Dicomaco's first Vertical attempt 2011

So I got very inspired by Marlo's amazing thread and Aerohead's just as impressive first timer show. So inspired that I decided to jump from my first time horizontal SCROG to Vertical right away.

I'm currently in week 7 of my first 2x600w SCROG in two tiny 90x90x240 homemade rooms, made out of shelve systems and mylar. It's a cheap setup but it's trusty

Two NL5xHaze x Sour Diesel in 3 gallon pots - week 7


My plan is to modify my current setup to two 150x150x240 cm / 5x5x7.8 feet Vertical flower rooms with 1200w in each.

Due to a tight budget I will only make 1 room this time around and keep my current setup as it is for now for another Horizontal run.

Anyway here are the rough bluprints for the future, hope it's understandable

Top view


Side view


My Veg room might be a little too small for the task, I imagine some would say.. But that's why I'm primarily going to flower strechy Sativas in my setup, so that I don't have to veg 'em too big before 12/12.

I'm considering going for perhaps a 400w for veg, but at the same time I'd hate to use even more electricity than I already do

What I have
4 x 600w Digital ballasts, Lumatek & Sunmaster
1 x 410 m3 exhaust fan
1 x 600 m3 exhaust fan

What I need (to build PVC fences Marlo style)
Floor fans
PVC pipe
PVC T-connector
PVC 90 angle connectors
Plant fence
Clamps/tiers

Strain's i'm growing
Chocolope (D.N.A Genetics)
Casey Jones (H3ad Seeds)
NL5xHaze x Sour Diesel (unknown breeder)

Atm I'm vegging 9 HazexDiesel & 6 Casey Jones in 6.5 liter / 1.7 gallon containers, using Coco Coir. I'm not sure whether I will transplant to 11 liter / 3 gallon or 14 liter / 3.7 gallon containers when flipping to 12/12.

In my new vertical flower room my plan is to flower 9-10 plants this time around, as I simply don't have enough plants to do 12 (which I think would be ideal), and at the same time fill my old room up.

I'm going to buy the equipment this upcoming weekend, so that I'm well prepered for the new setup when I've harvested my current crop in 10-15 days.

I hope a bunch of you other Vertical enthusiasts will chime in and give me some advice here and there. I'll be updating this journal 2-3 times a week, assuming I catch some interest from my fellow Vertical growers.

Any questions are welcome, although I will probably be the one in need of help


Happy times

Your plan sounds solid to me, can't wait to see another member rock the vert! Good luck, stay safe!

Tagged

Tagged



Looks great bro. Really interested to see how this goes. 12oow's in each room? I'm so jealous!

I'm guessing your gonna put 3 plants on each wall? How big are you planning on making your screens? Make sure you give em some elbow room. You know how scrogs get, especially with sativa doms.

mmmmmmmm Chocolope

Marlo said:

Looks great bro. Really interested to see how this goes. 12oow's in each room? I'm so jealous!

I'm guessing your gonna put 3 plants on each wall? How big are you planning on making your screens? Make sure you give em some elbow room. You know how scrogs get, especially with sativa doms.

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Well yeah for now it will only be one Vertical 1200w room, and two small 600w horizontal SCROG rooms. I'm very fortunate that I have the space to do this, so I will take advantage!

It's funny you mention the screen size, because I was going to ask you about it.
You have a good amount of experience, how big would you make them if it was your room at this size?
I was thinking of 100cm / 40 inches tall, and around 50cm / 20 inches wide.. but that might be too short?

Plants have been vegged for 8 total weeks in 1.7 gallon pots when I switch to 12/12 in a couple of weeks, so they will be quite big..

And yes I will put 3 plants against each wall this time around, although 4 matches my measurements better to fill out. But a total of 9 might work out great too, as you mentioned, Sativa doms are pretty good at filling out

Thanks for chiming in Marlo, I've learned a lot from your threads!

hippydan said:

Your plan sounds solid to me, can't wait to see another member rock the vert! Good luck, stay safe!

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Cheers hippydan

mrktwiz said:

mmmmmmmm Chocolope

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Hehe yeah, it's an awesome strain, the odor is unbelievable in my pheno, so fruity. The last couple of grams i smoked of it had been cured for 6 weeks, and smelled like extremely ripe fruit, like a thick fruity balsamic glaze of perhaps grapes, can't put a name on it yet. But a true keeper

Dicomaco said:

So I got very inspired by Marlo's amazing thread and Aerohead's just as impressive first timer show. So inspired that I decided to jump from my first time horizontal SCROG to Vertical right away.


Due to a tight budget I will only make 1 room this time around and keep my current setup as it is for now for another Horizontal run.



Happy times

Click to expand...

Hey Dicomaco! The same thing happened to me! I caught vertical fever from these guys! They make it look so easy!

I also was on a tight budget, so I had to improvise a few things. One thing I didn't skimp on was ventilation, I bought a nice inline and a new Honeywell for the floor

I really love Marlo's screens, and I wanted to replicate those but I just couldn't afford all the elbows and pipe right now. I'm flowering 7 and vegging 9 for the next round, 16 screens *gulp!* thats a lot of $$. I'll do it someday I hope cause they look soooo nice (thanks Marlo) Fortunately I have a woodworking shop so I built my frames from strips of pine, you can rip a LOT of strips from one 8" wide x 8' long board. I bought a pile of pipe cleaners from the local $ store and they worked like a charm for the grid. I could space them any way I want and they STAYED where I tied them. Makes a very rigid screen and the pipe cleaners are soft and gentle on the branches Anywho the screens cost me about $12 for the pipe cleaners and I had the wood.

There I've rambled enough, I just wanted to throw that in cause I know what its like on a tight budget.

Here is one screen proudly holding up a 30" tall LSD. These LSDs are so stretchy, I didn't have to cut one branch from the back.. they all pulled through the screen! Bonus! Respect and happy growing ! I'll be watching!!



Sneer

CyrilSneer said:

Hey Dicomaco! The same thing happened to me! I caught vertical fever from these guys! They make it look so easy!

I also was on a tight budget, so I had to improvise a few things. One thing I didn't skimp on was ventilation, I bought a nice inline and a new Honeywell for the floor

I really love Marlo's screens, and I wanted to replicate those but I just couldn't afford all the elbows and pipe right now. I'm flowering 7 and vegging 9 for the next round, 16 screens *gulp!* thats a lot of $$. I'll do it someday I hope cause they look soooo nice (thanks Marlo) Fortunately I have a woodworking shop so I built my frames from strips of pine, you can rip a LOT of strips from one 8" wide x 8' long board. I bought a pile of pipe cleaners from the local $ store and they worked like a charm for the grid. I could space them any way I want and they STAYED where I tied them. Makes a very rigid screen and the pipe cleaners are soft and gentle on the branches Anywho the screens cost me about $12 for the pipe cleaners and I had the wood.

There I've rambled enough, I just wanted to throw that in cause I know what its like on a tight budget.

Here is one screen proudly holding up a 30" tall LSD. These LSDs are so stretchy, I didn't have to cut one branch from the back.. they all pulled through the screen! Bonus! Respect and happy growing ! I'll be watching!!



Sneer

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Hi Sneer!
May I ask which honeywell floor fan you bought? I'm not sure how powerful it should be in my room.

As you can see in my illustration, my plan is to have a sealed exhaust area, not sure how to do it yet, but I want to make it as vacuum like as possible, so that the floor fan pushes it as directly towards the exhaust hole as possible, and then the exaust fan sucks it out towards the window



I've looked at a Honeywell HT 900E 740m3/hour. I'm no expert in ventilation, but it sounds very powerful to me, perhaps too much or? Of course it's controllable so I guess I can run it at 3-4 different speeds

I hope it doesn't make too much noise!

Yeah being on a tight budget makes you forced into creativity, the shelve systems I used for rooms cost around 1/4 of what a Dark Room/Homebox would have cost me and are just as effective!

Mmm I see no picture of your LSD?


Thanks for stopping by

Hey Dicomaco

The Honeywell I found was model HT-900C.
It was the only one at the store at that time. It is 3 speeds, can point straight up or wall mount, removable grille for cleaning and it is powerful and quiet. I run it on high and it does the job, I can't imagine one that is too powerful, especially with 3 speeds. That looks like its going to be a great setup.

The photo of the LSD on the screen shows up on my end.. I wonder why you can't see it?? it shows up in your quote too..

can anyone besides me see it?? LOL! might be a glitch in IC

Dicomaco said:

It's funny you mention the screen size, because I was going to ask you about it.

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I think my screens are approx +/- 12" wide and 30" tall. They are slightly wider that my square 3 gal pots.
One thing to consider is space for them to move a bit, and also for overlap from your bushes. This pic below is from the start of my 2nd run. There are 10 in the pic +2 more in front of the door. You can see the pots/screens are all right up against each other. This turned out to be too much.
Running 10 screens gave them all a bit more elbow room, and also maintenance was easier.




So basically make them big enough to hold your girls, and still give themselves a bit of overlap room. The corners will need a good amount of elbow room, ime. Lay your pots out on the floor and try some different spacings & plant counts and see what looks good.

CyrilSneer said:

Hey Dicomaco

The Honeywell I found was model HT-900C.
It was the only one at the store at that time. It is 3 speeds, can point straight up or wall mount, removable grille for cleaning and it is powerful and quiet. I run it on high and it does the job, I can't imagine one that is too powerful, especially with 3 speeds. That looks like its going to be a great setup.

The photo of the LSD on the screen shows up on my end.. I wonder why you can't see it?? it shows up in your quote too..

can anyone besides me see it?? LOL! might be a glitch in IC

Click to expand...

Sounds good, they look similar and are getting pretty good reviews. Will get that one!

I have a pretty sweet picture in my head of how it's going to look, I hope it will work out, I'm glad others think that my plan makes sense!

And seriously I can't see that pic no matter which browser nor with my phone..

Marlo said:

I think my screens are approx +/- 12" wide and 30" tall. They are slightly wider that my square 3 gal pots.
One thing to consider is space for them to move a bit, and also for overlap from your bushes. This pic below is from the start of my 2nd run. There are 10 in the pic +2 more in front of the door. You can see the pots/screens are all right up against each other. This turned out to be too much.
Running 10 screens gave them all a bit more elbow room, and also maintenance was easier.

So basically make them big enough to hold your girls, and still give themselves a bit of overlap room. The corners will need a good amount of elbow room, ime. Lay your pots out on the floor and try some different spacings & plant counts and see what looks good.

Click to expand...

Yeah only one way to find out, gonna do some testing with the space available. It could go crazy in there if they get stacked too much against each other!

Can't wait to start making them screens, it's going to be a great setup!

Now if only I had autowatering, it would be perfect. Didn't you use blumats in one of grows Marlo?

Cheers!

*****************UPDATE***************

So it has begun

The last week's been very busy, so I decided to do my journal update at once!

So as mentioned I decided to take a page out of Marlo's book, and copy his PVC frames for plant support.

No surprises really, but for the sake of it here's a few pics

Speaks for itself, so easy to make!
Frame is 100 x 50 cm / 3.2 x 1.5 feet


I added 20 cm via a connector (as the pvc came in maximum 100cm pieces) to the bottom so that it can sit firmly in the coco without tilting (i hope )

Prototype ready - It wasn't necessary to use strips, as I cut the net so that the edges could firmly wrap around the PVC and sit tight


Casey Jones getting used to her new support


Bottom up


I'm a little worried about her bottom growth due to my scarce experience with this strain. It shouldn't be a problem, as I can always manipulate some upper branches to fill out the bottom.

The underdevelopment is because my 250w MH can't penetrate all through to the bottom. I compensated for this by making a little defoliation here and there during veg. A few fan leaves have been removed from every plant. My NL5xHaze x SD didn't give a damn about losing some fans, in fact it appeared it only grew faster! CJ doesn't have that many fans so I only removed a couple.

I'm preparing to do a good amount of defo a couple of weeks into flower, however I think I will only remove a few here and there, not a heavy strip at once. I don't wanna risk messing up my grow!

great job on those screens I gotta try to get that pic back up of my screen.. I still don't know why you couldn't see it?? I'm 3 1/2 weeks in my first run with them.. next time I might just surround with fencing. ( funny how we keep changing things up LOL but thats part of getting it right.. or at least getting it the way it works for US.) I'll miss being able to take them out of the room.. but whatever works best. I'll try to post a pic or two. Again

CyrilSneer said:

great job on those screens I gotta try to get that pic back up of my screen.. I still don't know why you couldn't see it?? I'm 3 1/2 weeks in my first run with them.. next time I might just surround with fencing. ( funny how we keep changing things up LOL but thats part of getting it right.. or at least getting it the way it works for US.) I'll miss being able to take them out of the room.. but whatever works best. I'll try to post a pic or two. Again

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Thanks man

Did you use the tag when posting the pic?

About changing things up, that's just part of it. Things are never really going to turn out the way you think they will, change is a natural constant

I'm not sure the anchered full fence is going to yield better than the mobile ones. If my measurements are correct, my entire walls are going to be filled out with the screens being 50 cm wide and 100 cm tall. I'm not planning to take my girls out every week or anything, but I like having the option, especially when flushing time comes
Of course that would be different if I had a auto watering system like DWC!

I'd love to see your screens man, I PM'd you my email, send away

Dicomaco said:

Thanks man

Did you use the

tag when posting the pic?

About changing things up, that's just part of it. Things are never really going to turn out the way you think they will, change is a natural constant

I'm not sure the anchered full fence is going to yield better than the mobile ones. If my measurements are correct, my entire walls are going to be filled out with the screens being 50 cm wide and 100 cm tall. I'm not planning to take my girls out every week or anything, but I like having the option, especially when flushing time comes
Of course that would be different if I had a auto watering system like DWC!

I'd love to see your screens man, I PM'd you my email, send away

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thanks for the email addy, I will pull some photos from my external HD tomorrow and send em or post them here .. I think the problem was the I never check 'public' have a look now.,. might be there in my album
yea we never know whats going to work best.. thats why its nice to have guys like Aero and Marlo to 'follow' and lots of others, of course.
I'm thinking of rigging up some way of catching the runoff next time.. maybe raise my hempys just a little? and use a trough or something.. I'll figure it out. Save the floor puddles

Your screens look great man.. I'll be watchin

Update

Yesterday, unfortunately a little delayed, I turned the lights off in my new room. Tomorrow I will turn em on again, after 40 hours of sleep. And THEN the pictures will come!

Meanwhile here's some pictures of what I've just harvested. It was my first time ever scrog, and judging by the wet weight, I'm going to make around 0.8 gpw.

Casey Jones overview. She alone weighted 936 wet, so I'm guessing for between 230-240 grams. One plant in a 14 liter / 4 gallon container



Such a beautiful plant, I'm loving those foxtails. 'm guessing my pheno is leaning to the Thai side judging by her looks..?

In smell she's a heavenly odor bomb that reaches several impressions, I simply can't put it down on paper that's how complex it is. Citrus? Check! Diesel? Check! Sweet? Check! I'd narrow it down to a very fresh, sweet sour diesel aroma, which penetrates your nostrils long before hitting the grinder!

Taste is difficult to explain, will come back to that, hmm

The high is on a different level, so extremely heady and energetic, (me and my best pal both agree that it actually freshens you up, going from tired to awake)

Anyways I almost turned it into a smoke report, but there's a time and place for that, when it's been cured for a couple of weeks

CJ in focus



Haze x Diesel - she was the neighbor to CJ in my other scrog net
Much different flowers, also very beautiful.


Just before harvest in real light



I can't wait till I can afford a kickass camera, I love taking pics, but hate when I see other threads with beautiful crisp high def, and I only got an iphone!

Nice work bro. Looks great, even on an iphone!