[Ichabod Crane]

Originally Posted by Boutique Manettino

Cool thread man, subbed!

Read a lot of your contributions going way back in the PPK threads too.

Curious if u find quality goes up with SCROG - all parts of the plant in great light.

I can not say for sure. Every grow is a scrog for me. I have plant count limits so I scrog.

I do know it the plant gets to much growth it does not produce well. So my guess is yes. That is as long as you grow just tip buds from fully developed branches. I find the closer to the main stem the smaller and lower quality my buds seem to be. This is not the case for every strain, but seems to be for most.

[DoubleTripleOG]

Nice idea for a thread. I have grown high number sea of green gardens with close to 300 plants in a 4 x8 flood table. I have also grown low count scrog's with 8 plants per 4 x8 . I prefer the low count scrog.

In the low count scrog, I feel each individual plant get's way more attention. Plus for me it's a lot cheaper. The cubes for a sea of green are about $200, and then they need to be disposed of. No extras to start the next round of clones either. With $200 worth of dirt, I can do at minimum 2 runs of plants, and have extra to pot-up clones for the next round. Plus dirt can be dumped in the back lawn, and disappear relatively quickly. Cubes not so much.

That's enough rambling for now. Coffee and Karma's OG x Biker Kush topped with BHO get's me chatty in the a.m. lol.

[Big-Narstie]

Originally Posted by Marlo

Lemme get my seat right up front.
I agree with you on the sog vs scrog. A good scrog can be equal to a good sog when done right.

This air layering technique has saved my ass recently. I couldnt get anything to clone for shit.

On with the show!

If you don't take the veg time in account and we're talking propa sog and not 9 plants per 1m2 yes scrog is good. Can't compete with 36 plant sog as u get 2extra crops per year.

I do love a good scrog tho!! Atb with it bro

[Ichabod Crane]

Well I have been slacking. I did the last air layer this morning. I did make two extra just in case I kill one. I made 4 Death Star, 5 Blue Dream, and 3 Bruce Banner #3.

I wanted to do some Green Crack but it was not ready. I put it under some pure veg bulbs and it is short as hell. I will have to remember to not do that again. I need more stretch out of the clone to get it have room to air layer.

Part of the reason I didnt get every thing started was when I pinched the branch two did not cause the lower branch nodes to stretch. Oh well.

Now for those who are new to air layering I will detail it here. Basically it is striping the bark, covering with rooting hormone, then a media to root in and covering that. Thats it. Here that is in pictures.

First off you need to get your stuff ready. I use pop bottles to hold my media. I cut them up like this.



Basically I cut the bottom off the bottle. Then I slice it down the side. You can see that I put a 3x5 card in this slice. To cut the top of the bottle I use pruners. The top needs to be cut as wide as the stem you are cloning on. You can see in the next photo what I mean by wider. It is the cap of the bottle. I drilled a hole in the center and used the pruners to cut the to the hole from the edge of the cap.



Next you punch two holes on the side opposite the slice in the bottle top. Threw these holes feed a pipe cleaner. I have a bunch around since Marlo gave me the idea for tying plants to my screens. But any thing that you can tie to a stake will work. Here is what that looks like.



Now get your cloning hormone ready and your nutrients Here is what I use for that.



I use the normal Heads formula I believe. 3 ml GH micro, and 4.5 ml GH bloom in a gallon of RO water. I add to this the Thrive Alive at 3 ml per gallon as well. The cloning hormone I use is the Dip n Grow. I use it because it I believe has alcohol in it. At least it smells like it. And it seems to work well.

Two other things I need are a tag and a q-tip. The tag will have the name date and time the clone was started. Here is a picture of what I mean by tag. it is marked like this on both sides.



I will finish later. I am five minutes late for picking up my wife from work. So I have to go.

[Ichabod Crane]

I forgot you will need some coco coir as well.

So now that everything is gathered it is time to start.

The first thing to do is strip the bark around the stem. This ring should be in the middle of the bottle. I like the top of the bottle to rest on a branch. The top will be turned downward so that it makes a pot to hold the coco coir. So what I do is place the bottle up to the branch to see where I will strip the bark. Here is a picture of the stripped bark area.



Now some important information on this stripping of the bark. It must go all the way around the branch to be cloned. If this is not done you run a good risk of failing or taking a lot longer to get roots. When I do it I use my thumb nail to pull the skin up and then I cut it with a pair of Fiskars.. I tend to split the bark and fray it some. This is not big deal as it gives more surface for the roots to start. Kind of like cutting the stem at a angle does.

After I strip the bark I use a q-tip to apply the Dip n Gro to the stem. I go heavy so it is dripping down the stem. I make sure it it apply to all the frayed area even under it if I can. Remember it has alcohol and will sterilize it.

Once this is done I work quickly to prevent the stem from drying out. I place a bottle cap over the stem and then the bottle top. Twisting the two together will lock them in place. Next pack the bottle with coco coir. Tamp it down in the bottle to get good contact with the stem. It is best to hold the bottle to prevent it from splitting open along the cut.

Once the coco is in the bottle I dump the nutrient mix into the top. Again I hold the bottle together when I water it. I use about 100 to 125 ml. It should run out the bottom and all over the place.

Now I just put the other bottle top I have made over the top of the one with the coco in it. Some times a branch will be in the way. If this happens just start putting the top bottle on from the opposite side of the branch that is in the way. This way the split will be along the branch. If you cant put the top lid on it is no big deal. The top bottle is to stop the evaporation and drying of the coco. Here is a picture of the final set up with a branch in the way.



Now I just put my tag on to track the branch. I use tomato clips threw a half 3x5 card. But you could use string pipe cleaners or what ever you fancy. Here is what is left when you are done.



One last thing I didnt mention was tying the pipe cleaner to the stake. Make sure you do it. It will look something like this. I also put a tomato clip above the bottles to help hold the top in place. It is also clipped to the stake the pipe cleaner is tied to.

[Ichabod Crane]

Now I wait. I dont water or do anything till the roots show. After the roots show about 1 to 2 days later I check to make sure the coco is not drying out. If it is I use the same solution I mixed earlier to water with.

Less here is better. Remember the clone is being feed from the mother so it does not need water or nutrients. It just needs a moist media so the roots dont dry out. But not so wet it stops root growth. Just damp is all.

Hopefully after about 8 or nine days you have roots and after 11 or 12 you can cut it free. I think it is better to get good root development before cutting it free. Some thing like this or more.



More than this can be done. And I think it is better. You will be surprised how fast the roots will come on after they are like the one pictured above. By the way that is less than ten days from the start of cloning. To get a idea of the size of that root mass above that root mass is on the bottom of a Lowes 5 gallon bucket.

One other thing to try if you have a slow rooter is to use cloning gel or powder on the stem a week before you start cloning. There is a thread out there that Marlo pointed out to me. Hopefully he will chime in with the link.

[DoubleTripleOG]

I really like that soda bottle method. Just look at that root-mass!! I had success the first time i did an air layered clone. I used a 1" rockwool cube w/ a baggie and some duct tape. Being stuck in old habits, i cleaned all the growth off, except for the top.

Now that i see this, i see that i can basically have an established plant with a huge rootmass. Now i just gotta try it.

[Ichabod Crane]

Originally Posted by DoubleTripleOG

I really like that soda bottle method. Just look at that root-mass!! I had success the first time i did an air layered clone. I used a 1" rockwool cube w/ a baggie and some duct tape. Being stuck in old habits, i cleaned all the growth off, except for the top.

Now that i see this, i see that i can basically have an established plant with a huge rootmass. Now i just gotta try it.

That way seems like a pain in the butt. The bottles can be messy but it works great for me.

If you are just doing a small cut with air layering I feel like it is kind of a waste. Air layering rocks for large clones. I will posts up pictures of my clones when I cut them off.

[DoubleTripleOG]

Originally Posted by Ichabod Crane

That way seems like a pain in the butt. The bottles can be messy but it works great for me.

If you are just doing a small cut with air layering I feel like it is kind of a waste. Air layering rocks for large clones. I will posts up pictures of my clones when I cut them off.

No, that's what I want, huge clones. Really like the idea of zipping a mini-tree off a mother, and cutting out 2 weeks to a month of veg time.

[Ichabod Crane]

Originally Posted by Top.Shelf

Following you guys on the other thread too, (big clones..... air layering) but very interested to see how the clone grows on.

I plan on taking weekly pictures once I pot the clones. Might be hard to pick out the individual plants once they are under the scrog net. But at the end if I remember I will get weights for each plant.