Perpetual indoor grow, help me plan :)

[Boio_]

Hey Ya'll,

I started growing and figured I wouldn't join a forum but turns out this shit is harder than expected. My first plants had some damage (calcium deficiency brought on by unknowingly dropping pH as the nutrients lowered it as well as feeding nutrients every watering, but I'll make a post to identify that stuff too) as well as stretching but are a great learning experience nonetheless. I started growing in a stealthy 40cmx40cmx140cm tent and since moved em to a 80cmx40cmx160cm to deal with the height. My idea is to go for SOG (do let me know if you think it isn't feasible with my space) to be able to quickly harvest and keep them flowering. I ran 3 plants (quick one seeds from royal queen seeds) in my 40x40 and if I hadn't made em stretch it shouldn't have been an issue height wise. I was thinking to have 5 plants in veg and 5 flowering so I can harvest every 5 weeks. My lamps are Sanlight q2w and q3w sporting 50w and 150w and according to friends as well as the manufacturer should be enough to cover each tent. So far I have been using 2 litre cloth pots.

Here are my questions to advanced growers:

1. Is sog the preferable strategy for my needs?
2. Is it advisable to add small lights to the side of the tents or is it better to keep it up there only since I'm panning to sog.
3. Has anyone used a space like this and can advise me on the number of plants?

Your help is highly appreciated. This hobby turned into a passion very fast and contributed greatly to me regulating my sleep pattern after years of irregularity

Have a good day ya'll and keep growing

 

[Rodehazrd]

Hey Bolo, welcome,
you will find the help you need here. Much knowledge and mostly kind folks. You might read some of the stickies on these subjects get some good info.
as far as SOG or SCROG or LST its strain dependent for me if you are limited in #of legal plants go scrog if not i like sog. if its a stretchy sativa or a bushy hash plant is also a issue.
Glad to see new folks

 

[HempKat]

Your height issue could have been from when you raised the light but the first three weeks of flowering is also known as the stretch phase during which plants can grow several inches to several feet even without moving the light. How much it stretches is main dictated by the growth characteristics of the strain. For example sativas will usually stretch a lot more then hybrids or indicas.

 

[Boio_]

Rodehazrd thanks for the welcome. People already helped me with plant issues on another post. I'm really glad this forum is active.

HempKat it's you again ! The strain says this: Sativa 10% Indica 60% Ruderalis 30% but they indicated it shouldnt be more than 60cm so at 90cm I figure it musta been the light distance.

 

[HempKat]

Rodehazrd thanks for the welcome. People already helped me with plant issues on another post. I'm really glad this forum is active.

HempKat it's you again ! The strain says this: Sativa 10% Indica 60% Ruderalis 30% but they indicated it shouldnt be more than 60cm so at 90cm I figure it musta been the light distance.

It's likely it was actually a combination of the light distance and the normal stretch phase behavior of that particular hybrid. There's really no way to say for certain until you can grow the same strain under the same conditions but without moving the light, to see what it does then. I'm not so much trying to say what caused the plant to get as tall as it did as much as just pointing out that all strains of marijuana go thru a stretch phase during the first two to three weeks of flower. It's during that phase where the plant sets up it's structure for supporting the bud growth that will soon follow. When the breeder tells you things like how long the flower period is, what the plant size will be and what the yield will be those are just estimates and what you actually get depends on a ton of variables. For example since this had a little of Sativa, Indica and Ruderalis in it, DNA from any of those three genotypes could have influenced the characteristics. Since Indica made up the biggest part of the genetic profile it would make sense that it would have the greatest influence and Indicas generally range between 4-9 feet. Since Sativa was the smallest part of the profile it should have the least influence but Sativas generally range between 6-12 feet but certain strains have been known to go well above 12 feet. Ruderalis was the second greatest part of the profile but still was less then half so it should have more of an influence then the Sativa part but less then the Indica part. I'm not too knowledgeable about Ruderalis but I do know they generally stay pretty small. I imagine though that plants, like humans can have recessive genes that only show up rarely thus you could have a strain with this same profile and it mostly grows small but then every now and then some might grow more then normal. Kind of like when you have two human parents that are essentially midgits but they have a child who ends up being much taller then either parent.

 

[Boio_]

That's some very interesting information. Thank you for all the input. In this case the suggestion of going for SCROG and doing LST seems very reasonable as I could even catch the ones that go beyond the websites indicated height. Imagine having a garden with 12 feet plants :_D

 

[Boio_]

Not sure whether I can edit the post, so here goes. I ordered three 11L pots now to test it for a future grow, as well as a few 4L pots to save these babies with a quick transplant.

 

[HempKat]

Not sure whether I can edit the post, so here goes. I ordered three 11L pots now to test it for a future grow, as well as a few 4L pots to save these babies with a quick transplant.

Don't get too frustrated if it doesn't work out as well as you like the first time you try it. LST and/or SCRoG is not terribly complicated but it takes a bit more effort then just letting them grow and so it might take you a grow or two to get comfortable with it and achieve your best results. In general though I think you're getting the picture, the beauty of those methods when done right is you can potentially have 12 foot plants (although that's probably unrealistic for autoflowering strains) and yet those plants are also still only 3 feet tall because the 12 feet (or whatever) ends up being horizontally rather then vertically.

 

[Boio_]

As long as I can improve I see no reason for frustration. Specially with the tips from this forum now ! Do you know of any strains or methods one could use and apply for running 2 litre pots or are they essentially redundant for cannabis growing?

 

[HempKat]

As long as I can improve I see no reason for frustration. Specially with the tips from this forum now ! Do you know of any strains or methods one could use and apply for running 2 litre pots or are they essentially redundant for cannabis growing?

If you were doing a grow with non autoflowering plants where you plan to do a full 2 month veg and then go to a full flowering cycle then you could use a 2 litre pot as either a starting pot or the pot you transplant to roughly half way thru veg if you start in a smaller pot. Also there is a method that people sometimes use where they go from seedling straight into 12/12 (Flowering). This is often done when working with a confined space but you're growing a strain that when fully vegged and then flowered tends to get to 6 to 9 feet tall. The idea is that by skipping the veg stage the plant gets all it's height from the stretch phase (first to to 3 weeks of flower). This tends to cut the final plant height roughly in half and since root development seems to slow down after the stretch phase you could possibly make it to harvest in a 2 litre pot without the plant getting root bound.

 

[Rodehazrd]

Bolo
I had better luck with auto’s starting in the flowering pot transplanting always seems to cause some issues
check out post’s by aridbud he knows autos

 

[Boio_]

I see, I'd prefer to stick to autos for now. I will check out aridbud!

 

[Boio_]

@HempKat Just out for curiosities sake...what kind of strain would I be looking for in this case and would you consider it more complicated than running autos? I have seeds that will last me for a bit, likely enough to get proficient enough for my standards, but after that it does sound lovely to try and grow them mini plants.

 

[HempKat]

@HempKat Just out for curiosities sake...what kind of strain would I be looking for in this case and would you consider it more complicated than running autos? I have seeds that will last me for a bit, likely enough to get proficient enough for my standards, but after that it does sound lovely to try and grow them mini plants.

It would really depend on what you define as more complicated? I don't consider growing non auto flowering strains particularly complicated the main difference is you have to tell the plant when to start flowering by changing the period of time the light is off to 12 hours. With true auto flowers you could leave the light on 24/7 and at some point they'll begin to flower. The main difference would be more in connection to how tall non auto flowering plants grow. Ruderalis is the genetic component that causes the auto flowering. It's also the component that keeps them short. If I remember correctly a pure ruderalis plant doesn't get much more the 12" tall on the high end. I believe you said that what you have gets around 60 centimeters which is roughly 2 feet. Well a typical Hybrid or Indica left to it's own devices will easily get three times that size and maybe even a bit more if they have a big enough pot and are given enough flowering time. Sativas are even worse, they will easily get six times the size of you autos and in some cases have been known to grow as much as 20+ feet (although usually outdoors. Another thing about Sativas is they tend to be a bit more fussy about nutrients and they take longer to complete the flowering cycle usually around 4 months. Hybrids and Indicas usually take about 3 months. I'm not sure what the typical flowering time is for autos.

Now again the main difference between autos and the other strains is that autos flower without having to change the light cycle. That's because they have adapted for more northern climates where the changes between daytime and nighttime are less dramatic and more steady. So I wouldn't so much say non auto flowering plants are more complicated but rather require a more hands on approach to their care especially if you intend to force them to stay under 6 feet tall Due to the increased height and flowering times of Sativas I would say you should pretty much avoid Sativas completely and just focus on Indicas and Hybrids. I would add that of those two Indicas are much more likely to stay at 6 feet or less so they would probably be your best candidates. The only problem with Indicas is then tend to give you a heavier more sleepy feeling high and some people don't like that so much. If you're like that then you should probably go for a Hybrid. Fortunately with Hybrids some grow more on the short side (6 feet) and others more on the tall side (8-9 Feet). So if you decide to go for a Hybrid try to look for a strain that sounds like it has the kind of high you enjoy but is said to stay around 6 feet or less. The taller Hybrids are still doable and actually even the Sativas are doable but if you're working with confined spaces the taller the plant gets will translate into more work for you to keep training them to stay at the height you're limited to.

Oh and one last thing you said "it does sound lovely to try and grow them mini plants." I would say mini isn't the right term. Sure they would be mini in one sense because you'll be training them to stay shorter but the more you train them to stay short the more they'll spread out horizontally. So they'll be shorter but wider. This is why a SCRoG would make more sense. You could probably fill the whole width and length of your grow space with one or two plants by setting the screen about as high as you want the plants to get. (but leave room for the buds to go higher). Then as the plant keeps trying to grow above the screen you would bend/train the stalk and branches under the screen trying to time when the screen will be filled with the end of the stretch phase (first 3 weeks of flower typically. After that the only thing that should grow vertically are the buds and that should result in a screen full of mini colas.

I'm going to attach some pictures below (none of which are my own) to help you visualize what I'm talking about with the SCRoG (SCReen of Green) method. The first three are soil grows the last one is done Hydro style.

Now there is one other way to go for a confined space which is what you said at some point is what you were shooting for with your autos and that is SoG (Sea of Green) method. The thing is this method typically involves a lot more then 3 plants which means it makes more sense to start them from clones and then switch to flower pretty much as soon as the establish roots. You can start them from seeds to and switch to 12/12 as soon as they sprout. The problem from seed though is if you're buying the seeds a SoG can get kind of expensive because a traditional SoG might have 12 or more plants. Plus clones tend to be more uniform because they grow pretty much the same as their mother so you can either get all your clones from one mother or have multiple mothers all roughly the same height when fully grown and each will produce clones that grow fairly uniform in height. With seed when you start a dozen or more you're very likely to have 1 or more that wants to grow bigger then the others. Anyway since you start flowering from when they sprout (seeds) or when they establish roots (clones) their entire height comes from what they can manage in the first 3 weeks (stretch phase) and then they shouldn't grow much taller after that. Plus you also control their growth but triming off and secondary branches leaving you with what some call a cola on a stick. Below is a picture (also not mine) showing an example of a SoG.

 

[Boio_]

Those are really interesting points about the different strains and I will definitely look into ruderalis. Diving into the topic of strains is definitely on my to do list now. One issue I do see is the time to harvest as I want to try to get something regular going, but I'll browse through the seed bank to see what option I have. I did order quite a few seeds of Quick One (the one I'm growing right now) and give the SCROG method a run next time. SOG was said to be the method that could yield most per square meter over a year but I wonder whether there is a minimum space required for that to be true. In your last picture the plants do seem to be shoulder to shoulder, looks a bit like a packed train in Tokyo :'D Was there any form of pruning or cropping involved?

 

[HempKat]

Those are really interesting points about the different strains and I will definitely look into ruderalis. Diving into the topic of strains is definitely on my to do list now. One issue I do see is the time to harvest as I want to try to get something regular going, but I'll browse through the seed bank to see what option I have. I did order quite a few seeds of Quick One (the one I'm growing right now) and give the SCROG method a run next time. SOG was said to be the method that could yield most per square meter over a year but I wonder whether there is a minimum space required for that to be true. In your last picture the plants do seem to be shoulder to shoulder, looks a bit like a packed train in Tokyo :'D Was there any form of pruning or cropping involved?

Yes, if you look at the lower part of the plant you can see where several nodes/ branches were cut. That last pic is a SOG style grow, all the others are SCRoG, the main thing I was trying to show is that in SCRoG you can get very similar results to SOG but use a lot less plants to do it. Now as I said none of those pictures are of grows I did so I can't be certain of how many plants there are in that one SOG style grow but just estimating it from what I see and the size of the space it looks like about 30 plants maybe more. So to do that from seed would use up 30 seeds and that's assuming none were duds or males. So you can see how that can get expensive unless you produce your own seeds.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say you'll look into ruderalis, all auto's have some ruderalis in them as that is where the auto trait comes from, so since you are growing autos you're already looking into ruderalis even if other strains are mixed in. Also you have to be careful about information you get from breeders you buy your seeds from. I'm not saying they deliberately try to mislead people. Rather their information may be a bit biased or have a hidden motive. By biased I mean they're going to give you the best numbers for height, yields and harvest times because they're trying to promote their products and so of course they'll paint the best scenario possible. Even if their numbers are consistent and completely accurate those numbers are based on the grow environments they used, if your environment is different in any way then your results may also be different. As for hidden motives obviously someone selling a product like seeds would love for you to buy as many as possible so it would server them well to suggest you use SOG style especially since autos tend to be shorter then most plants meaning you can easily fit many into a fairly confined space. On the other had, given that autos do flower automatically you don't really have the option to clone. For cloning you need the mothers to stay in a constant state of veg growth. So for autos you only options really are to either just grow a few out normally or to grow many in a SOG style. An auto strain isn't well sited for SCRoG style, since they're know to not grow too tall. Some do grow tall enough with the right combination of Sativa and Indica in the mix to where you could maybe fill up a screen before it starts flowering but it's probably safe to say most don't. Below I'll post a picture of the auto that got the whole auto flowering thing started, a strain called Low Ryder. Again this is not something I grew but is a picture I keep around to help show people what I'm talking about.

This is a plant that's close to being ready to harvest and as you can see it's just one cola like bud on a stem and is less then 12 inches tall judging by the picture. Such a plant would not be suited for a SCRoG style grow. Now they can get a bit bigger but on the high end Low Ryders were said to grow no more then 16" which again would be too small to be effective in a SCRoG style grow. Like I said above your only real options for strains like this that grow so short is to either just grow a few of them out normally or pack a bunch into a confined space and do a SOG style grow. If you ever want to experiment with SCRoG style you're really going to have to use either a pure Indica strain or an Indica/Sativa Hybrid. I make that distinction on the Hybrid because technically Low Ryder and most other Auto strains are also Hybrids since they have varying amounts of Sativa and Indica genetics mixed in. In the case of Low Ryder along with Ruderalis it had the genetics of a strain called Northern Lights #2 and a strain called Williams Wonder mixed in, both of which are Indica or Indica dominant strains.

As for the time issue and keeping something regular growing the easiest way to accomplish that is to have two growing areas and time it such that as soon as you start one grow area into flowering, you start the other in veg from seed or clone. Then if the timing is right when you harvest the one in flower the one in veg should be ready to move to flower and then you start a new batch in veg. This gives you a system where you're getting a new crop to harvest about every 3 months. There is another system where you add plants to your flowering area over time such that none of the plants in your flower area are on the exact same schedule. Done right this can allow you to have a few plants to harvest every week or so and is what is called a perpetual grow style. The down side is this style is probably the most difficult to maintain since the plants in it are at varying degrees of flower. Also something to keep in mind about both running two grow spaces or a perpetual grow is that you always have something that requires your attention which makes it difficult to go on vacation or be away for more then a day or two unless you have someone you trust completely that will care for you plants and do it correctly, while you're away. The idea of having a steady renewing supply of fresh weed seems great at first but it can wear you down real quick especially if you live in an area where the seasons change enough that makes growing a challenge during certain seasons, such as a summer that gets too hot or a winter that gets too cold. What I found worked best for me was to grow enough to carry me thru the season that made growing difficult and then during the season where things become difficult that's when you stop growing and go on vacations and out of town.