This is my first post on a Cannabis forum. I’ve grown for personal use a while, but don’t know many people that do. I’ve always wanted to get the opinions of experienced growers regarding my results. This is 2 plants (Raspberry Cough) using a (2ft x 4ft) SCROG grow indoor under (1) Spider Farmer SF2000 LED & (4) red light LED “bloom boosters”. Veg was 6 weeks and they are currently on day 17 of bloom. The tops are all approximately 24 inches above the main SCROG screen.
Welcome aboard Your girls look thick too Are you considering defoliating some more? Week 2 is usually the last week so you may have already missed that.
My habit has been to only take fan leaves if (1) they are underneath and in the dark (2) they are dying or dead (3) they are blocking a bud site and can’t be easily moved out of the way I have always stopped trimming healthy fans once bloom starts. They usually die off on their own. Do you think I need to thin more leaves during veg?
Also... They are growing in 10 gallon planters and I use RO water with Fox Farm Trio, CalMag, & Armor SI. I would love some guesses on yield potential. I have my own guess, but would love to hear what others think.
From the pictures it just looked like there was maybe some light penetration issues but it could just be the angle so that’s my bad. I think you’ll easily pull 2lbs that’s my guess
heya @Callred1975 nice looking plants. u should add some side lights (ha where!?) tall plants, tops are goin' be crispy, but underneath, expect some larf. welcome to the city dude
Thanks for the reply's and info guys. my girls don’t usually get this tall above the screen. I switched from a 4ft x 4ft to two 2ft x 4ft SCROGs and switched from the “blurple” Viparspectras to the Spider Farmer LEDs. The combination of changes resulted in more growth than I’m typically used to. A good problem to have right? Light penetration is decent. I know it’s hard to tell in the pics, but using the screen to spread the branches helps a lot. I’ll shorten the veg cycle from 6 weeks to 5 weeks next grow. That should reduce overall height and still fill the screen with plenty of bud laden branches. Adding some side lighting might help too, but my overall lumens per square foot is pretty good as it is. The plants have responded to this setup extremely well. Every leaf is dark green and healthy. Internodal spacing is excellent as well. Any other opinions or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks for the yield estimate Nex420! Your guess is slightly higher than mine. I hope I’m the one that’s wrong!
need to take everything below the trellis net, may want to remove the top trellis and move the other 2 up a little bit. youre hurting the quality of your yield with the lower bud development thats not getting adequate light. i would probably move the two up and my new top trellis would be 14 inches and i would strip anything below that next grow tho i would worry with this one
Thanks GroBuddy. Just so I understand... when you say “everything below the trellis net”, you’re referring to the first/main scrog screen that’s 12 inches above the soil right? If you look at the pic I posted of the underside of the plants, it shows basically only main branches and no fan leaves. I’ve already trimmed pretty much everything below the first scrog screen. What are you saying I should trim? Also, you can’t tell from the pictures, but there are 3 screens. The layer of twine you see 6 inches above the main screen is just a “fence” around the perimeter of the plants to keep the tops growing within the 2x4ft light area. Screens 2 & 3 are set 12 inches and 18 inches above the main scrog screen. Based on feedback I’m getting on this post, I need to remove more large fan leaves from the interior of the plants to increase light penetration (or add some side facing LEDs). My goal when growing has always been to try and keep the growth within the light footprint of the LEDs at all times using LST. I’ve found that a twine perimeter fence combined with 2-3 levels of scrog screens has been the most efficient way to accomplish this. As far as trimming more fan leaves, I’ve read that it’s best to not remove healthy fans unless absolutely necessary. If there’s a better way, I’m open to suggestions. Thanks P.S. These plants have been topped twice.
no I'm talking about the 3rd or top trellis net as i mentioned you may want to remove the top one and move the other 2 up you can plainly see 3 nets, no worries. you will have bud production I mean youve grown several grows i never cared for the small popcorn buds when by removing those and all the fan leaves that cover sites you produce stackable buds which in turn lead to half ounce buds and ounce buds. you dont need secondary shoots if youve topped them all you should have like 20 main sites a plant thats plenty in a scrog without allowing secondary growth. i used to think they needed the fan leaves they dont i remove any one thats blocking lower sites. each site coming out of the trellis should produce half ounce or bigger nugs
basically anything not getting full light or that can't obtain full light by removal of a fan leaf or two comes off If its not getting full light its not doing its portion of work in providing the plant with energy as the other leaves and sites that are getting full light, but its using the same amount of nutrients to live as the ones producing the most energy. the less growth you have the more bud growth you will have due to the plant still intaking the same amount of nutrients but less growth to put it into so more production goes into the buds you do have. I wish I had a current scog grow to show you growing a laughing buddha, blue crack, then 2 dispensary bag seeds that i ran from seed to flower only allowed the 2 week seedling period before flower. also only running 192 watt t5's my current grow was to see the t5s light penetration its about a month from completion. I am vegging 2 more dispensary bag seeds to go into flower next, those are being topped and scrogged to see how much weight I can possibly pull out of a t5 in a 3x3. have you heard of Canucks seed to stoned Youtube channel? I found him about a year ago and started getting better results. I always had a problem of not removing enough, you always think youve removed too much but come mid flower realize oooopsy i could have taken that and that as the sites would be too low to get any light. check him out he has a great scrog technique and produces monster buds. because of him I'm going to be switching from soil to coco and top dressing within a couple grows. If I had a scrog going on i would have removed all those fan leaves as they block lower sites and i wouldnt have any of the lower sites but i would also have 10 more main tops per plant. it all evens out. those little undeveloped popcorn buds dont have any weight anyways. although i dont mine doing the no care grows like this one and keeping all the little popcorns and clippings for edibles
Thanks GroBuddy. I will definitely check out his YouTube channel. If I start removing fan leaves now, it will affect the plants negatively right? I’m almost at the end of week 3 bloom.
I remove until harvest if needed, week 3 is usually the final stretch at that time it can be defoliated well. removing a couple to 4 fan leaves even lower bud sites that lie in the dark can be taken off with no effect any time after week 3. of course after week 3 youre not stripping your plant but the removal of a small amount comparatively will be ok. I would just let this one go tho and try the new scrog and defoliation next grow. to see the difference in bud size and production. personally I defoliate small amounts a leaf or two throughout the entire grow, beginning at lst. if theres a fan leaf blocking a lower bud site after lst, its gone. i dont remove any bud sites until 2 weeks before the flip thats when my plants will take the shape that i want to flower them in. 2 weeks prior to flip is when i remove the most of my growth. allowing the two week to recover and start growing well again before flip. the 3rd week of flower defoliate is minor really just cleaning up the regrowth youve previously removed maybe a few new secondary bud sites and new fan leaves that may be blocking bud sites.
I decided to roll the dice and remove a lot of interior, healthy fan leaves that were impeding good light penetration. These are some pics about 18 hours after the trimming. They don’t appear to have been stressed by the leaf removal. it really opened up the inside of the plants giving the lower bud sites good light.
Looking much better inside. You don’t want to risk PM or anything like that when you are stacking nugs on. larf also sucks for the trimming hands so the lollipop is the way to go.