what indoor growing method is more productive ?

I am a beginner too, but lst or scrog is more productive for smaller space and less effort. Energy consumption may depend more on your lighting, but I imagine that with a shorter crop it is easier to focus light; be more efficient with light as the size is restricted.

Lst methods such as scrog (screen of green) produce more in smaller spaces than you would otherwise get.

Lst seems to be an ingeniuous way to run a stealth set-up, a small set-up for personal use. Scrog is the easiest lst method imo because once the plant hits the screen it is easy to simply tuck the vegatative matter under the screen, whereas other lst methods require you to use stakes or string to tie-down the plant which is probably more stressful.

I hope I can help based on what I have read, and someone else will hopefully add their 2 cents for you.

 

You will get a debate over scrog vs. supertopping, but I assume by "straight up plants" you mean no special techniques just let the plant grow as it may, in which case that definitely is NOT your most productive method.

 

Plant 30-40 seeds and get around 30 fems. Do 2 weeks on 24/0 and then flip them to 12/12 and get a quick harvest (50-60 days) and get a 1/4oz from each plant. Cost effective and quick with little effort but its not something i would do. I do a few starting on 12/12 and they grow like they are vegging for a couple of weeks and then you just get one big cola (about 1/4 oz dry each).

 

no offense but that seems wack,
in scrog you can get every individual branch over 1/4 oz with just 4-5 weeks veg

my 2 plant scrog in a 4x4 area produced 30oz, any other way thats a minimum of 15 average sized plants under the same lighting which probably wouldnt fit in that small an area.

personally i think Scrog is THE most productive way of growing, the only annoyance is long veg times, that or tree growing. ive seen multiple pounds from single tree grows.

you probably lose out on 1 crop per year with Scrog but every crop is like twice to three times larger.

 

Scrog method is good also topping and fimming and LST is a common one indoor's.