barebulb hedge growing and lanky strains

[Capulator]

Hello folks.

Last year I built a room and had some space against the wall, so I wanted to maximize it with a few more plants. I built a shelf against the wall and set a few 12 gallon totes on it with a drain fitting in each bucket going to a main drain, so DTW chow is the basic set up. In the beginning, I tried the screen on the wall with spacers but it was a pain in the ass. Shit would get too thick to tie up, even with mad pruning. It would eventually grow out away from the wall, and need a second support.

^^^ original back screen only method kosher kush week one after a hard training.

same plants week 2 to 3^^^....

^^^kosher wall of dank^^^


Next round I tried it with the screen in front (by chance really when I needed a second support system for some lanky kosher kush plants and 100 yo yos was getting retarded. The results were wonderful. It was easier to get to the larf in the back, and the plants naturally grew up and forward in to the screen. I just used wire to support the branches that were leaning a little too hard.



Now I have been running what I call "the coco wall o' dank for like a year and a half. What I found is that most plants that stretch a lot and need support work amazingly well.

I grow the plants to 18-24" tall with lots of topping. Then, I move them in to flower. After that I "fan them out" with a little wire if necessary, but at this point they are not up against the screen yet. . Also not in the pic that the screen hangs from the ceiling. There is 12" gap from the top of the container to the screen. The screen is wired to the container to keep it tight between the ceiling and the floor.

white fire monster pheno after 1 week from flip^^
.

Over the next 3 weeks or so I let them fill the screen, but I don't do any bending. Instead, I cut out the branches on the back side of the canopy. If the branches are mature enough I pull them through to the front.

^^^^ Here is the same Wifi above at week 2 with mature back branches pulled to the front, and the bottom larf and backside cleaned out: You can see these girls are just running their course. No bending down to a screen.


I noticed today while pruning with my face right next to the bulb (on stepstool with goggles on) is the penetration. More light at bud sites equals bigger, more dense flowers, and when the light is penetrating from the side it goes deeper because the structure of the plant itself allows more light in. Leaves naturally hang in a slightly more horizontal position than draped all the way down (unless you forgot to water!!). A 1k light blows through the side of the plant. With a little defoliation on the front side you can hit every bud site on the plant with almost equal light (within reason). The key here is the right strain. Some strains that are very bushy do not work as well. The stretchy ones though, absolutely crush it.

LSD, Colombian, Wifi, Kosher kush... These plants are giving 3/4 of a potato consistently off each site. The ones pictured above are getting hit from just one side of 2 1k's hanging bare vertically.

If you had a 6' W, 10' L, 8' high room, you could get 6 and 3/4 whole potatoes from 2 lights hanging bare. 4 plants on each side and one against the back, to make a 'U" shape.

A vert reflector for a one sided skinny space (5' wide) would be awesome but I have not seen any good ones yet. A big parabolic on its side would be what you would need for maximum spread.

Anyway I wanted to document this method in a separate thread and not all jumbled up in my long ass grow log... so hopefully some people can get some use out of this style. It's really efficient and fairly easy to maintain. ESPECIALLY for those lanky girls.

-Cap

 

[El Cerebro]

this is excellent. pro wall design, vertical turfism!

so timely too, cause i'm bout to finally set one up just like that in a fresh new spot :cool:

 

[outwest]

It's kind of the like the grateful dead's wall of sound that they toured with in the early 70s, but with dank. Great work.

outwest

 

[KennyPowers]

very cool cap! stadium/vert scrog growers always claim they are super efficient, id love to try something like that at the end of my room. thanks for sharing.

 

[green punk]

Killer Cap. I ve played w a similar idea in my head, I may have to try this now Ive seen it implemented. Thanks for showing.

 

[Capulator]

this is excellent. pro wall design, vertical turfism!

so timely too, cause i'm bout to finally set one up just like that in a fresh new spot :cool:

Let me know if you need any pointers. I have it down pretty good now.

It's kind of the like the grateful dead's wall of sound that they toured with in the early 70s, but with dank. Great work.

outwest

thanks for checkin it out buddy ol pal. Maybe a wall o dank combined with a wall o sound somehow?

very cool cap! stadium/vert scrog growers always claim they are super efficient, id love to try something like that at the end of my room. thanks for sharing.

Yeah this set up being DTW is really easy. The only hard part is a few hours of training through the stretch and then supportign the heavier branches with a few yo yos and a litte wire, but it is not as time consuming as a true scrog.

In between the lights I let the plants grow way out, and I support them with yo yos. In front of the lights I keep them a little tighter tot he cage. This way the plants kind of surround each bulb. It's pretty cool.

Killer Cap. I ve played w a similar idea in my head, I may have to try this now Ive seen it implemented. Thanks for showing.

Get on it GP!

 

[Confuten1]

Yea Cap this a great technic for lanky plants did this same thing with some Fire ogs on one of my first runs when i was running vert bulbs. Ran 2 6ft monsters on a 7.5 ft wall could have prolly fit 3. They were in 25 gal containers of chow. Also yielded around 3/4 a " potato".
Always wanted to try this but lights from both sides and plants in a troft/bed insted of indivudal containers. Basically rows of plants that would look like vineyards
Keep rockin bro.

Confu.

 

[midwestdensies]

Will be following this fer sure and may have questions. Espalier cookie goodness envisioned. Thanks for posting and such well documentation.
Mw

 

[jkbeing]

Always liked the coco wall-o-dank, Cap.

 

[Capulator]

Yea Cap this a great technic for lanky plants did this same thing with some Fire ogs on one of my first runs when i was running vert bulbs. Ran 2 6ft monsters on a 7.5 ft wall could have prolly fit 3. They were in 25 gal containers of chow. Also yielded around 3/4 a " potato".
Always wanted to try this but lights from both sides and plants in a troft/bed insted of indivudal containers. Basically rows of plants that would look like vineyards
Keep rockin bro.

Confu.

Great minds think a like. I had that same idea. hedges.

 

[Mogrow]

Cap my man, you got my ol brain going. now is see you are runninr them up against a wall. this was just extra space? Seems you would want to walk behind the plants to do the trimming and what not, plus not runnning into the bulbs. the reflection from the wall would help but i'm thinking about trying the U shape but having it where i ran walk on the back side of the plants. i will loose some reflection from the walls but it seems it would be much easier to get around and work the plants.do you have the 2 bulbs the same height or do you stager the height of the bulbs. assuming you move the bulb up as plants get bigger. 6 elbows off 2 lights Damnnnnn.

 

[Capulator]

Cap my man, you got my ol brain going. now is see you are runninr them up against a wall. this was just extra space? Seems you would want to walk behind the plants to do the trimming and what not, plus not runnning into the bulbs. the reflection from the wall would help but i'm thinking about trying the U shape but having it where i ran walk on the back side of the plants. i will loose some reflection from the walls but it seems it would be much easier to get around and work the plants.do you have the 2 bulbs the same height or do you stager the height of the bulbs. assuming you move the bulb up as plants get bigger. 6 elbows off 2 lights Damnnnnn.

What's an elbow? I said potato..

The bulbs are on yo-yos. They go up and down. I keep the bulb high when I transfer to allow for shock factor. Then after a week or so of getting used to the new space I flip them. That's when I drop the bulb. I raise the bulb when the plant is mature to the point where it is roughly in the upper 1/3 area of the plant, which is pretty much at the ceiling and as high as it can go).

The panel screen (some 6x6 grid metal for keeping cows in) is suspended about a foot in front of the middle of the pot, roughly 2 feet from the wall behind it. There is about a foot underneath so it's easy to get under it and service the girls from the inside. I always work my way from the inside to the outside of the plant. A lot of the small stuff you want to trim out halfway up the plant is generally weak sucker growth actually coming from near the bottom of the main branches and trunk. This is actually a lot easier to access and see when you are looking at the plant from the side.

These plants are situated a couple feet off the ground, so when you are sitting on a step ladder, you can reach right up in them.

In short, it's not really difficult getting in to the back side.

The white wall behind (panda film) is keeping a lot of the light in the canopy.

I turn this row of lights off when I work. The light from the other rows (lots of it) is behind me and I can see perfectly. no shadows. I also raise the lights up so I am not bumping in to them when I walk around.

If I were to do this in a small space I would have a nice t-5 on the ceiling to work while the main lights are off so you don't get burned.

 

[Mogrow]

What's an elbow? I said potato..

The bulbs are on yo-yos. They go up and down. I keep the bulb high when I transfer to allow for shock factor. Then after a week or so of getting used to the new space I flip them. That's when I drop the bulb. I raise the bulb when the plant is mature to the point where it is roughly in the upper 1/3 area of the plant, which is pretty much at the ceiling and as high as it can go).

The panel screen (some 6x6 grid metal for keeping cows in) is suspended about a foot in front of the middle of the pot, roughly 2 feet from the wall behind it. There is about a foot underneath so it's easy to get under it and service the girls from the inside. I always work my way from the inside to the outside of the plant. A lot of the small stuff you want to trim out halfway up the plant is generally weak sucker growth actually coming from near the bottom of the main branches and trunk. This is actually a lot easier to access and see when you are looking at the plant from the side.

These plants are situated a couple feet off the ground, so when you are sitting on a step ladder, you can reach right up in them.

In short, it's not really difficult getting in to the back side.

The white wall behind (panda film) is keeping a lot of the light in the canopy.

I turn this row of lights off when I work. The light from the other rows (lots of it) is behind me and I can see perfectly. no shadows. I also raise the lights up so I am not bumping in to them when I walk around.

If I were to do this in a small space I would have a nice t-5 on the ceiling to work while the main lights are off so you don't get burned.

thanks Cap, i see where the wall would help in pushing the plant towards the light also. so basically you're growing out more than you're growing up. i grow about 10 plants under 2K of light and get a little over a potato/er elbow a light, I can't understand how the vert would increase it that much but i believe you and am going to give it a shot. i grow in soil so i may not get to your yields but hopefully i get an increase. they say once you vert there's no reverting.
thanks mogrow

 

[kushtrees]

I feel like tomato would be better than potato

U think this is more efficient than your MPB trees? I make sure to always keep within my plant limit so i do trees. it might be fun to see how wide I can get 1 plant though

I had to stop growing my wifi as my tree cuz it always hit the ceiling and tht gets annoying it might be fun to bring it back

 

[Capulator]

thanks Cap, i see where the wall would help in pushing the plant towards the light also. so basically you're growing out more than you're growing up. i grow about 10 plants under 2K of light and get a little over a potato/er elbow a light, I can't understand how the vert would increase it that much but i believe you and am going to give it a shot. i grow in soil so i may not get to your yields but hopefully i get an increase. they say once you vert there's no reverting.
thanks mogrow

here is a quick sketch of the top view to try to explain how this looks and where you tie. I will post a pic of how I tie it to the cage as well.

ooops the wording "SUPPORT WITH CAGE" AND "SUPPORT WITH YO YOS" should be switched in the pic.

 

[Capulator]

I feel like tomato would be better than potato

U think this is more efficient than your MPB trees? I make sure to always keep within my plant limit so i do trees. it might be fun to see how wide I can get 1 plant though

I had to stop growing my wifi as my tree cuz it always hit the ceiling and tht gets annoying it might be fun to bring it back

2 reasons for me to do this:

1) hedging my bet with coco in anticipation of MPB's shitting the bed. No pun intended.
2) Wanted to maximize the space.

When I first did this I ran 2 plants per container, but it got crowded and actually was more work and less yield. When I switched to one plant it was just right. 1 plant every 2 feet on center.

I'm not sure about efficiency. I also have 9k in there so that's a lot of light. If I only had one row of lights I don't know how that would affect penetration, but I will check with my lumen reader today to compare.

I believe as far as plant counts, if you could run 2 rows and the bulbs in the middle, it would be very very efficient as far as plant numbers vs watts vs yield. Same as a Scrog but without bending down. Plus you can manipulate the branches growing out to "hug" the bulb from the front and the sides of the bulb. Each plant looks like a big U around the bulb from the top.

 

[kushtrees]

Cap your word choice is amazing. I would have said pun intended...

Do you have 9 lights in a row? Must be a long room. I would have to seriously plan out my spacing to do 5k that style in a 9x12 room.

What's the light spacing btw? Excellent diagram

 

[Capulator]

Cap your word choice is amazing. I would have said pun intended...

Do you have 9 lights in a row? Must be a long room. I would have to seriously plan out my spacing to do 5k that style in a 9x12 room.

What's the light spacing btw? Excellent diagram

lights are 45" OC.

Here are more pics:

This is a pic form the floor up, showing the plants being trained around the 1k. I keep the branches closer to the light supported closer to the cage, and the ones on either side I let them fall out a bit and they get long wire supports to the cage or supports via yo yo.

Here is the wire support. Simple. Gettogro... if you zoom in you can see the burnt edge of one leaf but that's just the fan blowing up on the bare bulb and causing some leaf damage from too much air. . LOL

This is at the level with the light. You can see how the leaves are naturally positioned to let more light in to the branches/budsites in the background

This is behind the plant. Plenty of space for critical airflow.

Here is how the cage is tied down tot he container and the spacing. Only 6".. I thought it was more. You could definitely do more since you end up chopping a lot of the little bottom branches out anyway.

See how the bottom looks? If you look close you can see where I "fanned" out the branches in the beginning with a little wire to spread them out.

The nine lights are not in a row. They are in a grid and covering the MPB's 45" OC. You can see the hedge in the background. The hole int he hedge is actually a short stocky white hashplant that is better suited in SOG or tree form

 

[Capulator]

4 Wifi, 2 lights.

1 nightcap, 2 FPOG, 1 WHP, and 1 LSD... 3 lights. (one of which is in the top right of the above photo.

 

[homebrew420]

This has bee non my mind for some time now. Great job with this. such beautiful and healthy plants. Truly job well done, and so very clean. This is what I love to see.