Schwagbag I read this entire thread as well as drooled at all off the budporn, great stuff man! But I do have a ?, lets say you dont have an issue with height.... is SC in any way a yield booster as opposed to just lettin em go or just topping. If so, is it because stalks are thicker(more nutes) because i've seen it done to plants followed by supportin the branch in its original position rather than laying it down...I understand that everybody has their own reason why they choose particular methods but I would like to know if you think that your method, not your reasoning(canopy control) would help with an unrestricted(as far as space) grow?
Hey blessedlungs, welcome to the forum and thanks for reading the thread, I appreciate the compliments. I don't grow the dankest of dank but I think I do ok for a little 600 in a 4 x 4 box
First, the reason I control my canopy is not because I lack vertical space... In fact, most of my plants are elevated off the floor to keep all of my canopies consistent in my perpetual garden. Its because I grow indoors using a 600w HPS for flowering. A 600, or any other indoor light for that matter, is not penetrating much much further past the canopy effectively, which is why the canopy has the frostiest and most resinous buds. In fact, I veg with T5's which are even weaker for canopy penetration, these work best within 4" of the canopy. Once a 600 gets past 10-12" below the canopy the buds are typically not for smoking (for me anyways). Not that I haven't smoked them, but I have no need when I control my canopy because most all of the buds are quality and dense. Here is an example for you. A 600w HPS at a distance of 10 inches is about the equivalent of a 150w HPS at 4". I'm sure you can figure out what this means. So to answer your question, does it increase yield? Yes, I believe it does increase yield of quality buds and decreases yield of popcorn trimmins'. It allows me to pack my box to the max and create a blanket of colas, sort of like a perpetual scrog but not quite as efficient or effective.
Keep in mind that opinions will vary with this ideology. I've grown both ways and I've found these methods to work well for me. The Ice plant I harvested was around 4 oz dried and I had 4-5 other plants in a 4 x 4 box with it. I essentially will use every piece of bud on the plant for smoking and it is excellent. The only thing that goes to hash is trim!
One problem I'm having right now though is that I don't have the space for the amount of plants that I'm currently growing. Its really not that many, but my space is small for both veg and flowering. This is forcing me to overveg my plants. I'm super cropping them and topping them but the longer this continues through veg the more horizontal space they take up, and the thicker and more dense their vegetation gets. I just spent 2 or 3 hours in my room lolli-popping, super cropping and defoliating most of my vegging plants. I took some clones and just plain cut some branches out to allow for some more air flow through the plant.
Thanks again for stopping by, feel free to ask questions as myself and a few others lurking here now and again find super cropping to work very well for us.