Hey, I'm doing my third grow and, as this is a sativa(Amsterdam Haze) I'm going to be trying SCROG to manage the stretch and increase my yield. My problem is that I live in an apartment complex in a densely populated state without access to a wood shop so I can't make a huge amount of noise when building and putting up the frame with the actual screen. How do people build the screen for SCROG without nosy neighbors wondering why you are hammering, sawing, and banging?
I make my frame out of Pvc. It's cheaper than wood, makes less mess cutting it, and since everything just snugs together you can always add in extensions or change the size easily without any nails or glue or anything. I just use good ol trellis netting over it. I've done it like this for years. It's nice cause when I had a 12'x18' canopy it makes it easier to harvest and clean cause you can break the frame down as you go and not be having to constantly duck under it. I also just added a little bit of room to my 6'x6' frame, making it 7'6" x 7'6". It required 12 connectors and 1 ten foot piece of Pvc, cost me less than ten bucks, and I can always take the extensions out in a couple minutes, no fuss, no power tools. The only screws used are to hold the frame to the base, which basically has a frame around it that stays on, and vertical legs that support the upper scrog screen, of that makes sense.
I also made mine out of pvc, check out my "DIY cfl SCRoG contraption" thread in the indoor section. Cost about $40 worth of materials, and I recently found out that they make a tool for cutting pvc looks like a curved pair of scissors, only $12 at home depot. I used a hand dremmel....bad idea, I was sweeping pvc dust out of my bathroom for 2 days
Sweet. Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the PVC. That should do the trick quite nicely. Another question on the SCROG. I'm a little worried that I'm not getting it because it really doesn't sound that hard. In a nutshell the way I understand it is this. Set up the screen about 2 feet from the base of your plant. When the tips grow about an inch or two pass the screen, tuck the tip back under the screen and gently tie it with a twist tie so that it is just barely under the screen. Do this with all of the tips that grow over during veg. Make sure there is nothing under the screen but branches(no fan leaves, etc.) Once you have a good amount of tips through the screen switch from veg to flowering. Treat like a normal grow until harvest. Enjoy your increased harvest. Is that really it? Seriously? If not, I'll go back to googling but after reading a lot of scrog threads that seems to be the basic idea. To be honest, cloning seems much much harder.
Yeah, two feet is a lot one nice thing about the Pvc is you can stick a connector with 6 inches or so in, so you can raise or lower the level. I personally do lst and I dont actually scrog until a good week into flowering. I am also typically starting with 6 foot super stretchers. Even with those I put my screen only about 18-20 inches above the tray itself. But yeah you pretty much have the idea. Just trial and error now for the srrain you are working with really. The details will be different for every person and every strain. Also, I lay my plants down and scrog in the second week, and I only tie everything down once for the most part. Since its already half way through stretch, I tie about six inches from the end of the branch, and then leave it and end up with 16-18 inches over the net by the end when they start falling back down from weight, then I use uptown to hold the banches up over the screen but not piled up.