Lst for a beginner grower

[Blastfact]

Yeah I didn't want to go to crazy for my first growing experience. I built the grow room and I could increase the height very easily. Would that make it more beneficial?

Height gives you options. The 7'-11" of height I have with my exhaust fan tossed on top of the tent allows me to get my light high in the tent and grow tall sativas for indoor grows. Run powerful lights at lower settings close to the plants when there small and then up high in the tent come winter when the extra power can heat the tents without hurting the plants with insanely high ppfd. It's about flexibility. If my ceiling was just 1" higher I would have the optional 2' extension on my tents for 8'-11" tall tents.

A real Columbian Gold Plant grown from 1975 bag seed grown in the tent to the right. She grew another foot and had her tied back on herself. She was in flower over 20 weeks and basically one big bud.

 

[Phyto]

Height gives you options. The 7'-11" of height I have with my exhaust fan tossed on top of the tent allows me to get my light high in the tent and grow tall sativas for indoor grows. Run powerful lights at lower settings close to the plants when there small and then up high in the tent come winter when the extra power can heat the tents without hurting the plants with insanely high ppfd. It's about flexibility. If my ceiling was just 1" higher I would have the optional 2' extension on my tents for 8'-11" tall tents.

View attachment 2340354

A real Columbian Gold Plant grown from 1975 bag seed grown in the tent to the right. She grew another foot and had her tied back on herself. She was in flower over 20 weeks and basically one big bud.

View attachment 2340355

Height is usually the bugaboo with tents. Mine is only 7 ft tall, so once you figure in a pot at 14 inches, 18-24 inches between the light and the plant, and 10 inches that the light need to be below the tent roof (fire danger) there goes 3 1/2 to 4 feet, leaving 3 feet for growth and stretch, pretty much have to do LST or HST.

 

[RGWD0202]

Do I still want to top my plant if i scrog? By "overvegging" are you just saying it's easier because once your netting gets full you flip it?

Yep, top it and scrog it…

 

[capone304]

Aint nothing wrong with a simple lean back 90 degree bend, no cutting, can generally make it happen when the main stalk hasn’t even hardened off yet so it’s super easy to pin down and it’s not stressful at all on the plant and you don’t have to take any of the lower stalks off because they’re immediately available to the light. you can employ a simple main line technique, but that requires some cutting and some topping or you can just play to a plant strengths and let it go crazy and pin out every stalk just being sure keep each one out of the way of each other. or you can employ clips which are handy as shit and you don’t have to take them off. You can let them stay on all grow long or you can use a combination of stakes and clips
Now,

I find that the 90° lean back technique and the very beginning is the best way for any new grower to be able to maximize their first few plants as well as learn the ropes

I think everyone of us in the forum has this okie strain it's my very first photo indoor she's a fuckin monster I'm about to flip her in two weeks she's about 3 foot wide

 

[PooToe]

Do I still want to top my plant if i scrog? By "overvegging" are you just saying it's easier because once your netting gets full you flip it?

You can if you feel you don't have enough lateral branching to fill the net. If your cultivar is sativa dominant then you'll probably want to top her as sativas typically grow tall and lanky. I like to top at around 5th node back to 4th or 6th back to 5th.
Depending on your goals you can do additional training like FIM or other pruning techniques. I know most people like to grow giant fat colas and, yes, they're pretty to look at, but I'm growing for quality and volume so I'm not concerned with giant colas. The smaller but more plentiful flowers a ScrOG will produce will make it easier for me to process in the dry and cure portion of the grow. Another plus is way less chance of bud rot.

By "overvegging" I mean the tendency of new growers to veg a giant plant only to have the lights burn all the flowers because the plants are too close to the lights and there is no more room in the tent. Because you're laying out the branches you can control the height,

I don't wait to fill the net before I flip. I try and anticipate for stretch. Waiting to fill the net, depending on the genetics of your plant, may yield too tall a branch. LED's effectively will be able to penetrate around 10" - 12" into the canopy vs HID which will penetrate more light energy deeper into the canopy so anything taller than that will get substandard light energy and turn into larf.
I usually flip around 18" so I anticipate around doubling of height due to stretch. If I'm going for 8" colas then I'll leave around 10" of edge space for the branches to grow into. Once they hit the wall I let them go vertical.

 

[hazelsgarden]

You can if you feel you don't have enough lateral branching to fill the net. If your cultivar is sativa dominant then you'll probably want to top her as sativas typically grow tall and lanky. I like to top at around 5th node back to 4th or 6th back to 5th.
Depending on your goals you can do additional training like FIM or other pruning techniques. I know most people like to grow giant fat colas and, yes, they're pretty to look at, but I'm growing for quality and volume so I'm not concerned with giant colas. The smaller but more plentiful flowers a ScrOG will produce will make it easier for me to process in the dry and cure portion of the grow. Another plus is way less chance of bud rot.

By "overvegging" I mean the tendency of new growers to veg a giant plant only to have the lights burn all the flowers because the plants are too close to the lights and there is no more room in the tent. Because you're laying out the branches you can control the height,

I don't wait to fill the net before I flip. I try and anticipate for stretch. Waiting to fill the net, depending on the genetics of your plant, may yield too tall a branch. LED's effectively will be able to penetrate around 10" - 12" into the canopy vs HID which will penetrate more light energy deeper into the canopy so anything taller than that will get substandard light energy and turn into larf.
I usually flip around 18" so I anticipate around doubling of height due to stretch. If I'm going for 8" colas then I'll leave around 10" of edge space for the branches to grow into. Once they hit the wall I let them go vertical.

Do you have soil recommendations or necessary fertilizers? I've been using fox farm atm. Also, does anyone use a ppfd meter for their lights? Or does just eyeballing how your plant looks usually get the job done?

 

[PooToe]

I can only recommend what I use but, as far as soil, there are others like what you are using, Fox Farm, that are very good. I use the original soil blend from a company called Roots Organic. They also have a blend called Lush that is very good. The Original blend isn't as heavily fortified like Lush but for my grow style I start feeding almost immediately so it isn't as important for me to have a heavily fortified soil blend. In my case, the oxygen holding capacity of the soil blend is important for the way I grow.

For fertilizers I use FloraNova from General Hydroponics. FloraNova is the concentrated all in one formula of GH's classic Flora Trio line. I don't use boosters other than in the beginning when I want to bump up my soil bacterial community, so I use Voodoo Juice from Advanced Nutrients the first few weeks after sprout. I also use Armor Si until week 3 of flip which is a silicate to help in cell well fortification among other things. Armor Si is also from General Hydroponics. I used to use Pro-Tekt silicate from Dyna Gro but I decided to keep it all under one brand name. The other thing I use to supplement is Cal/Mag. I use GH's CALiMAGic for that. I apply some Mycorhizzae, from Xtreme Gardening, in my final transplant hole to aid the root system. These are all the inputs I use.

If you're going to be doing this more than once I would recommend you buy a quality pH and PPM/EC meters. The two I would recommend are BlueLab and Apera. I've been using BlueLab for decades without fault. Apera had been recommended to me by trusted sources. BlueLab likes to separate their pH and PPM/EC pens so you have two whereas Apera combines the two into one pen. Apera also has the capability to replace the probe end. BlueLab does not although I've used BlueLab meters that have lasted me years with proper care. Your call.

I also highly recommend you downloading a free light meter on your phone so that you can more accurately measure how much light energy you are supplying your plants. If you have an Iphone then you're going to want to look at Photone as the app to download but be aware that you'll probably need some sort of filter over the camera lens to get the correct readings. I've read that some people will put tissue over the lens to act as a filter. If you have an android phone then you can use Tent Buddy. This is the app I use to measure the light energy my lights are supplying my plants.

You can eyeball them but I feel better being able to quantify my choices through measurement than just sort of guessing. This makes it easier to repeat whatever success you had in previous grows. For now, you can eyeball it using the chart below but I highly recommend you download a free light meter and learn to use it. I use DLI(Daily Light Integral) to determine how much light energy my plants can take up in a day. It makes it way easier to setup your lights and know you're giving them all the light they want.

General rule of thumb for PPFD is 200 - 400 for clones and seedlings, 400 - 600 for veg and 600 - 900 for flower.

 

[hazelsgarden]

Awesome, gonna have to make sure I save all this info, it is much appreciated. One last question. Would you think there is an issue with the edges of the leaves pointing up like this?

 

[PooToe]

When leaves sawtooth on the edges or twist it usually means to much light.

 

[hazelsgarden]

When leaves sawtooth on the edges or twist it usually means to much light.

That's what I figured, made the most sense since I did adjust the lighting recently when I changed it for veg. Guess I'll mess with it a bit and see how it goes

 

[PooToe]

The only thing bad about scrog is it locks your plant in the tent. Once it's in the scrog and woven around. You can't get it out without damaging the plant. I have a grow under simple scrog and I'm going to cut it out right now before it gets to far along.

Try multi scrogging.

I did this in a 2 x 2 and it worked great. I'll probably do it in the 5 x 5. It makes plant management MUCH easier.

Instead of running one giant screen over all the plants effectively locking them in place as you suggested, use a mini screen for each plant cut out of rabbit fencing or whatever screen/mesh size you desire that is stiff enough to stay in shape. You just place it on top of the plant, untethered to the poles, and let the plant grow into it. You adjust just like the mono scrog but now you can move the plant around as it's not locked into place. The branches of the plant should hold it all into place once you get some growth going through the screen,

 

[PooToe]

Height gives you options. The 7'-11" of height I have with my exhaust fan tossed on top of the tent allows me to get my light high in the tent and grow tall sativas for indoor grows. Run powerful lights at lower settings close to the plants when there small and then up high in the tent come winter when the extra power can heat the tents without hurting the plants with insanely high ppfd. It's about flexibility. If my ceiling was just 1" higher I would have the optional 2' extension on my tents for 8'-11" tall tents.

View attachment 2340354

A real Columbian Gold Plant grown from 1975 bag seed grown in the tent to the right. She grew another foot and had her tied back on herself. She was in flower over 20 weeks and basically one big bud.

View attachment 2340355

Care to share any of those seeds if you still got some? CG is one of the few cultivars that I've never grown. I got some DJ Short beans I can trade if you're up to it.

 

[Blastfact]

Care to share any of those seeds if you still got some? CG is one of the few cultivars that I've never grown. I got some DJ Short beans I can trade if you're up to it.

I don't have much left. A buddy I've known since the 4th grade got some. A friend died on a landstrain trip last year trying to help keep our group in real seed. I get so frustrated with this shit fufu crap weed we have now days. Yesterday all I wanted to do was drop the lights on the plants crank them up to full blast and burn the shit weed up and throw both tents out on the curb. Then today the fufu GG4 photo don't kill me... I will pray! I miss real weed something awful... Don't know from one day to the next what modern crap fufu weed is going to do.

 

[PooToe]

I don't have much left. A buddy I've known since the 4th grade got some. A friend died on a landstrain trip last year trying to help keep our group in real seed. I get so frustrated with this shit fufu crap weed we have now days. Yesterday all I wanted to do was drop the lights on the plants crank them up to full blast and burn the shit weed up and throw both tents out on the curb. Then today the fufu GG4 photo don't kill me... I will pray! I miss real weed something awful... Don't know from one day to the next what modern crap fufu weed is going to do.

View attachment 2341361

Tell ya what. I'm willing to grow them out for seed if your down. 50/50 split. Not sure how many beans you can spare but if I can get a male and female that's all I'll need.

I have a 3 x 6 I can do this in so, depending on how many seeds you can spare, if I can get at least one male among the females that's all I need. One run should yield us enough seeds for the rest of our lifetimes!!! I could pollinate just a few branches on the female but I'm thinking more long term and having old school seeds is a big plus especially for the old timers like you and me that got to experience weed closer to its landrace relatives so I'll do a full plant seed up.

 

[Blastfact]

Tell ya what. I'm willing to grow them out for seed if your down. 50/50 split. Not sure how many beans you can spare but if I can get a male and female that's all I'll need.

I have a 3 x 6 I can do this in so, depending on how many seeds you can spare, if I can get at least one male among the females that's all I need. One run should yield us enough seeds for the rest of our lifetimes!!! I could pollinate just a few branches on the female but I'm thinking more long term and having old school seeds is a big plus especially for the old timers like you and me that got to experience weed closer to its landrace relatives so I'll do a full plant seed up.

I'm good....