Toby Posted June 22, 2015 Share Posted June 22, 2015 The information was sourced from the interweb. To be honest I cant recall the source as I copy and paste into my DIY marijuana encyclopaedia. The Scrog Method So, you want to tackle a scrog do you? Excellent choice! Scrog or SCREEN OF GREEN is one of the most productive and easiest ways to grow indoors. Now let’s not get this confused with the Sea of green method. SOG involves no training nor does it have one item a scrog always has. A screen. Scrog has been around for many years. Before HID's were introduced many used floro's with this method with good success. Now let’s talk about the scrog for a little bit here. What is a scrog? What is screen of green? Well, it is just that. A screen is the main character of scrog. It is usually made of wire or something sturdy enough to hold back the growing canopy. This wire should have some holes in it about 5 cm² in size so that the plant matter can easily grow up through the wire and be supported by it. The wire is secured between the grow medium and the lamp at a distance determined by the size of your lamp. We will get into that later. The plants grow through the screen about 7.5-10 cm and then are pulled back under and spread out where you want them to grow. It’s as easy as that folks. It’s a great way to grow. Let me put it this way. I have tried untrained methods like SOG and have never come close to the yield I get with a scrog. Okay, sounds easy right? So, what are you waiting for? Getting Started This is the hard part. Getting started. Damned if it ain't for me man. I spend hours thinking of shit before I do it. lol Anyway, this isn’t rocket science. If you've already got an area where you established plants growing you are halfway there. The SCREEN Remember at least 5x5cm squares. You can use chicken wire as well or even some tightly strung rope. You need something strong to support the buds and hold back the canopy growth. The screen needs to be cut to size. The size of the screen is determined by the size of your lamp. Remember that to get the good bud formation you want from 50 watts per 30cm squared so your screen size should not exceed that. Check the examples below. 150hps screen size 55cm x 55cm 250hps screen size 70cm x 70cm 400hps screen size 90cm x 90cm 600hps screen size 105cm x 105cm 1000hps screen size 140cm x 140cm If your screen exceeds the 50w/30cm² thing a little. That’s perfectly okay. Just don’t overdo it. lol Now once you've determined the size of your screen and cut it to size. Situate it over your grow area and secure it into place. Just a few screws will hold it in place. You’re mounting a screen. Not a 10kg wall painting. lol.....Wait just a minute! You need to figure out where to set the screen. First, a few questions to ask? Is your lamp air cooled and what size is your lamp? These two questions determine how close you can get to your canopy. This is very important stuff. The closer you get the better off you are. If you do not have air cooled lamps then a simple fan blowing between the canopy and the lamp should do the trick. Okay, now let’s set that screen. Here are some examples of screen settings for hps's. These are not exact settings. They are just a baseline idea. If you can get your lamp closer. Good for you. If you can't. That’s okay too. Don’t worry. If you've got the right watts per footage they will produce. 150hps 25-30 cm 250hps 30- 40 cm 400hps 40-50 cm 600hps 50cm + 1000hps 60 cm + Your Plants How Many Will I Need Under The Screen? Usually the rule is one plant per 30cm² of screen. I go with as few plants as I can whenever possible. One side of my flower chamber is almost 90 cm². That’s almost 9 per 90cm². I only have 6 plants under there and the screens are pretty full. So, the rule does not always need to be followed. Having less plants can be a good thing if they happen to discover your illegal activity..lol.....Remember with fewer plants you will have to veg a bit longer but be patient and hang in there. It’s well worth the wait. Spacing. Let’s talk about the spacing between the plant medium and the screen. This space will need to be large enough to allow you room to manipulate your plants during the training phase. I usually use around 20cm. Some people use more/less. Twenty seems to be just enough for me but when working in a 90cm² space it is still a tight space. What Is The Best Strain To Grow In A Scrog? Now let’s talk about your plants a little bit. What kind should you is growing in a scrog you ask? Hmmmmm. Well, any kind your heart desires my friend. That's right. Most any plant strain can be grown without much difficulty using a scrog. The secret is in the screen. Some strains require more training than others but that is the only difference. Heavy yield indicas are excellent scrog candidates but the unruly sativas can really shine with proper training and timing. Okay man, you just did something that will almost double your yield in the next sixty days. So, how do you feel about that? The screen is set. Now it’s time to move on to other things. Let’s take a look at what’s going to happen when these babies start to grow through the screen. Managing the Scrog Grow You have done some things that are a little out of the ordinary from your usual grow regime. Things look a little different. A wire screen has invaded your grow space and it looks weird in there. Maybe you even have a few centimetres growth through the screen. What in the fuck am I going to do now? lol.......Be cool man. Here's where the real fun begins and were the beauty of scrog growing starts. Vegging: Here is where a lot of people make mistakes. They get in a fired up hurry and get confused somehow. Flip their shit over to 12/12 way to soon and wonder why their screen never filled up. At that point the screen is nothing more than a support system for the plant. Normally one would veg a plant till the screen is 70-80 percent full before switching over to the flowering cycle. Having knowledge of how much your strain stretches is helpful when determining when to switch to flowering. For example: If one had a very stretchy sativas. You would want to start flowering her with much less of the screen filled. Just the opposite for a nice stunted indicas. Timing has a lot to do with scrog. We go over that soon. Pulling It Back Through: Okay, so you've got some growth through the screen. Should have about 7.5-10 cm aye? Don't be a pussy here. lol....... If it breaks. I'll explain what to do later. Reach under the screen and pull that branch back under the screen and place it where you want it to be. Even if it takes tying it in place with the plastic twisty ties. Now I could really get technical and shit and start with the be sure there is an internode in each hole of the screen but it really doesn’t matter man. Just get the growth under the screen first. In the next few weeks. You will see where to guide the new growth to best suit your needs. Training: This can seem brutal to some. lol........ Scrog is not natural growth for the cannabis plant. I am sure of that. It must stress the shit out of them the whole cycle of life. Imagine taking a plant that usually grows anywhere from 90-360cm and making it grow in a space no larger than 60cm. Training begins in the pulling it back through section. Try to situate your main branches towards the barest parts of your screen. They will branch out the most and usually be the largest bud in the bunch. Use some kind of uniformity to your laying out of the branches. Crisscross/ zigzag whatever you use. Remember there’s are going to be a lot more branching when flowering kicks in high gear. So allow some room for that as well. Lesser buds that are now exposed to more light are then encouraged to grow upwards toward the screen through some leaf trimming. An often debated subject but one I feel that is useful in the scrog method. Leaf Trimming: Now we need to chat about a touchy subject. Leaf trimming. Like I said above. Scrog ain’t natural for cannabis. At least I don’t think it is. Crammed in such a small area with all those leaves. Well, somethings got to give and it’s not going to be bud. lol......Here's my rule on trimming. If the leaf is in the way of light for a bud site. Then it needs to be removed. Sometimes I tuck the leaf instead of removing it but most of the time I remove it. Now, when do I do this? Usually when I do a training session. Right afterwards. This trims away leaves and allows the new sites to get light. You will be surprised at how fast they will respond. Use good judgement when trimming. Too much is not a good thing here. Trimming continues into flowering ending during the later stages of flowering. I have found it not to be harmful at all to remove large fan leaves from buds during flowering. If they are blocking light to other bud sites nearby. It’s all about light penetration and bud sites in a scrog. Timing: Timing is critical when it comes to a scrog grow. You must be paying attention to the progress of your grow in order to know when to induce flowering. Knowing what strain you are dealing with and what the growing characteristics of the plant are is very helpful when it comes to timing. I can’t express the importance of having a good clone base for this purpose. As mentioned above if you induce flowering too early. You will have a lot less of a yield. However, if one was to wait too long. The same can happen as well. An overcrowded canopy is just as much a mess. An out of control scrog is just that. A mess. Not something you want to deal with. Remember, the plants you start to flower are probably going to double in size. Stand back and get a visual picture of that in your head. Ask yourself some questions. If I start flowering now. Can I visualize how big they will get? Do I have enough vegetative growth to start flowering? Do I have too much? Is it time? Time to start flowering? Okay, so you've decided to start. Bravo! You are going to be amazed at the buds that come out of this grow. lol....... So, you have turned back the timer to 12/12 and it has been 4 days now. The growth from the stretch is starting to show. You get in there and pull all those new shoots back under your screen and put them where you want them to be. A few more days pass. More growth. Now the decision part comes into play. Just how far over the screen do you want your buds to be? If you stop training them early in the stretch. They will grow a little above the screen (maybe 7.5-15cm depending on the strain). If you continue training them until they start to top out. They will grow only a little more and most of the bud will form right in the screen. This technique is great for those stretchy sativas. However when doing this method keep an eye out for mold and try to have as much air flow between the buds as possible. I have done it both ways and they are both awesome. It may take you a grow or two to get the timing down to where you want it but once you do. I am sure you will be pleased with the results. Clones/Seed Grows: Here's an interesting topic that is sure to generate a few questions. I suggest clones for scrog growing over seed any day of the year. Why? With clones you usually already know the characteristics of the plant and how it will perform. With seed it’s usually a guessing game as to which pheno you’re going to get unless they are true F1 seed. Plus with seed you don’t know the sex yet. Ever tried untangling a male from a screen? Not something I would suggest doing. lol......Anyways, if you grow from seed. Be sure you have cloned the lot and know who your girls are first before going under the screen. This will save you a lot of hassle later on. Damage Control: If you move branches around and bend'em. Eventually somethings going to give. Don’t freak-out. It’s not the end of the world man.....lol... Cannabis is an amazing plant that can recover from a lot of damage naturally without help from humans but in this case you want to help if you can. First aid for the injured cannabis plant is simple as pie man. Just support her wound and leave her alone. She will take care of it on her own. Unless you break her completely in half she can be saved usually. You can splint the wound or support it with some heavy gauge wire around the stem. If the break is not that bad and the branch can somewhat support itself. Leave it alone. In all cases. A knot will form at the break and most times an explosion of growth will happen above the damaged area. At times even new growth sometimes sprouts from the knuckle formed. Flowering Cycle: Once a few trimmings are done and all is set in place flowering in a scrog is pretty uneventful. lol......Good time to start thinning out your undergrowth. I take clones around 20 days 12/12. If all that I need root. I clean out the undergrowth around day 35 12/12. Now if I need any more clones. I can tak'em at this time. All the rest. Its butter making time........Oh yeah.......churn dat budda........talk about a bonus for all your hard work. Undergrowth: I mentioned it above but thought I should mention it again. The undergrowth is not that big of an issue here. It’s an area that should be kept clear of dead leaves and you should also ensure that proper ventilation can get through the canopy via the undergrowth. If it cant. Then thin out some growth. This is an area that is dim and often humid. An open invitation for not so good things to come visiting aye? Some people have mentioned putting a light down there. Why? There's no need for a light down there. There are no buds to be harvested there. Just stems that support the canopy. If one were to put a light there they would just be adding to the congestion of leaves already growing. Not good. It is a good idea to clear out your undergrowth as Your scrog takes shape and you have taken the clones that you need for the next grow. Trim all remaining sprouts left on the stems and any other undergrowth. Now let’s not get to crazy here. Leave a little growth. Use some common sense here. Take out the sites you know are not going to make it to maturity. This will help the plant direct more energy towards the larger buds instead of wasting energy on the smaller ones. Ventilation: Here's an issue that cannot be overlooked. Once a scrog has been established it is a leafy sight to behold. Air circulation becomes critical as the buds begin to form and things start to get packed in the box. 24hr air movement is suggested 7 days a week. Better safe than sorry. Mold sucks. Even Canopy: Maybe I should not put it in those words. Your canopy does not have to be perfectly even. Just close. The idea behind this is even light distribution. We are looking for a field of buds here not a forest like in SOG. If a dominate bud is allowed to overtake the canopy. It is defeating the purpose of the scrog. Tame that bitch. Bring her down to size with the rest. You want a somewhat even field of buds to deal with. Not a forest of untamed trees. The even canopy is easy to accomplish if you have been following the steps outlined above. Tricky Tip: Occasionally you will have a stretcher that decides that she wants more light than the rest of her friends. This often happens when the branches are competing for light. If one gets out of hand there is a simple solution to taming her back into the fold of the others and possibly giving her a burst of growth. Reach under the screen and find her stem. Half way up her stem start to pull her back through the canopy till she is even with the rest. Now where she is bent. Crush her at the bend with your fingers. Don’t smash it in half. Just crush the stem so as it would not be able to support itself if it were to stand alone. As mentioned above. It will heal with vigour and you have solved your canopy problem. I hope this information helps shed some light on basic scrog techniques? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingbong Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 jus about all the motivation needed to start a scrog:poke . thank u sir:goodposting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namibjakkals Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 Very good write up here just the article I was looking for:-bow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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