Newbie needs help planning 2 x 2 grow

Hello All!

I am in amidst of planning my first 2x2 and have a few questions (major planning hurdles) I was hoping to get some experienced opinions on.

First and biggest question is how to efficiently approach a 2x2 situation using regular (non-feminized) seeds?

I am planning to use a 2x2x5 tent with a Mars Hydro TS1000 light (150w LED). Beyond that I am not yet settled on method (SOG, SCROG, etc.) or medium (soil, coco, etc.). Both of which I am willing to tailor to suit my seed situation.

Seed situation is this; I have 10 indica leaning Hybrid OG seeds that are non-feminized. So while I would love to to SCROG with a single plant in the 2x2 I'm not sure how I should approach this given my seed situation?

A few thoughts: with SCROG it seems necessary to start with female plants seeing as they will be trained/intertwined with the screen and will be a pain to weed out possible males. Plus there's no telling how many of my seeds will be male. So what I'm kind of thinking, I maybe should shoot for doing more plants than ideal, perhaps in soil pots, and doing some simply topping and minor low-stress training in each pot using thread to pull the branches down to the pot. So for example, I'll start with 5 seeds in my 2x2, growing them in 2-4 liter containers until they start to sex, at which point I'll pull the males and put the girls in 1-2 gallon pots and just roll with how ever many females I have, which could be 1-5. In the event I get I suppose I'd consider just keep 2, or 1 and put it in a 3-5 gallon pot. Given the large number of plants I would perhaps start going 12/12 after 4 weeks.

My goal here is not necessarily top yield but am simply hoping to get 2 oz or quality smoke ( more than enough for my yearly personal use) with not too much fuss, and in as little time as possible (i.e I want to do this in one grow period, won't be dealing with mother plant and clones this time around.

So anyhow, I welcome you comments, questions, advice.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the feedback!

Starting to think that maybe I should be looking at a 3x3, if anything to give a noob like myself a bit more room to work, especially given the fact that I'm dealing with non-feminized seeds. Only issue with going 3x3 is that is I might not have enough money in the budget to stick with an LED if I go that route.

I've actually been going back and forth between the spider farmersf1000 and the mars hydro ts1000, both look good and seem to get good reviews. So yeah your vote for the Spider Farmer will be considered for sure. Like I Said though, perhaps the SF-1000 would not be powerful enough for the 3x3.

So if I do go 2x2, and only go with 1 female, how would you guys approach my seed situation? Would you dare start by planting 3-4, veg them 4 weeks in the 2x2, start 12/12 and hope to figure out sex before it gets too crowded?

 

Believe me, I would love to have feminized seeds. Problem is that I live in a country where it is not easy to get such things. So kind of have to deal with what I was able to get, which fortunately enough is atleast a good strain, Larry Walker OG. Because without this I'd be having to use bag seeds which is certainly not ideal.

 

Here's a thought to bounce off you guys. Since I have not yet purchased my tent.

What if I went with a 3x3 tent in order to give myself more room for sexing, but using my 150w light meant for 2x2, just cut it back to one plant after determining sex? In other words I'd start with say 5 seedlings in the 3x3, start 12/12 a bit early, perhaps 5 weeks, and then once I determine the sex, simply leave 1 plant in the 3x3 with the 150w LED?

Just a reminder, I'm not going for max effort here. I simply want to grow 2oz to get me through the rest of the year since its been hard to find in these corona times. Later down the line, I could see myself wanting to get more efficient/maximize buds and all that, but for now, just want to keep it simple.