New grow some questions

[Reinhold]

I have an area 2 1/2 h x 1 w x 3 d if that makes sense? pretty high right now but anyways its a old venting area in my floor thats no longer used and would make a perfect stealth grow. I was thinking two plants from seed 12/12 scrog and I have a 70 watt hps and doing it swc. Now I dont have an area for mothers so I cant veg a mom to take clones and I cant plant a seed directly into the reservoir or can I? so I was wondering if itd be cool to raise them from soil for a little bit until pretty well established them transfer them into the reservoir?

Even if its possilbe to put a seed directly in there I dont have it all set up but I have to put the seeds in something cause we already germed em lol dumb I know. Yeah thanks for the help tho.

 

[Mr_Micro]

In all the DWC and SWC grows I've done (4 total now) I always germed the seeds in a paper towel and then put them straight in the SWC/DWC unit. I filled the net cups up most of the way with hydrotron rocks (the orange expanded clay pellets) and then placed a small rockwool cube in the net cup and filled in the sides of the cup around the cube with more hydrotron.

That way you can just fill the res almost to the top (so that about 1/3 or so of the net cups are submerged in water) and then plant your germinated seed in the little hole in the top of the rockwool cube. The hydrotron rocks will wick up the water and transfer it into the rockwool cube to keep your seedlings well hydrated.

The downside of this is that rockwool cubes arn't exactly PH neutral and should be soaked in PH balanced water for a day or so before you use them. And since your short on time that might be a bit of a problem. But in all honesty, only once did I soak my rockwool cubes before using them and I never really had a problem with em.

These days though I'm using the same SWC planting method for the seedlings, but using those nice organic Rapid Rooter plugs instead of rockwool cubes. They're pre-balanced to a good PH and don't require the pre-soak that rockwool does, plus they're pretty cheap and all my plants have loved em. They wick up water from the hydrotron quite well but seem to hold a lot more air than rockwool does, which is also very good for your young seedlings.


So yeah, basicly, if you can find Rapid Rooter plugs at your local hydro shop than I recommend using them in conjunction with hydrotron rocks in your SWC system. They're usually around $15 for a bag of 50 or so I think. But if you can't find Rapid Rooter plugs then using a small rockwool cube with your hydrotron rocks is probably the next best option.

 

[tngreen]

either of yall have a link with the differences between dwc and swc? i was going to do dwc but height is limited for me so this swc might be a better alt.

 

[Hail]

Hmm, I've never heard of anyone doing a SCROG with plants grown from seed then screen. Only clones.

Anyone here done that?

Good luck on your grow by the way.

 

[Laxpunker]

Hmm, I've never heard of anyone doing a SCROG with plants grown from seed then screen. Only clones.

Anyone here done that?

Good luck on your grow by the way.

The only problem with doing it from seed is the fact you could very well end up with two male plants after months of topping. Secondly doing scrog straight from 12/12 is going to be tough, to really get the benefits of scrog you want a long veg time, which 12/12 doesn't offer.

If I were to go through with this I'd pop one seed and throw it under 12/12, if it's a female then take a couple cuttings and procede from there.

 

[Hail]

It would work fine if you were growing fem seeds. But it's alot better to grow a healthy mom, take some clones then SCROG the toughest looking ones.

Some people do a SOG style grow kind of like that, I remember some forum a guy got Easy Bud from Female Seeds and switched to 12/12 right after they popped. He had 4 seedlings which stayed very short but got about a ounce off each plant, 7.5 weeks from seed-harvest packing some fairly potent herb.. Beats the shit outta' Lowryder eh?

 

[Mr_Micro]

I think I might be able to field a couple of questions here...

Tngreen, the only difference between DWC and SWC is the reservoir size.

DWC = Deep Water Culture
SWC = Shallow Water Culture

Functionally speaking they work exactly the same. Take a rubbermaid tub of whatever size you choose and cut some holes into the lid for some net pots to hang through, throw in your net pots with hydrotron, fill up the tub with PH balanced water with the nutrients of your choice, throw in an airstone or two, and your ready to grow.

The big difference is that with DWC you might use a 6 or 10 gallon tub for lots of plants, with SWC you'd probably only be using a 1 or 2 gallon tub for one or two plants. Also, with SWC your going to be topping off your reservoir every few days (sometimes as often as once a day during later stages of growth) and your PH will be far less stable. Most of the time you'll have to re-balance the PH every day or every other day.



Also, I have seen people ScrOG from seed a many times before back on OG. Most of the time they used feminized seeds to help insure female plants but I do recall seeing two or three occasions in which it was done with regular non-feminized seeds.

The idea was to induce flowering at 2 or 3 inches (or straight from seed) so that by the time the plants grow to almost reach the screen they have already shown sex. The males are removed and the plant continues to stretch and grow for another week or two before vegetative growth stops and the plant goes into full flowering. It is during that one or two week period that the stems are carefully bent and woven into the screen for ScrOGing.

Another option for scrogging from seed is to put the plants into 12/12 straight from seed to get them to show sex as soon as possible. When they show sex you can weed out the males and then switch the light to 24/0 or 18/6 to allow the remaining females to revert back to vegetative growth for a few weeks. During these weeks you can train the branches into the screen all you want and then once again switch back to 12/12 when you feel you've filled the screen enough. This way you can weed out the males early and then put the plants you know are female into vegetative growth for awhile so they can fill up the screen before really flowering. Its basicly like revegging but without ever chopping down the plant.

The last consideration when ScrOGing from seed is that you'll probably need a few more inches of space underneath the screen than you would with clones. I think for clones one generally uses 10 or 12" of space underneath the screen, as where you should try and plan for 14" or so when ScrOGing from seed if I remember correctly. Either that or you could just LST and ScrOG at the same time to keep height super low.

Anyway, food for thought.

 

[Reinhold]

yes its possible its just more risky and I dont have room/time to establish a mom and then have an area for her and then take clones from her. I plan on germing 5 or so seeds and flowering them from 12/12 till they show sex throw out males and hopefully ill have two females and if I have more Im going to give the excess to my friend.

 

[bounty29]

Creeptic's Sour Diesel IBL SCROG - From Seed

250w HPS, ended up with two females, harvested 6.5oz

You can do it from seed, it's just a little more work.

 

[tngreen]

thank you sooo much mr. micro, that was a huge help! looks like ill be going swc and the other info is exactly what i needed also! i dont have space to have a mom either so goin straight from seed is what i was planning. im here daily so the extra work shouldnt be a problem.

 

[Mr_Micro]

No problem Tngreen! Glad I could help ya out!

I'm currently growing some plants in a 20" tall space that, after the 50 watt HPS and two 26 watt CFL lights and 1.5 gallon SWC hydro tub, only allows me about 11" of available growing room. I'm just going 12/12 straight from seed and LSTing as needed. Most of the plants (DJ Short's True Blueberry, Serious Seeds Bubblegum, Sensi Seeds Northern Lights, and Sensi Seeds Skunk #1) have reached their maximum veg. height at around 5 to 7 inches without LSTing, leaving me another 4 to 6 inches for bud growth. I do plan to LST though to keep height down even more.

I was planning on ScrOGing, but I'm kind of a lazy guy and decided it would just be easier to 12/12 straight from seed and then LST. a ScrOG screen would have taken up a lotta space in my teeny tiny cabs too.

Anyway, just goes to show that no matter how little height you have, theres still a good way to grow!

 

[Reinhold]

exactly Mr.Micro thanks for the help too you got the right spirit man no matter the size you can always grow.

 

[tngreen]

No problem Tngreen! Glad I could help ya out!

I'm currently growing some plants in a 20" tall space that, after the 50 watt HPS and two 26 watt CFL lights and 1.5 gallon SWC hydro tub, only allows me about 11" of available growing room. I'm just going 12/12 straight from seed and LSTing as needed. Most of the plants (DJ Short's True Blueberry, Serious Seeds Bubblegum, Sensi Seeds Northern Lights, and Sensi Seeds Skunk #1) have reached their maximum veg. height at around 5 to 7 inches without LSTing, leaving me another 4 to 6 inches for bud growth. I do plan to LST though to keep height down even more.

I was planning on ScrOGing, but I'm kind of a lazy guy and decided it would just be easier to 12/12 straight from seed and then LST. a ScrOG screen would have taken up a lotta space in my teeny tiny cabs too.

Anyway, just goes to show that no matter how little height you have, theres still a good way to grow!

is this the first grow with this setup? if not, whats the yield like?

 

[Mr_Micro]

This is my first grow with this setup and at this point I'm really suprised my plants survived the month it took me to get my PC cabs dialed in.

I started out my two PC cabs with 50 watt HPS lights and a 25 cfm active intake, 25 cfm exhaust, a crappy carbon filter design, and a passive wick system type setup. The temps averaged 10 to 15*F above ambient room temp and we're usually in the 90s and the PH would fluctuate 1 point every hour until it reached 8.5 where it would stabilize.

The whole thing was a freakin disaser and I tried at least 7 different revisions until I finally got it right. I tried passive intakes, stronger exhuast fans, different light proofing methods, different hydro tecniques, different types of water (RO, tap), etc. At one point I swapped out the 50 watt HPS's for remote ballasted 70 watt HPS lights with tempered glass heatsheilds and a seperate 80 cfm exhaust and passive intake to cool the lights. But that just turned the box into a 100* oven.

So needless to say the plants have gone through hell over the past month. They stretched like freakin crazy due to the horrible growing conditions in the first month, and I'm pretty damn suprised they even survived it without serious damage. But after a helluva lotta work I finally got the cabs dialed in with a 50 cfm active intake, 50 cfm exhaust, slow trickle chimney style carbon filter, internally ballasted 50 watt hps, two 26 watt CFLs (two 6400k lights used for veg, two 2700k lights used for flowering), Nutrafin natural fermentation Co2 systems, and an SWC hydro system that holds four 3" net cups to start and then I use a second lid drilled to hold two 3" net cups after the plants are sexed. The temps are now average about 3 to 5* F above ambient room temp. and are usually in the upper 70's or low 80's.

So when I say that the plants have reached their full (post flowering stretch) height at 7", take into account that the stems before the first node stretched to about 4" tall and had to be propped up due to the bad growing conditions. I'm pretty sure I could keep the height down to about 4" or 5" if I started over now.

But like any grower, I just cant bear to kill my plants and start over after a month of growth! So I'm going to let em keep growing and see how they turn out... but for now I don't think I'll be starting a thread for my grow simply because it really won't reflect the true ability of my cabs now that they've been properly configured. I'm sure I'm going to end up with a pretty crappy yeild due to the trouble in the 1st month, so I think I'll probably wait until the next grow to make a grow diary/thread for my Op.

But if you want to see some pics of my setup just to check it out I'll post some later.

(Sorry if I've been hoggin your thread a little here Reinhold! Not meaning to takeover your thread, just trying to provide some info on my little cabs)

 

[Reinhold]

no I dont feel like your hogging it at all your bein very helpful and thats what I wanted so HOG away lol