[3BM]

JOG Grow Guide by 3LB

The basis of our system are 2'x3' plastic utility containers that the three_little_birds are now infamous for growing in. The containers are just under a foot deep and will hold something in the range of 25 to 30 gallons of soul depending on how full we pack them. Needless to say these containers are heavy so we have each of our containers on an individual furniture mover to make them mobile (and to avoid root stress when the containers are moved).

In our "Jungle of Green" system we use a maximum of 4 plants per container and a minimum of 2 plants in each 2'x3' container:
4 plants per containder gives each plant 1 1/2 square feet a piece and 7 to 8 gallons of soil.
3 plants per container provides each plant 2 square feet of space and 10+ gallons of soil a piece.
In a 2 plant JOG each plan needs to fill out 3 sq ft and gets 15+ gallons of soil for their roots.
(experiments with 1 plant per container were also successful but require strains that really like to "bush out" and some patience too)

In all honesty we've had great success with any of those plant counts - the specific results in terms of look and structure may vary a little depending on how many plants are in a container, but we have found that yields can be the same regardless which you use. The primary difference is plant count vs veg time. Its funny how even in a JOG system it comes downt to that basic choice (much like the choice between SOG and SCROG). One offers little or no veg time and the other offers reduced plant count. We have tried both SOG and SCROG in our gardens and found them inferior to the Jungle of Green.

We normally clone our plants directly into 4 1/2" square planters and grow them up to around 6" or 8" under strong floro lights - currently we use a combination of Agrosun, Sunstick, and daylight floro bulbs in standard 4' shoplight fixtures. Experiments with VHO floro lights have also been very successfull. In addition, some T5 floro arrays are showing extraordinary promise for vegging plants. (Eds note: These bulbs are smaller and set closer together thereby more efficiently utilizing an alternating lamp strategy). But those are expensive investments for beginning gardenders and we've done well with standard floro bulbs.

At 6"-8" with almost all strains we will top (or top clone) our plants to encourage bracning. Allowing a single cola to grow would not allow the canopy to fill in evenly and diminish yields. Topping at this height encourages multiple colas and one secret to creating the jungle of green effect. (Eds note: Bending tops via "supercropping" can also encourage multiple branching without eliminating the apical meristem). Once the plants have recovered from the stress of being topped - once they begin to show the development of those multiple arms we transplant them from their square planters into the 2'x3'. At this point they are around 6" in height and are pretty close to being root bound.

As we said, the JOG will work in a 2'x3' container with 2, 3, or 4 plants. For simplicity sake in this example we'd plant 3 plants in a straight line up the center of the container. We then place the 2'x3' container under at least 110 to 130 watts of VHO floro light; a pair of these containers side by side can be lit by a 400 watt MH light to great effect as well. Depending on the strain and it's veg vigor they will ove inder that bright vegging light for 10-15 days. Plants that been topped will grow more slowly in height since they energy is split between multiple colas. During this time ther roots will be spreading into every corner of the organic soil they have been planted in. As the plants in ther container reach about a foot in height they are ready for the move out to HPS light and a 12/12 light cycle. At this point they are suisually 3 squat little bushes who are just beginning to intermingle their branches and fill in the canopy. Once the plants move to the bloom light cucle they normally explode in size. Even strains known for little or no vegetative stretch will gain some height in a JOG; maybe that stretch is because we usually continue feeding them a grow fert mix for a few days, or maybe its becase of the huge amount of soil their roots have to stretch into.

Once the plants are in bloom it's just a matter of rotating them through the grow as they mature. Once a week the containers are rotated 180 degrees to encourage the plants to grow an even canopy, and once a week they rotate in position. (Eds note: the importance of this point cannot be under stated. Under 600w lights the rotating helps ensure all the plants recieve their share of intense light at the "overlap" points. Under 1000w lights rotating helps ensure no plants gets over exposed to intense light while others are deprived.)

The very smallest plants are on one side of our grow, the mid sized plants on the far side, and the tallest plants are in the middle. Many high tech grow systems are V shaped or stadium shaped - ours is the opposite and we designed ours that way for a reason! Our system is designed to maximize a 3 light system. We feel that multiple light angles are one key to producing good plant vigor, an even canopy, and high yields. We keep our air-cooled PL lights as close as possible to the plant's canopy to maximize the energy our plants recieve. Since the outer plants are shorter, the outer lights are hung lower. This sidelight helps to fill in the lower canopy of the maturing plants in the center of our grow, a detail which helps to significantly increase yields. With JOG some of the lower branches can produce nice "popcorn" buds which helps this system get a little edge on some other gardens. (Eds note: 3LB documented average yields around 1.5g/watt, with high marks reaching over 1.75g/watt).

Airflow and control of the atmosphere are critical factors when growing in the "Jungle". For every 10 sq ft of floor space in the jungle we have about 100 cfm of exhaust pulling through a large carbon filter. This means a 600+ cfm exhaust fan for a 60 square foot growing footprint, ensuring a strong and steady supply of fresh air to the jungle. For a 60 sq ft grow we recommend 2 oscillating fans also blow on the garden constantly. Good airflow discourages pests and diseases while encouraging good general plant respiration.

A relative humidity of 60% or less is also a key. When humidity raises too hight your plants can't breath properly and your plants growth and vigor will both suffer. We are creating a solid canpy of plants with the JOG and those plants will want to breath a lot of moisture into the air. In some locales and in some seasons a dehumidifier is a necessity for a successful JOG.

Hopefully that covers the basics of the bird's do things a little differently ... Welcome to the Jungle.

(Eds note: the following represents 3LB's direct responses to reader questioning as contained in the thread. This is heavily excerpted, but hopefully the nature of the questions will be clear by the response provided.)

We originally started blooming in 3 gallon and 5 gallon buckets, and certainly a great garden can be grown using those kinds of containers. We still use these for unsexed plants when selecting keepers on a grow from seed, but for cloned plants (once we know sex) we almost always use 2'x3' plastic utility bins. The fact that they hold 25 to 30 gallons of soil really gives our babes room to spread their toes, so to speak, and that means happier, healthier, and more productive plants.

Container plantings of this sort offer multiple benefits. Plants in smaller pots (3 or 5 gallons for example) are quicker to show nutrient shortages than thsoe grown in large containers. If there's a little pocket of soil who's pH isn't quite right, or where nutes got mixed in a little too strong, a plant in a smaller contaner will almost certainly be effected. However, the roots of plants in bigger containers can somply seek out better soil and keep on growing.

Our 2'x3' container grows have no drainage holes ... never needed em.

They are about 10" deep and hold 20-30 gallons of soil. With 100% organic food no flushing is needed, and with careful watering there's not even the need for any drainage holes. We never water to the point of total saturation because roots like some air.

We generally would expect to water a 2'x3' container every other day for fill sized plants that fully fill in the caopy above the container. For smaller plants it might be as long as 5 days between waterings. A "normal" watering would be about a gallon of water, but it varies depending on the particular strains needs.

As for the volume question ... 1 cubic foot = 7.4805195 gallon [US, liquid], and a cubic foot is simply 1' x 1' x 1'. Our containers are 2'x3' giving a surface area of 6 square feet. So if our tubs are only 6" deep (and ours are certainly deeper than that) we'd have a max volume of at least 3 cubic feet ... that's about 22 gallons right there. If our tubs were 12 inches deep we'd expect a max volume of 44 gallons, so at 10 inches deep container holding 30 gallons isnt really a stretch.

The 3LB did some posting on the advanced nutrients forums. I hope you dont mind 3BM! I figure everything these guys wrote deservs to be read!

well sfsgs it depends on how a person (or bird) looks at it . . .

we never said any single element of our garden was revolutionary . . . instead it's more evolutionary . . . it's the combination of the tweaks all put together that makes our jungle work . . .

an awful lot of gardeners struggle to hit 1 gram per watt per 60 days out of their garden . . . btw - that figure is for finished dried herb . . .

our garden is averaging well over 1.5 grams per watt with most strains . . . we've gone beyond that when working with strains that like to put on the weight . . .

and we're familiar with Soma's methods . . . he uses expanded hydro rock as a bottom layer . . . and then a layer of felt . . . he also runs PVC tubing down to help aerate his plant's roots . . . Soma also only reuses part of his soil and throws about 1/4th to 1/3 out after every grow . . . we reject these methods as unnecessarily wasteful of precious natural resources . . .

we're familiar with supercropping too . . . we've experimented with those techniques . . . unnecessary stressing plants does not increase their final yield or potency in our opinion . . . our plants rarely if ever need staking up to support the heavy and dense colas we produce . . . it’s as simple as providing good ventilation to make the plants respond with strong stems

we've posted a little in Soma's help forum at Cannabis World so we know his methods well . . . we also moderate at Cannabis World where we've been entrusted with the welfare of the Organic's and First Aid forums . . . so we're certainly "in the loop" when it comes to the latest methods and growing techniques . . .

We appreciate you chirping in . . . and in essence you are right . . . there’s nothing special about our garden at all . . . not a single individual element stands out by itself . . . but the combination of elements produces results among the best reported by any reputable grower we’ve met or even heard of on any public message board involving cannabis cultivation . . .



and to answer your question Teach me . . . the single most essential item in our grow is proper attitude and reverence for the plant - IE we give them tender loving care and fill their needs instead of trying to make them follow some watering or feeding patterns we've designed for them . . .

we don't have drain holes in our tubs . . . we don't need 'em and our soil is always recycled . . . that's the second most important element . . . our soils health has improved with time and nurturing . .. and like for a farmer - it's one of our most precious resources . . .

and third is that our soil is never ever - no matter what - is touched by manufactured salt fertilizers which are fine for hydro but will ruin good soil overnight . . . we have live earthworms that live and thrive in our recycled soil and have been there for some time . . . that doesn't happen when salt ferts enter the mix

Boomer said . . . "You guys are currently achieving 2-3 lbs per light without using Advanced Nutrients???????"

well boomer they don't call us the 3LB for nothing!!!

here's the bottom line . . . we've yielded 1.5 grams per watt per 60 days with 100% organic methods . . .

we don't believe 1000 watt lights are the most efficient way to grow . . . we prefer 600 watt lights for improved performance . . . but if you want to measure "per light" we can simply convert our figures to fit 1000 watts and we'd see . . .

1000 watts @ 1 gram per watt = 1000 grams
1000 watts @ 1.5 gram per watt = 1500 grams

1000 grams / 28 grams per ounce = 35 oz
1500 grams / 28 grams per ounce = 53 oz

35 oz divided by 16 oz per pound = 2 LBS
53 oz divided by 16 oz per pound = 3 LBS

like we said . . . they don't call us the 3LB for nothing!

we never mind questions Cannabistudent . . . in fact the birds have "migrated" here to help spread our growing knowledge with those who wish to learn . . . so we're glad you chirped in

underneath a total of 3 600 watt lights we have a total garden footprint of 60 square feet . . . 10 of the 2' x 3' containers . . . so it's 1800 total watts for the whole garden . . . 1800 watts / 60 square feet = 30 watts per sq foot

hopefully that allows you to better visualize the layout - anything over 50 watts per square foot is getting into the range of diminishing returns in relation to the increasing cost of electircal input . . . at least that the story in our avian opinions

and while we do rotate our containers 180 degrees on a regular basis (which does exactly what you assume - helps to equalize the light for the end plants) . . . we also rotate them through the grow . . .

imagine a workout routine with 10 different "stations" that you cycle through doing a "routine" . . . now translate that into our garden by thinking of each container rotating 180 degrees every 2-3 days and then rotating from "station to station" every 5th day . . .

here's a ling to an extensive thread with lots of pics from our garden . . . it's not a perfect description but should help answer more questions - https://cannabisworld.org/vbportal/fo...threadid=52239 . . . and here's a link to our extensive gallery of hundreds of cannabis pics from a "bird's eye" view . . . https://www.cannabisworld.org/vbporta...r&userid=11013

we don't think it would be fair of us to "waste" lots of AN bandwidth simply reposting pics we've already got on the net . . . so hopefully no one will mind this "off-site" link . . .

hope this helps you better visualize the garden here at the "bird's nest" . . . thanks for chirpin in!

[3BM]

Hey Fresh,

Thanks for the interest! Great stuff there, I love the Soma reference. I think an important point to take away from 3LB is their efficient, sustainable approach to commercial production. Long term efficiency and effectiveness combine to create consistent high quality produce.

High yields require high yielding individuals. Select mothers from large populations (at least 30) to ensure best results. A choice mother could hit more than 2g/w in optimal conditions. Take a 2'x3' tray with 27 gal of dirt; put 4 plants in at 6.75 gal each and expect to get 4oz dried bud off each plant. This is about 2.2g/w with 3 trays under a 600w light, or 10 trays under 3. Even 3oz/plant is about about 1.7g/w, which is possible even with average yeilding strains. In terms of overall efficiency, this is pretty hard to beat.

Keeping the faith.

3BM

found some more...

this is about why they dont like sog and scrog

we reject SOG for 2 reasons - plant count and qualitative reasons . . . the plant count argument is obvious - when you pack plants into 1 or 2 per square foot plant counts will soar . . . even one plant per square foot in a moderate sized grow can lead to dangerous plant counts in jurisdictions where plant counts are a basis for determining the severity of the grower's crime in a legal sense

the qualitative difference is more a personal preference and a "gut" feeling more than something we can prove with scientific data . . . we believe that placing plants too close together causes undue stress and slightly diminishes yield and quality . . . it's not something that shows in a picture . . . it's more something we just feel . . . certainly airflow under the canopy improves with lower plant counts . . .

SCROG we reject for a couple of basic reasons as well . . . excessive plant stress being one, lack of flexibility once the grow has begun as another . . . and the large amount of work involved in training as a third . . .

SCROG is labor intensive . . .certainly it's a labor of love for many but all the training and tying down somehow doesn't fit our more free spirited growing style . . . we already put a lot of effort into soil mixing and remixing and tweaking our grow in every way we can - so we just don't have the time for a scrog . . .

hanging a big screen across the top of our grow might be effective but it would make it difficult to rotate and move our plants - and that is an integral part of our jungle of green grow . . . our JOG features 3 x 600 watt HPS lights and as the plants grow they rotate . . .

the tallest plants end up in the center of the grow as they finish - this means they get strong side lighting to their lower branches as they finish . . . SCROG might take away our ability to get the pyramid shape in our grow which helps "fill in" the under canopy . . .

and finally we reject SCROG because our experience is that the stress inherent in training plants reduces natural plant vigor and yields . . . we came to this conclusion by growing three different strains in our 2' x 3' container system - each strain getting 2 buckets apiece . . .

we are gentle and delicate birds when it comes to handling plants . . . and we were careful when training our girls into an individual container sized SCROG . . . in each instance the plants allowed to grow and branch wild - the JOG - outproduced the SCROG . . . we felt the untrained plants grew with more health and vigor than the ones we forced into shape . . .

I would like to do a "test" run with a 2x3 container next time just to see what I would get. I have some NLxBB in veg now....I might set up one box to let them go and maybe add a couple of Shivas I have also to the box. I was looking at concrete mixing containers. they look to be the right size.

Hey guys/gals, just found the "grow boxes" I was talking about at Lowes. Only about 6" deep but I have some 4 gallon containers just into flower that have been in veg too long for them to make the entire flower stage without running out of room. So, what I was thinking is , use these containers to set the 4 gallons in so the roots could extend. Kind of like a grow box. I dont think these are deep enough to plant directly into. What do you all think?

[3BM]

Hey Von:

BOG suggests a technique that might work well for you. When transplanting, leave the rootball sitting above the new soil level by a few inches. In your case you could just place the root ball into the empty containers, then fill in dirt around them. This stacking helps by allowing roots to access air in the exposed portions, it also increases soil volumes. Healthy well rooted soil volumes work best for this technique. Not quite rootbound but pretty close works well. He also used to recommend cutting the bottom off of nursery pots and putting the bottomless pot into a new pot, encouraging the roots to grow down into the new container. This may be necessary if the 4gal pots you use are too tall for the 6" depth, meaning that the root ball would be pretty unstable with 75% of its height sticking out of the soil. However, if the height difference isnt so severe, then just remove the pot and transplant as normal.

Hope that helps

3BM

Might have to find a taller container to put them in. It only about 10 of them. I do have some 7 gallons I believe some where laying around. Just wanted to try the "tub" but I guess that will have to wait. Thanks for the answer. And keeping these posts alive. They all seem to get bunped off if we dont keep the discussions open and on top.

Von