Hey there my fellow green-men and women I'm a newbie at growing and decided to try the scrog method I'm wondering now if I bit off more than I can chew for the first time grower? In the beginning I was going to try the SOG method...in mid stream I found out about the SCROG and decided to change up . I realize I have way too many plants in a small place ( a tent which is 3'x5') I have 12 plants in there...I know, I know! Too late now. The other thing is I have read so much material on how to handle the plants. For example, to trim the leaves or not. I went with an article that said to trim all the leaves that would shade out buds sites, and I continued to do so until just about two weeks ago. The plants are now 54 days in the 12/12 flower cycle and I cut back on the nutes about one week ago. I have added some pics and hope that someone with knowledge can tell me if my first time growing is a flop ( not unusual for first timers I hear). If so, please give me some advice. I do realize that I will only be using about 6 plants next time . I'd really like to find out concrete info. on trimming leaves versus not trimming? Did I stunt the plants by over trimming? What about trimming lower growth? Do my pics look like they are getting close to harvest and how can I tell when they are really ready? At what stage should you NOT treat your plants for spider mites? Do my plants suck, LOL....?!! Oh, I'm using a LU600S watt Enhanced Spectrum Super HPS Hortilux grow lamp in a 7'T x5'W x3'D grow tent. I'm not even sure what my plants are, they were given to me by a friend and they just said here are my baby "hash plants" some Sativa, some Indica... Thanks for your advice ahead of time for this confused southern belle! Happy daze Squashblossom
Trimming lower growth is a matter of airflow and how you plan to harvest. If you're going to take it all down at once trim out most of the lower growth so the plant can focus energy on the top buds. If you want to harvest in 2 passes, you can take most all the big tops first and trim it down to let the lower buds get more light, then let them grow for another 2 weeks or whatever until the lower buds plump up. Personally I try not to trim healthy leaves, if they're mostly yellow/dead I'll pick them off. If they're hiding a bud site I'll try to tuck the big fan leaves down into the canopy but don't sweat trimming them, you can get pretty aggressive and the plants will still bounce right back if everything else is correct. As long as you don't take too much off at any one time it shouldn't stunt them. You'll want to get a small microscope in the 40-200x range to look at the trichomes to tell when she's ready to harvest. Common wisdom is 50/50% cloudy tricomes to amber trichomes but it depends if you want a more clear high or more couchlock. Not sure on pests, but I wouldn't use any sprays or foliar applications where you're at now in flowering. I'm still new to this too but your plants look to be doing pretty well to me, if not a bit crowded
Thanks Cannaculus! I appreciate the fast response. There is so much info. out there it gets overwhelming. I realize I made a big mistake in changing up from SOG to SROG but I did not have the heart to throw out any plants. I thought I'd just see what would make it. I read that when the trichomes get milky white and a tad of amber in them that this is a good time to harvest? Of course...I could have done too much reading again ;] I keep telling myself, it's a damn weed! Chill! Thanks again!
Milky white with a tad of amber is a great time to harvest. That would be early in the window and more of a headdy high than a couch-lock stone. Other than that, I think you have a decision to make that Canna touched on. Either trim the lower growth out, or (if you think circulation isn't an issue) harvest in two steps. I have also seen people install cfls (made for flowering) under the canopy to help these bud sites develop. All three options are viable.