My first ScrOG: T5 PAR vs 1000w HPS

Today marks my one year anniversary of growing! Last year in July, I took a trip to the upper peninsula of Michigan to visit family with my newly acquired medical card, take a week long vacation, and return with several clones on Aug 01. In the past year, I have invested over $5,000 and countless hours into research of techniques, guides, websites, books, videos, equipment, and user reviews. Of course, even armed with all of that knowledge, most of it means next to nothing without hands-on experience. I have certainly learned much in the past year, yet I still have much more to learn. This grow journal will be documenting my first ScrOG grow, which is my third grow overall.

The clones I was given were Blueberry, Himilayan Gold, and Super Silver Haze. When I smoked their batch of each, it was decent quality - but nothing worth boasting about, with respect to my family. To be fair, I dont know if the genetics were legit since they also received them as clones. I Want to know what Im growing with absolute certainty and pride behind it. Their lights consist of a large collection of CFLs. Some big, some small, lots of different color temps. I have also recently learned that they began composting and reusing their dirt. Both are cheap ways of doing it but not if you are going for a high caliber smoke. After growing them myself, I found that the blueberry was the best of the 3 and even so it didnt do so much for my own condition (knee pain). I culled all 3 of the strains after my last harvest. Currently, I am running bag seed simply because of unexpected financial troubles. When I can afford premium seeds (after a fair amount of time, I decided on World of Seeds Afghan Kush and Cali Connection Corleone Kush) I will be ordering them. More than likely after this harvest I will order them, and use them for grow #5.

Oh how I wish I knew a year ago what I know now. My grow would be completely funded and already taken care of. Live and learn, trial and error.. no big deal I suppose. The biggest problem with my research is that everyone contradicts EVERYTHING with each other, regardless of the source. I had to learn by trial and error. Growing great bud is like a 7 part engine. Combustion engines require fuel, compression, spark. Marihuana engine requires light, co2, water, pH, nutrients, temperature, humidity. My first grow was a 4x6 space using a 400w HPS wing reflector with 2 sets of 4ft 2 lamp T8 fluoro tubes as side lighting. Only ventilation was the open door with a fan blowing air out. The pH meter I had was GARBAGE and the replacement took a month to get here thanks to the crappy company I purchased it from giving me a go-around on shipping. My first grow had serious issues with temperature, light, pH, then being root bound by late flower. You can only imagine how bad that turned out. I was not discouraged, and began seeking new ideas to fix these problems.

With a new and fairly accurate pH meter in hand, I made the decision to skip using my closet as a grow room and get a 4'x8'x6.5' grow tent. Make absolutely sure that if the tent you purchase has support bars, that the bars have some kind of reinforcing agent if the clips they use are plastic. One morning I woke up to a very loud crash from my grow room. After investigating, one of my lights were hanging by 1 hook instead of 2 because one of those plastic clips broke. It caused one of my plants to snap in half. If I werent home, it could have been a huge fire hazard. I called the manufacturer customer service and they offered to replace the bar and the clip if I shipped it to them first at my expense. I spent the next 20 minutes railing a supervisor on a shoddy product/design when its rated to support 35lb per bar, or 70lb on both. I put the light system with lamps and cord installed on my weight scale, 27 lbs. Fuck those guys and their replacement. Nothing a half roll of duct tape cant fix spent on reinforcing the clips of these bars. This new tent also helps temperature, but make sure you get a REALLY big fan to push air out of your tent, especially with a carbon filter. Through experience, negative pressure inside your tent is GOOD. (This means your fan is pushing more air out than it can resupply with from all the tiny cracks in the zipper and side vents, which in turn means your grow should be odorless and your ladies will have a constant stream of fresh air) I went with T5 PAR lighting for my second grow and thanks to my friends here from rollitup, (YL420 being the most help answering all of my newb questions) I was talked into getting HPS once more. The biggest difference being density and size of buds. No matter how much you trim, your buds will ultimately still look like popcorn with T5 PAR. This time, my HPS will be aircooled using 6" insulated ducting being pushed into the intake part of my central AC system in my home. Since I cant afford 2 complete 1000w HPS digital lighting systems, I will be doing a side by side comparison of these two lighting systems. Side #1 (area is 4x4, same as side #2) will have a 432w 4ft 8 blamp growmax fixture along with a 324w 4ft 6lamp ebay fixture. To make up for wattage differences, Ill be using my old 4ft 2lamp T8 fixtures as side lighting. These lamp brands include FloraSun, UVL, KorallenZucht, and Wavepoint. Side #2 will be using the HPS setup Hortilux Super HPS, Quantum 1000w digital ballast, Maverick Sun Magnilume 6" AC reflector, (about $400 per complete set)

Since my first grow, I have used Sunshine mix #4 with aggregates. Costs $50-60 at a local hydro store, which is one of the few things I buy at the local shop. (see more about purchases below) I buy the 3.7 cu/ft bag so that I can strap a trash bag ontop of it after first use so that the dirt doesnt go bad or excessively dry. Not only does mixing a large amount of dirt with perlite sound like no fun, I have no place to store it. I use it for popping seeds, planting clones which are started with rockwool cubes, and transplanting. So, basically everything and it works amazingly. I start with 4x4" pots, then 7x7", then 13x13". The white square pots from hydrofarm are one of the few hydrofarm products I like, nothing made in the US is square, white, or with adequate draining holes. The 4x4" is perfect for having seeds and clones stretch them baby roots out. Once I see a few spindles of roots at the bottom, time to let them dry out and transplant to the 7x7". They stay in the 7x7 until its time to be sexed. Once sex is determined, males are dumped and females are transplanted into the 13x13" where they will stay until harvest. I determined this is the best way to do it so that all roots will have enough time to stretch and grow all the way until harvest. If a plant is allowed to stay in a single pot for more than 8 weeks, chances are it will start showing some sign of issues. I wrongly thought it was too low pH, then nitrogen deficiency after flushing. I was wrong both times, its root system looked nasty when I pitched it. Lesson learned.

CO2 is a nice thing to have. Its more like nitro for your engine boosting its performance, except very expensive to implement effectively and efficiently. CO2 mycobags DO make a difference, if you have enough of them. A tank is nice, but your room must be air tight. A grow tent isnt air tight, and cooling would be a serious issue for me at this point since the room has to be air tight. A sealed room set up will probably start at around $10,000 if not more. This is something I will consider at a much later date.

Amazon.com has been my best friend since day #1 for multiple reasons. First, all of the user reviews I find on there have been a major role in any purchasing of equipment to date. Second, most online hydro retailers are garbage for one reason or another (poor customer service, slow shipping, VERY slow shipping, or even 30 day shipping in my case) Third, cost. Almost everything I find on amazon is cheaper than a local hydro shop aside from dirt and pots. Fourth, amazon prime is worth EVERY penny of its $75 per year cost. 2 day shipping on all items sold / packaged by amazon has saved my ass a lot.

Yesterday I went to Lowes to pick up 1/2" PVC pipe, connectors, cement, and a PVC cutting tool for the frame of my ScrOG screen Im building. Total cost was $78. The only trellis I could find were wooden, and the net was 1/2" for deer and small animals. Useless! Then I tried walmart. Same thing. Went to the hydro shop and they had one package of 7" squares for $17. Too big, also useless. Amazon.com had 4" square holes of nylon trellis net for $10 which will be here tomorrow. WIN

Using dirt for a ScrOG sounds like a stupid move, sure. The screens arent modular, so the plants will be unable to move after the screen is set. I think I got this issue solved though. Using 3x 5 gallon buckets for support, they can hold a 46" long white storage tote with holes drilled at the bottom which rests over each bucket. This tote can hold 3 of the 13x13" pots with ease. Instead of manually draining each bucket, Ill be drilling a 3/8" hole and attaching a small nipple/spigot for flexible hose at the base of each bucket. The weight of the water will push itself out into a collection reservoir with a lid outside of the tent to avoid excess humidity.

Pictures of the 2 frames and 4 of my babys are here:



Theyre about 6-8" tall now, going for about 12-15" until I start training. Once sex is determined, the females will be split up into 12 clones and going back to veg lighting since I started with 4 seeds. I want to make sure this experiment will be as equal on both sides as possible. Same strain, same height, same temp, same humidity, same nute schedule, same watering, no CO2 boosting, all sensimilla crop. Only difference being lighting. More updates to come, all input and comments are welcome

hell yea put alot of time into that post lol but i will be watching this grow forsure

Cool; all comments, input, and critique are welcome. Yeah it took me about 2 hours to make the post haha. Im still learning, and this scrog grow is fun so far. Im pretty glad that the PVC cutting tool I chose made cutting the pipe very easy with no issues.

I cant edit my original message I guess, so I wanted to add that Im using the full foxfarm lineup (minus kangaroots) including solubles. Once I start using hydro (couple years from now) I will be switching to RO water with general hydro nutes. My trellis net has not arrived yet so I havent got the screen completely built. Once its finished, Ill take pics of the completed work when its installed in my tent. Looking around at walmart the other day, there werent any more white storage totes. I may have to settle for dark totes which is fine considering I have a roll of mylar I havent touched. Some tape and mylar will do that job nicely.

I received the trellis net today, and I can definitely see why people decide to drill holes in their frames and use coated steel clothesline wire. Trellis net has issues with plants making the net pop up with no real way to reinforce the netting. Most mesh type trellis is too bulky or too tough and could cause issues with with training the plants. Doing the measurements, my maximum length will be 21.5" of frame to work with per 4sqft. Drilling every 3.5" will allow for 144 total trellis net squares. Big enough to easily train plants, small enough to efficiently and effectively maximize the growing space, and the net will be strong enough by pulling it very tight with no additional reinforcements needed.

Subbed, awesome write up!

@Puppet14, Thanks! Being thorough is an important aspect of anything in life, and more important when investing time, effort, and money into something

Today I went to lowes and picked up 2 pkgs of 100' 3/6" PVC clothesline wire. Both were a total of just under $14, bringing my total screen cost to $92.

I just finished drilling holes, running the clothesline wire, and installing the screens in my tent. Total labor time was about 6 hours. Running a 100 ft length of wire into a weave two times took some effort and getting on my knees to move around (since I dont have any sort of work bench or table to fit this kind of project) was getting old quickly. It should also be noted that drilling holes into PVC pipe will leave very sharp edges on some of the holes drilled. I have 6 minor cuts on my hands and fingers from weaving the web. Once complete, installation was a breeze with a few zip ties.

My tallest baby is 12", the shortest is 8". The screen is about 2" above the tallest, the fan separates the light between the mesh by about 6",and ill start training once they hit the screen.

Time for victory beers, cheers gentlemen!

I took some more measurements. The plastic tote (seen in the bottom right corner of my grow tent pic) is 39.5" long which leaves me about 2" of free space after putting in 3 of the 13x13" buckets. Using the following diagram, training the plants towards the direction shown will allow for a full screen using fewer plants, taking less time in veg overall. I want to build 4x plat forms measuring 12" tall, 36" long, 16" wide to rest the storage totes on. I also want the legs of this platform on the far side of the tent to measure 12", and the front side to measure 11" to allow water to come to the front of the tent. I will drill a 5/16" hole in the front side of these storage totes and then screw in a 1/2" pipe with a barbed nipple on the other end into the hole drilled for drainage when flushing. This platform is needed for the slight angled gravity drain, and to make it slightly easier to water. The angle will be slight so that gravity will allow the excess water to drain but not so steep that the tote will go flying off the platform because of the weight.

I found that pressure treated 2x4x8s are available at lowes for about $2.75 apiece after tax, so it looks like Ill need 8 planks for the width of these platforms, 2 planks for 8 pieces of 16" wide support pieces, and the scrap from the 36" lengths can be used to cut the 8x 11" and 8x 12" lengths I need for the front and back legs. A box of 100 ct 1-1/2" screws. An 8ft length of hose, cut into 2' lengths for the nipples. Ill have an associate cut the planks to length while I look around for the rest of the stuff I need. Im thinking around $60-70 or so out the door.

You've obviously done your SCROG homework. Is this the first time going SCROG? It's something that I've been wanting to try, but in the past I've grown from seed and usually began flower around 24" tall. By the time sex is determined, it would be a little late for the screen(plants would be 36"+). Do you think that adding a screen at that point would even be worth it?

@Puppet14, This is my first ever scrog. This is only my third grow over all

The idea of scrog (to my understanding) is to begin training when the plants are still relatively small so that the side shoots begin to grow vertically instead of horizontally, allowing for more colas and a relatively even height canopy. I think that if training hasnt been started and sex has already been determined and your plants have already stretched over a foot then it is probably too late into flower for a screen. Imagine if you had trained them already, all of your side shoots would be 10-12". If you trained now, I think you would end up getting a lot of popcorn buds.

I was up late so I just woke up, Im headnig off to the store shortly

I would need to start taking clones and running those to properly do the SCROG technique I think. Also, I'll be running a separate veg cab this year, so I would need to diy some kind of screen that moves with the individual plant, maybe just run 4 plants instead of the 6 that I was planning on and do like 2'x2' individual screens or something. I think that yield wise it will be worth it, so I've been thinking a lot about it lately.

@Puppet14,

If the plants arent TOO far along in flower, you could take clones and put them back into veg lighting after they root to utilize a scrog. I plan on doing the same exact thing when I determine the sex of my babies. Doing individual screens is something I also thought about, but for me it wouldnt work because I need to train plants before I start flowering in the 7x7" pots. Once I change to flower and determine sex, the definite females will be going into 13x13" pots and be allowed to start coming up through the net. Also, doing individual screens for each pot sounds much more tedious than one big screen. Thats just my opinion.

Im gonna do a perpetual scrog though since I have a separate cabinet I can use for vegging clones and small plants. The clones will be about 5-6" tall when I snip them, which will be perfect in my humidity dome. This works a little better for me since money is still an issue with the lighting system $400 is a big chunk of change for me right now. Since I am certain they will be females, Ill allow them to grow to 12-15" and put them in the grow tent and begin training immediately.

I returned from doing all of my errands today, pictures will be up when I complete building the platforms in a few hours. My drill is only a 7.2v so I might only get a couple of them done.

I finished the first platform. The platform looks a little rough, but the angle is perfect to allow for gravity draining without the water tray going all over the place. I accidently bought the wrong size tubing the the brass fitting, but it screwed in with a little bit of effort. All in all, job well done.

With the platform, Im also able to begin training 2 of the 4 plants. Awesome!

Pics!

Looking good! I like the idea of of the totes with the nozzle to drain, it would eliminate at least one problem that I see with the SCROG method. In the past I have just transplanted straight from solo cup to either 5 or 3 gallon nursery pots. I've read many contradictory opinions about transplanting, but my current thoughts are that transplanting from solo cups or rapid rooters to like a 2 gallon pot then to a final 5 gallon pot for flower is probably the best answer. It just seems like the plants stall for a week or so when I transplant straight to the larger pots, and I'm looking to maximize my veg time. What I've been doing is topping twice in veg and then just kind of letting the plants grow, but it takes my plants a long time(9 weeks from seed) to get the height that I want them to be going into flower. I need to cut a week off of that time for my perpetual to work the way that I want it too.
My current plan is to veg until the end of sept using a combination of indoor and outdoor lighting to keep the plants in veg then take clones, flower the plants that are already in veg,sex and keep the clones from all females, flower the original plants that were grown from seed, and finally select the best pheno and just keep running the clones from that pheno. I eventually want to end up with 4 strains that help me the most in order to combat the tolerance that happens when I smoke the same thing over and over again for like 4 months.
I've already decided that indica wise I'm going with Ace of Spades from TGA, and I'm going to grow out Vortex and JillyBean for the Sativa side of things. I've smoked jilly before, and really liked the high(fun and very functional), but it really isn't as potent as a lot of stuff that I have smoked. It will be my head stash that I run maybe two plants a year. I'm hoping that the Vortex will be more potent, if I don't like it then I'll be looking for another strain.

@Puppet14,

Thanks!

Ive went straight to larger pots simply because I thought it would be easier but I was wrong since there are longer veg times associated with scrog/LST. Rootbound issues have crept up on me every time. Recovery time for me is 2-3 days at most after transplanting. Make sure you completely saturate the soil with water after transplanting. Topping/fimming takes a lot of recovery time, closer to 5 days for me. I think next time Im going to fimm twice. My first attempt at fimm failed, I didnt trim off enough plant matter. The second turned out much better. This will also help cut down on time spent in veg and giving you more immediate shoots when the canopy hits the net to start training.

What you have going for your plan sounds great except the combination of lighting part. That doesnt make sense to me. Using outdoor light does not sound like its a very secure way of doing things, and also isnt going to have your plant grow much if its just next to a window. What kind of lights are you using in your grow area?

4 strains is a lofty goal for a ScrOG. My max is two since my flower tent is sectioned off into 2 sets of 4x4 grow spaces. Adding more strains would complicate things since different strains need different amounts of nutes, veg times, flower times.. too difficult to keep up with, even if doing individual potting ScrOG.

Jillybean sounds nice. Which breeder? Sometimes I like a functional and happy high more than I like to take away knee pain. I might give that a shot sometime.

I spent this morning and early afternoon putting together the rest of the platforms. I forgot I have a rusty old plug-in power drill that was sitting in my closet. A magnetic phillips bit is rust-welded into the chuck, so its just fine for me. Made the screws much easier going in for sure.

Looks like Ill be needing 3 more storage totes ($61), an 8" high powered fan for exhaust ($50), the lighting system ($400), some tubing for drainage on the storage totes ($6), a few pairs of 1/4" rope ratchets ($45), and I should be good to go. I have a 6" inline fan from LEDwholesalers that burnt out and Ill be asking for a replacement when I have time. Right now, I wanted to finish this post before I headed into work. Theres another $75 cost since Im going to the doctors to recertify tomorrow, and then the recertification fee from the state I believe is another $75. Another $712 that I really dont have. This grow is really going to be make or break for me.

Pic of completed platforms:

infinitalus said:

@Puppet14,

Thanks!

Ive went straight to larger pots simply because I thought it would be easier but I was wrong since there are longer veg times associated with scrog/LST. Rootbound issues have crept up on me every time. Recovery time for me is 2-3 days at most after transplanting. Make sure you completely saturate the soil with water after transplanting. Topping/fimming takes a lot of recovery time, closer to 5 days for me. I think next time Im going to fimm twice. My first attempt at fimm failed, I didnt trim off enough plant matter. The second turned out much better. This will also help cut down on time spent in veg and giving you more immediate shoots when the canopy hits the net to start training.

What you have going for your plan sounds great except the combination of lighting part. That doesnt make sense to me. Using outdoor light does not sound like its a very secure way of doing things, and also isnt going to have your plant grow much if its just next to a window. What kind of lights are you using in your grow area?

4 strains is a lofty goal for a ScrOG. My max is two since my flower tent is sectioned off into 2 sets of 4x4 grow spaces. Adding more strains would complicate things since different strains need different amounts of nutes, veg times, flower times.. too difficult to keep up with, even if doing individual potting ScrOG.

Jillybean sounds nice. Which breeder? Sometimes I like a functional and happy high more than I like to take away knee pain. I might give that a shot sometime.

Click to expand...

What you have going for your plan sounds great except the combination of lighting part. That doesnt make sense to me. Using outdoor light does not sound like its a very secure way of doing things, and also isnt going to have your plant grow much if its just next to a window. What kind of lights are you using in your grow area?

I should have made myself clearer, I have a 600w veg cabinet in the garage, and am in the process of installing my 1000w in another cab in the garage. Right now I'm waiting for 10 more seeds to pop(the vortex and Jillybean) and they will probably be vegged in my bedroom with the 600w due to extreme heat issues in the garage at the moment(107 degrees here yesterday), If I can't control the heat in the bedroom, they will be placed outside in a spot that is partially shaded in the late afternoon and brought in to the house for an additional 5-6 hours to keep them in veg until the heat lets up and they can come indoors full time- I'm pretty sure that I can control the heat though but it's good to have a plan B. I've already got 4 plants outside right now, and they don't look too bad for the heat so I figured the others could at least survive. This way of doing things is kind of screwed up at the moment, but the purpose of even trying to grow the Jilly and Vortex right now is so that when the heat gets to a manageable level for the 1000w in the garage(first part of October here) that clones will be taken of all the plants and the mothers will be flowered to determine sex and search for the pheno of each type that I want to keep. To me it just seems like the way that I've been doing things up to this point like starting from seed for each grow is very inefficient. I often get multiple phenos, and there is usually one plant that stands out from the others either yield or high wise that I would have liked to keep growing. The answer to this problem seems to be to grow, select pheno, and then just run clones of the exact pheno that I want-by then I should already know how the particular plant reacts to nutes etc...

4 strains is a lofty goal for a ScrOG. My max is two since my flower tent is sectioned off into 2 sets of 4x4 grow spaces. Adding more strains would complicate things since different strains need different amounts of nutes, veg times, flower times.. too difficult to keep up with, even if doing individual potting ScrOG.

I usually alternate between growing a sativa hybrid and indica hybrids. I would continue to do this with the scrog, but keep clones around of the other hybrids for next grow and just have many clones in the veg cabinet. I don't plan on growing all the strains at the same time, just 2 either sativa hybrids or indica hybrids.

illybean sounds nice. Which breeder? Sometimes I like a functional and happy high more than I like to take away knee pain. I might give that a shot sometime.

TGA is the seed breader that I've used since my second grow and have been generally happy with them. I am either really lucky or a germination god because I have yet to not have a seed germinate from TGA, and I also get a statistically significant amount of females(4/5 last grow, 3/5 grow before). Having said that, if you know of a powerful hard hitting sativa that I should try, let me know because I'm not sure that the Vortex is really what I'm looking for.

@Puppet14

That makes more sense, though a bit too much labor for me. I couldnt imagine hefting plants around, especially if the dirt is completely saturated with water. I understand that heat is/can be an issue especially in the summer. I am lucky enough to have a home with a central AC unit that does a great job of keeping my house at a steady 72-73 even in the middle of a god-awful heat wave. My canopy temp with good fan placement stays around 82. I think with the 8" fan I plan on getting it will drop it to 80 or less.

I agree that its inefficient to continue to run from seed every time. It adds about another month of veg. My own problem was that all of the strains I had werent of any particular interest to me. Taking clones from plants that are guaranteed females or very early flowered females from seed is the best and most efficient way to do it. Through watching another persons grow who brought in a clone from someone else, they got a nasty gnat infestation and I decided to only ever use my own clones now that Im already growing. For a new pheno, it will always be from seed. The problem with that is it does take time to cultivate and test the smoke itself to determine if its worth keeping. I am limited to 12 plants right now since I am a registered caregiver and patient, however I have no patients to take care of since I can have yet to grow anything of benefit to patients regardless of symptoms. Third time is the charm, hopefully.

Ive heard many good things about TGA, but ended up deciding against vortex. Kush type phenos seem to have more pain alleviation properties, and I heard that Corleone Kush has a hint of lemon to the taste. It instantly piqued my interest. Yield be damned; if it smells great, tastes great, and the high is even better, thats what Im growing. Plus the name is just badass

Excited to watch, esp with a PAR vs 1kW. Any details of the spectrum of the bulb, sorry if I missed you sayin it already. I hear you on the TGA germination, have gotten 10:10 on a few tries. Frustrating tho, I just saved my first seed from a querk/plush cross and none of the seeds are germinating...25 so far seriously considering taking sand paper to them, no idea what exactly my goal is aside from weakening the seed coat.
Cool platforms too, I'm ghetto and just use milk crates zipped together
mpp

I've heard good things about the Corleone Kush, but don't know anyone that's growing it. The reason that I began from seeds is that I originally started with clones from a local dispensary( before they were all shut down where I live) and half of the clones were males and seeded the entire cabinet. It's no fun having to de-seed every time you want to smoke. I still have some Ace of Spades seeds and some Qush that I'm going to run later in the year when I do Indica hybrids again. I have knee problems and the Indica works good for that-I try to have some of both around, but right now I'm out of Sativa and all I have is about 3-4 ounces of the Ace of Spades that I harvested in June. The Ace of Spades works good for my knees, but just knocks me out and it's difficult to get anything done.