SOG too short?

[Marshall]

Buy some seeds. Pick up some AK-47.

Fix the condensation. insulate the ducts, loose the glass, do something. If the light cant penetrate the glass......

there is something completely out of whack on your grow. It kills me when you say 13-14oz off a 1000. And it is not just the SOG, your bush yields are off too.

I picked up a light meter for like $80. well worth IMO to check new bulbs versus old bulbs etc

Coco may be better but it is not the solution. You can get excellent results with hydroton

And vegging for 3 weeks? Must be strain. I could take freshly rooted clones 3-4" and chuck them into flower.

 

[_Dude]

Yeah Marshall I was standing there pissed off about the condensation the other day and I thought of a light meter too. Maybe replacing the bulbs will fix the problem. Like they're producing too much waste heat? If not, I'll try new hoods. And if that doesn't work I'll have to seal the runs and use a ton of duct outside in the crawlspace so the heat can dissipate before the air is returned to the hood.

But I don't think it's the fog. I think it's probably hurting my yields, but I don't think it explains the gap between my yields and the kind of yields other growers are getting. Like I said my 600 is brand new and it's not like I got killer yields with it compared to my 1ks. On the other hand, I haven't pulled in many crops with it either. I'll be paying close attention to the results I get with it. If the yields are a lot better than 60% of what I get with the 1ks I know there's a dead rat somewhere.

That's one of the hardest parts about growing, and improving yields - there are so many factors. It could be my nute regimen, it could be my strain, it could be the lights, it could be something else. The other problem is the time frame. Every experiment takes 2 months plus. But I'm slowly narrowing it down. I think pretty soon I'm going to try other nute regimens side by side with the one I've been running.

And AK-47 is #1 on my strain list. The problem with ordering seeds is I can't bring myself to send them to my house. That really limits my options because everyone who knows I grow is too much of a bitch to let me use their address even though I've explained to them there's nothing illegal about some jerk sending seeds to their address and that's all they have to tell anyone who asks. It's a very short list though. Only 4 people and two are married to each other and the other two just divorced each other.

 

[_Dude]

14.25z this time. Big improvement over 12z last time. My highest ever from a 1k I think. The next one will be better. It looks better than the one before it.

 

[_Dude]

I think I had to veg the last crop 3 weeks because I took them a bit late. It could be my PPMs were low too. 2 weeks was more than enough for the batch I cut from girls 10 days into flower. But I think cuttings taken from flowering plants need more veg time than cuttings taken from vegging mother plants.

I also think new bulbs and hoods will help my yields. I just got a new 1K ballast and bulb and it seems brighter. The hood is much bigger and the spread looks a lot better too.

 

[Exclusive]

hey dude_,
what is the average distance of stretch for the strain you're running?
My low yielding indicas stretch 5-7" when started at 7-10". the high yielding sativa blue dream haze starts at 8-10" and can finish at 30"+. the momentum they start with makes all the difference though, adequate veg time for the roots to really take hold is key.

strain should be priority number 1 for you. it sounds like you want a high yielder but you're growing an indica. the only reason I run indicas is because I like that purple variety, not the yield.

to be completely honest, I think you're going the wrong direction thinking smaller pots and more of them. The root volume in a 6" pot is enough to grow trees and the plants should be getting that size if you let them. Sounds like you want to go smaller pots/higher plantcounts because you feel unable to get more weight per plant. the 100+ plant count is not worth the risk and not worth the time invested imo.


if I were running your setup and seeking yield, I would do these in order:

1. find a high yielding strain, sativa preferably
2. try coco (still flood if you want, works fine in coco) you'll be amazed at their vigor.
3. after roots, give clones 7-10 days veg in small pots (dixie cups) of coco

hope it's helpful

Excellent Advice!

 

[Phaeton]

"Control red to far-red light ratio to limit stretching"

Title of thread in the science forum, it also has to do with day/night temperature spreads.

This researched thread has some exact opposite conclusions than posts in this thread on stretch.

I have no dog in this fight, but both sets of information on temps and stretch cannot be correct.

 

[_Dude]

I think I'm going to move away from SOG. I'm glad I ran it for a while because I learned a lot by growing so many plants, but it's time to move on. It's causing scheduling problems because to run a SOG you have to limit veg time and that doesn't work well with the scheduling requirements I'm looking at.

Instead I'm going to schedule 30 days of veg and figure out my plant count from there. My guess is about 30-40 plants per 1k but I figure I'll take plenty of overage and figure out the exact number by observation. This way I can take cuttings around day 10 of flower, root them for 21 days, and then veg them until I harvest the crop I took them from. Makes more sense than trying to shoehorn a SOG like I am now (I alternate harvests so I'm doing one harvest every 30 days, roughly; 30 days isn't enough time to use the cuts from one crop to propagate another (7-10 days of flower to take cuts, 14-18 days to root them, 14 days to veg, adds up to too much; I don't think 30 days is enough time to do it right), and 60 days is too long to use the cuts to replace the crop they came from (Re-veg inhibits vigor so I have to take cuts 10 days in at latest, no more than 14 days of veg or they get too big, leaving 32 days that they have to sit in the rockwool cubes rooting and that's just silly IMO). I figure I'm saving work by cutting down on plant numbers so why not just save myself the work? Plus I won't have to buy more medium; cutting down on plant numbers will mean I have more Hydroton than I need already.

Many thanks BTW to High Country. He was like Obi-Wan with that advice to take cuttings from flowering plants, instead of vegging mothers. This way, once you get enough cuts rocking, you can cut your mother plants way, way down. I'm going to go to just two small bonsai moms for emergency purposes. I have two strains and I don't even have a mother for one of them. I have three big mothers for the other and I have nowhere to flower them lol. But like I said I'm going to cut down to just two small moms in 6" pots because I'd rather use the veg space for plants I'm going to flower.

BTW, I made a post earlier in the thread about how I read you should "starve" the cuttings in rockwool for water a bit. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Keep them wet. I water them twice a week now and I'm getting much better results. They root in 14-18 days. If you take enough cuttings and keep the rockwool wet enough you can go to veg in 14-18 days easy. More if you insist on roots all over the place obviously.

Also, if you take cuttings from flowering plants, earlier is better. Cuts taken later have more problems with re-veg IMO. I recommend 7-10 days in, no more. Which leads to that scheduling problem I mentioned. If you really want to run a SOG though, it might be a good idea to take cuts later, because you have time to burn if you're using the cuts you take to replace the girls you take them from.

Another tip for people who want to try SOG and take cuts from flowering plants, try playing around with when you take your cuts. I didn't run a SOG long enough to really play with the different results. But if I'm right, when you take the cuts makes a big difference in the kind of plant you get. Seems to be sort of a catch 22, because I think this is how it works; waiting longer makes them branchier (easier to get cuts), but makes them slower to respond in veg, while taking them earlier makes them respond more quickly in veg, but much less branchy (harder to get cuts). Like I said I'm not staying with SOG to test this so I don't know if I'm right. But I might play around with when I take cuts to test my theory.

I do know that nutes and lights can make a huge difference in branching behavior. For the last couple months I've been using my 600w HPS for veg. Thing is, it's hooked up to the same reservoirs that my 1k HPS flowering tubs use. Around the same time I switched to pure MaxiBloom for my flowering plants and pure MaxiGro for my vegging plants. So I had some of my cuts vegging under a 600w HPS eating MaxiBloom and some of them vegging under 400w MHs eating MaxiGro. You could totally see the difference. I don't know if it was the lights, or the nutes, or both, but the plants REALLY looked different. There was tons of branching on the girls under the 600, and very little branching on the girls under the 400. Now even in flower the ones that didn't branch STILL aren't branching. It's weird. I'd really be sweating it if I needed a bunch of cuttings, in fact. I was considering vegging with 1:1 Bloom to Gro because of this.

 

[_Dude]

Well, my last SOG is turning out to be the biggest yielder by far. It's drying right now but I think it will be well over an elbow. I think it's the new 1k bulb and ballast I bought. Some pics of the bigger ones:

 

[Danks2005]

Dude, I've been running SOG for a very long time. I think you should definately fix your growroom issues (condensation, clean or get rid of glass, ect...). But, I think your main problem is strain. I have 2 mother's now (from an accidental cross of my own which turned out to be one of my best accidents), I cut clones 3-4 inches, root in rockwool in prop tray w/ dome, I have a dwc veg chamber to get plants to 4-6 inches(rarely used), I can put both of my strains into flower at 4inches, and they finish in 63-67 days 36inches tall minimum. In my opinion if you must veg you lose some of the benifit of SOG. I never leave a table emply longer than it takes to clean the table. I may veg a couple of days if waiting for a table to finish and space to open up, but that is it.

I also firmly beleive that harvest should only be determined by color of trics. You should really have no thought of # of days to finish, untill you have run the same strain 1-3 times, and harvest by tric color. Then and only then should you assign # of days in flowering per strain. I've been at this a long time, and flowering time is a big deal to me. When I run from seed my criteria in order are 1)potency 2)weight 3)bag appeal 4)flowering time. These are all VERY important for me, 1, 2, and 3 must be on point, and I will not keep anything that goes longer than 70 days (at least not as a producer). But you have to harvest correctly to make any of the criteria accurate.

I'm not trying to be a dick, I really am trying to help but you should be pulling at least 16-20oz per 1k w/ 64 plants, even with a less than perfect growroom and various mishaps. When I need something new, I usually plant anywhere between 25 and 75 seeds. Then I just grow them with lots of pruning to make them bushy and full of cuts, untill they show pre-flowers, then of course get rid of the males, cut enough clones off of each female that I can get a real good idea of what they are made of, root them, and put them straight into flower. You can start getting rid of some of the donor plants even before their respective clones finish. When it's all said and done, keep only what you liked, AND what performed well in a SOG.

Bottome line, you need a new strain. SOG should be VERY productive. Everyone wants to measure success by GPW, but time must also be included to really see how efficient your system is. I have 4 tables, and harvest 1 about ever 16 days.

 

[_Dude]

18.5 . 30% increase over my previous record of 14.3. Quality's way up, too, but that's because I started keeping the light at least 19" away from tops and paying real close attention to KEEPING them 19" away. They start to burn if I get any closer than that. And I've been ahead of the thrips every time, and changing my reservoirs (all 50g drums) every 14 days, and I lowered the PPMs a bit, down to 1200. The key to a SOG IMO (other than the obvious) is making damn sure your girls are rooted well and growing vigorously before sending them into flower.

Nother tip: transpotting is better than transplanting. I have a batch in 6" round net pots. The day I put them into flower, most just went right in as-is, but I transplanted maybe 5 out of their pots and into 1 gallon grow bags (much bigger, maybe 8" diameter". Every single one that I transplanted lagged big time. A few days later I just put the pots into 1 gallon bags and filled the empty space with medium, and they're still way ahead of the ones I transplanted.

 

[Chronic0]

hi guys
i have read the full topic and i have learnt so much from it, for example 'the Stadium (with two strain) vs Dome' is a very good idea, what i didnt know
but can you tell me how big pots i need to use? They are in 6" (15*15cm) square space each plant and i think i will use 4" x 4" x 7" (10x10x17 cm, 1,4litres) pots. Is it enough? Or may i use bigger ones like 5" x 5" x 7" (13x13x18 cm, 2,4litres) ?
thanks

 

[_Dude]

Chron, I don't know anything about Stadiums or Domes. I know a bit about pot sizing but there are so many variables. The most important one is your experience level. If you still need info reply with how much you know and I'll try to give you a better response (my advice will be good for a newb, but an experience grower will already know everything I do on the subject).

Short version is, root development is as important as pot size. If you don't develop your roots properly, the plants won't be taking advantage of the space available to them, no matter how much of it there is. So I'd rather have a properly developed plant in a pot that's a bit too small than an undeveloped plant in a pot with plenty of room it'll never use.

General advice, plants need smaller pots than most people think. A 6" net pot can grow quite the nice little bush. Or a SOG-type stalk 3' high. 1.4 liter pots should be plenty for anything up to a small bush (IIRC my 6" net pots are roughly 1.4 liters).

Major advice: do any transplanting well ahead of putting them into flower. Give them time to repair the damage you've done to the root system. I'd say at least 10 days. 2 or 3 weeks is better.

 

[Chronic0]

hi
it won't be my 1st round, just the 1st SOG one, so i'm not totaly retard, hehe

i overthinked it and i'm going to use 2,5 liter pots, with 2 liter rockwool (and 1-2 cm thick clayball bed against algas)
if you used 1,4 liter pots, then the 2 liter will be in plenty enough

i count that i will put my little dearnesses to flower on 21nd day from cutting (they usually need about 14 days to appear the 1st roots and then they have one more week to develop roots well)

i slightly cause damage to the roots with transplanting, because i won't put the little rockwool boxes into the 2 liter rockwool, i just will apply them on the rockwool

have to experience how many sprigs need to cut down, and when...
any idea?

(sry my english is not the best...)