2x23W Spherical Scrog

cues said:

Sorry Blazed, misunderstood. Apologies.
SLB, that sounds very similar. I've since seen an article (lost the link, sorry) from someone who has done this on a larger scale (think he was using MH) but went one better. His Sphere was split into 2 halves so that it could be opened up for maintenance / or to increase distance from plants. I was thinking if I ever go down that route, I would take it further and split it into 4's.
I was gutted. A similar thing happened to me at Uni where I came out with the idea of a Hydroponic Golf green. Unfortunately, when I started researching it, I found out it had already been done!
This morning's modification involved wrapping some old socks around the edge of the Res to keep the light out of it!
It's Kinda fun getting back to basics. My last proper grow was a complete headache. Stealth loft grow through winter in a commercial building I ran. Had to build false walls, insulate the roof (lots of people grow around here and the police helicopters search for it), carry gallons of water up a ladder through a tiny hidden entrance and all that C*@p!. Still, at least I wasn't paying the electric bill with my own money!

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I know how you feel man...Almost every method possible has already been discovered and applied!

Today's mod was a DIY Co2 generator (1/2 Litre Tomato Ketchup sauce bottle, 1/4 filled with warm water, 35mg of bread yeast and 3 tsp of sugar, well shaken. Already bubblng well)

Also salvaged a sick looking mother from my mates and threw that in there, soil-pot and all. Has been grown as a house-plant with no air-flow and little light so thin, easily bendable stems to train into the screen and bottom growth is minimal so sat it on the base with the leaves trained up into one scrog ball.


Aim now is to go to 24/7 through Veg (as I can cover the cupboard with a blanket and not worry about lack of Co2 so much). Also should help keep temps more steady, as they've been dropping to 55f at night. Temps with doors closed and lights on are sitting at 75f, no worries.
Just hope the misses doesn't moan about the pump kicking in at night!

Well people. Nearly 2 weeks in and the rooted cuttings have started growing. Now got 6 nodes (started with 3) on each and internodal spacing is on the new growth is only about 8mm, despite them not being at the screens yet.
The mother I threw in there a few days ago also looks much healthier.
This cupboard also has a couple of drawers underneath so I may remove their insides to use the area as a veg/clone/mother 'room' yet.
A few problems so far....
I put some black treacle and more yeast into the diy Co2 bottle. It has almost stopped bubbling since. Only did that a few hours ago so will wait and see what happens.
I am realising that it is going to be hard to train, firstly beecause of the need to keep light at an even distance, secondly because it's a bugger getting my hands around the back of the globes!
Finally, my misses keeps moaning that the electric usage has shot up! (We are on a coin meter). Total rubbish (I pay it and haven't noticed a difference). I pointed out to her that the whole box uses about the same as she does leaving the hallway and bathroom lights on all night 'in case she needs the loo'.
Am not going to post any updated pics as things don't look much different.
If I can get this going as a complete set-up, I may look at marketing it for small personal growers!

wont the buds just grow into the lights? or do your plan on weaving the plant around and over the plants? hmm that would be cool to have a plant grow around a cool tube with an HPS in it

cool idea. with some fine tuning i bet it would work great

I plan on training the stems around the globes and pushing the individual buds in through the holes until end of stretch, then just letting it go, hopefully ending up with wierd banana-shaped colas with all the bud on one side of the stem! Still early days yet and my first ever micro-grow so It's a learning process as I go.

Well, hit another problem. Have dodgy looking brown roots for no apparent reason. Nearly lost one plant already but no big deal as I only really designed it for one anyway. Was just hedging my bets. Have come to the conclusion that this is down to light penetration into the shallow (it's only just over an inch) layer of Hydroton. Re-filled res today at half strength and put some white cardboard around the root area. Wish me luck
All comments welcome.

what weight you hoping for

Hoping for about 35g's. If I can hit that I may do it on a larger scale.

Chucked some mylar in today to keep the light off the hydroton, just pinned to the walls. Also ran a small tube from the DIY Co2 bottle and put the end just over the plant

More nightmares! Just went to check temps since adding the mylar and they were up from 75 to 100. Guessing those bulbs are only heating half the space now. Also added a 2nd DIY Co2 generator. Think I may have overdone it with the yeast and sugar as it now looks like a loaf of bread! Propped the door open a bit (shoved a sock in it!) and pointed a fan towards it (sort of defeats the object of the Co2). Unfortunately not lights out for a while and g/f gone to bed and couldn't stand the noise so had to open it a bit more and shut off the fan. Will sort it out tomorrow. On the plus side, at least it gives me some lee-way on adapting some sort of thermostat on a fan if I know I'm not battling low temps and the res should stay cooler.

This is very interesting little experiment, how's it going?

Good Luck

I know im pretty late but this looks fuckin awsome Cues, im deff gonna follow this to see wat happens

Been a bit disastrous so far! Couldn.t work out why my roots kept dying until today I saw the g/f unplug the timer to the pump and plug her mobile phone charger into the socket! Hopefully, now that's sorted it should all take-off. The roots must by packed into the root-riot cube and dying to get out!

cues said:

Been a bit disastrous so far! Couldn.t work out why my roots kept dying until today I saw the g/f unplug the timer to the pump and plug her mobile phone charger into the socket! Hopefully, now that's sorted it should all take-off. The roots must by packed into the root-riot cube and dying to get out!

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haha is she blonde?

How did you guess? Looked today and it's sending roots back out already! Still, at least it encouraged me to put the mylar in (Thought the light was killing the roots). Probably the only thing that stopped the root-riots drying out and killing it completely.

How do you plan on having the actual bud be harvestable? I think you might want to make that sphere considerably bigger

think you'd be better doing a vertical scrog with the lights in the middle and mesh round the outside tacked to the walls. Cool little experiment though.

Yeah Bt. I see your points. I may well have to modify this as the grow goes on. Partly why I'm trying to keep fans out of there as I want the stems to stay thin and pliable. Also bear in mind that after this experiment, I intend to use it as a veg room. Ruff, tacked to the walls is too far from the light (see my thread on DIY light meter) and where would the plants grow?. I was, however, thinking of getting a shorter res, then adding another 2 bulbs underneath the ones hanging down, pointing upwards and having 'Oval-shaped' screens. Trouble is, by then I would be using 100watts and may as well just do 250W Mh/Hps grow. Also, a vertical doesn't give the screen area that a sphere does that stays within the useful distance from the low-wattage CFLs.

This is just getiing worse by the day! Spotted worrying yellow dots an the lower leaves today and got the microscope out. Red-spider mites. FFS! Only 1 or 2 on each fan-leaf but enough to worry. I know exactly where they have come from (woman who lives downstairs is a 'dirty-gardener' (plants the borders up and leaves all the pots and weeds lying around to the point that I can't even walk up the path!) and grows sunflowers among others (I threw a load of marigold seeds in to try and combat the pests that come with them) and once, when i tried to explain to her about beer-traps for slugs, the daft cow tipped beer all over the garden((not in traps, just tipped it over the soil!). Also Put some Nicotiana leaves in. Some dry, some drying.
Made a quick Garlic/chilli/onion/coriander mix up and sprayed and left the rest to mix up properly to have another go tomorrow.