller number of big plants. And since you're cutting a month off the grow cycle you get to harvest more often. The drawback is that you get smaller yields, and you have to water, feed, prune, etc more plants. You also really can't use a lot of the topping techniques, since they require veg time to recover and develop the new branches. That might actually have a lot to do with the difference in yield size, since topping techniques can almost double a plants yield.

Depending on if you had some kind of automated watering system I would grow out full size plants instead of doing SOG for that large of a space. I love doing SOG grows but I only do them cause i'm limited on space. Now that I have a larger grow tent i'm going to just do SCROG now. It takes longer, but I honestly feel safer not having so many plants in the house.

Veg. time is considerably shorter for SOG grows however, but one way to counteract that is to have your grow on a perpetual system. Maybe have it set up to harvest quarter of your room every 2 weeks, might make it easier to spread it all out too.

But either way I grow both.

I have 3 total grow cabs and I plan on having 2 of them flowering at all times. I just got a 30"x30"x60" grow tent that I plan on having 4 ladies SCROGgin in there and I have my 24"x15"x70" cab that I have been doing SOG grows in for years. I can finally really test her out to see what I can get from real SOG grows. In that tiny cabinet I can do either 4 plants that I get up to 1 ounce each off of or I can do up to 8 plants that I get about a half oz off of. I now want to do 15 even smaller plants and see if I can still get up to a half oz still, if so that would be nice to be able to get that much more.

Wow i'm ramblin.. but yea I would just suggest growing them out because it would probably be less work for you in the end, just might take a big longer at first. Although I would suggest doing SOG from clone instead of seed like i've been doing, if you decide to do it. And if you don't then it would probably take about 4-6 weeks to reach full maturity. I've been able to see preflowers as early as 3 but if your gonna grow em out might as well let them get at least a foot or so before flowering them. As for yield, it really depends on you but for a room that size you could easily pull a couple pounds every couple months if done right.

Pazzo said:

Wow i'm ramblin.. but yea I would just suggest growing them out because it would probably be less work for you in the end, just might take a big longer at first. Although I would suggest doing SOG from clone instead of seed like i've been doing, if you decide to do it. And if you don't then it would probably take about 4-6 weeks to reach full maturity. I've been able to see preflowers as early as 3 but if your gonna grow em out might as well let them get at least a foot or so before flowering them. As for yield, it really depends on you but for a room that size you could easily pull a couple pounds every couple months if done right.

Click to expand...

A couple of pounds, is that using sog, scrog or just full size plants?

DoubleMeh said:

A couple of pounds, is that using sog, scrog or just full size plants?

Click to expand...

Well lets just say you used half that room 4'x4' for flowering. If you had 1 plant per square foot you would have 16 fairly large plants vegged for at least a month. If you averaged at least 1 ounce per plant you would get at least a pound every 3 months or so.

And since that's only half your space you could use the other part of the room for vegging (may need a cab or something for light proofing for the flowering girls) and have a perpetual harvest going where you could harvest 4 of the plants every 2 weeks and average about a pound a month.

EDIT: Sorry, and to actually answer your question. 1.) SOG might not be good for your situation because of how big your space is, alot more plants to take care of. 2.) SCROGging might not really be very practical either because you probably don't have height issues and it takes longer to veg. too, but i'm not saying that's a bad thing.. you would probably get the most this way just takes longer. and 3.) I would just grow them out and maybe try some topping techniques to get more colas.

Pazzo said:

Well lets just say you used half that room 4'x4' for flowering. If you had 1 plant per square foot you would have 16 fairly large plants vegged for at least a month. If you averaged at least 1 ounce per plant you would get at least a pound every 3 months or so.

And since that's only half your space you could use the other part of the room for vegging (may need a cab or something for light proofing for the flowering girls) and have a perpetual harvest going where you could harvest 4 of the plants every 2 weeks and average about a pound a month.

Click to expand...

I thought that full adult plants coupld produce up to 1 pound or at least half a pound each. Is this incorrect?

Outdoor plants maybe but indoors you would have to do a lot of training to get that much. You could do hydro and get larger plants as well with a shorter veg. time but I just like soil personally. My friend grows with hydro and I just think my weed tastes better.

Possible I suppose but not likely. Indoors most people would be very happy with 3 or 4 ozs. Outdoors you could have a 10 ft tall plant and the lower buds still get the light they need.

DoubleMeh said:

I thought that full adult plants coupld produce up to 1 pound or at least half a pound each. Is this incorrect?

Click to expand...

There are different dynamics that make a grow style work differently than another. In general your yield depends mostly on the amount of light that you use. In a SOG garden you have alot of small plants and should be lit with many 400 or 600 watt lights. The same sized garden you would grow less but larger plants with the same wattage divided across 1000 watt lights that are able to cast more light further away. Both rooms should yield close to the same (theoretically). The reason that there are so many different ways to cultivate is mostly due to resources, logistics and personal taste, not always just based on yield alone or else everybody would have Heath Robinson verts....outside.

never forget the legal issues with sog vs fewer large plants. if your legal then sog away.

DoubleMeh said:

I thought that full adult plants coupld produce up to 1 pound or at least half a pound each. Is this incorrect?

Click to expand...

Well outdoor I'd say a lb is no prob most people don't veg a plant long enough for it to produce that much if you have a 1000 watt light or multiples you should be getting lbs in a 4x4 area vegg them out for more potent pot .

I'm averaging 4-6 ounces a plant in soil indoors. I like the organic soil taste so does my mom.

JonnyDankness said:

Well outdoor I'd say a lb is no prob most people don't veg a plant long enough for it to produce that much if you have a 1000 watt light or multiples you should be getting lbs in a 4x4 area vegg them out for more potent pot .

I'm averaging 4-6 ounces a plant in soil indoors. I like the organic soil taste so does my mom.

Click to expand...

Alright guys thanks for the heads up Now i just have to fix the problem with the mains power box tripping every time i turn on 4 lights and i'll be happy!