SCROG Questions

I want to try my first SCROG soon.

Questions:

1. How high should the screen be above the top of the plant pots? I want to give myself enough room to be able to hand-water the plants under the screen (I'll be growing in a soilless mix).

2. Is fence wire with 2"x2" squares a good screen? Or should the squares be a bit bigger?

3. Once the screen is nearly full, and the leaves below the screen begin dying, is it OK to cut them off, or should I just let them die naturally?

Thanks.

The height of your screen will depend on a couple things. If you plants will typically grow to 4'-6' tall, then you can set the screen pretty much anywhere between 15" above the soil to 3' above the soil. Then it depends on how much room you need below the plants for maintenance, and to be able to get good air flow beneath the canopy. My plants typically are 3-4' tall if allowed to grow some. I like to be able to get under the canopy but I also have them in a hydro system that elevates the top of the medium level to about18", so I set my screen at 18" which gives me roughly 3' from the floor to the screen, which is enough for me to climb under it to do any maintenance. What you will have to figure out is how much room you need to get under it for watering and maintenance.

I used a metal fence material that I got from the hardware store that is 4' high by 25' role. It has 2"x4" squares made into it by the wire that its made of. That size works quite well for me. A 2"x2" is doable but a bit small for scrog in my opinion. I would use either 2"x4" or 4"x4" squares. I stretched my screen across a wood frame that I built but then the next time I went with a pvc pipe frame that I built but didn't glue together so that it could be disassembled when needed. You can also use garden twine and run screws into the frame every 4" and then run the twine across it to form the squares.

Once your plants are set in place the screen needs to go over the plants before they go into flower so that they can fill the screen by you continually bending and pushing the branches under the screen while they grow. Once the screen is about 75% full, you can flip the light cycle to 12/12 and continue to tuck the branches as they stretch until you see buds beginning to form, then stop tucking and allow the new forming buds to come up through the screen.

At that point I also go under the canopy and remove a couple branches at a time that will not reach the light to produce. There will be plenty of smaller branches that will grow under the canopy(on some plants) that will never make it through the canopy to get to the light, and they will only produce popcorn buds. I remove these buds, a couple at a time(per plant) every couple days so that I don't create a lot of stress. I don't remove any leaves until they are yellowing off to the point that they are ready to fall off. That way the plant can take any extra carbs and other elements from the dying leaf before its gone.

I hope this helps

:yeahthat:
although when i did a scrog i was already training in veg by tying down branches so it was already kinda open and spread out, so when i moved it to my flowe space i added the screen and untied everything and tucked, it was about 50% full when i was done tucking, then again keep tucking for the stretch period.
it also depends on how many plants you have, THG has a scrog thread showing her scrog screen attachment that went onto her buckets so each plant had its own personal attached scrog screen. thats another thought, or what Dr.Fever does multiple plants under one large screen... i would read through both of their scrog threads and get an idea of what they do or at least Dr Fevers... his 12-24 plant scrog is shows just how mind boggling the results can be with an effective scrog setup. heck i doubled my yield per plant by simply adding a ghetto halfassed scrog screen... went from 2oz to 4oz per plant. hope this helps your auburn, defently read through Dr Fevers journal its amazing, and THGs diy scrog thread is pretty good too for individualized screens per plant

Dr. Fever did scrog on a large level and it was very impressive. Mainebud had, I think, a 24 plant scrog that was also really nice. Mine was done on a small scale--about the same size spot you are using Auburn, 22" x 27" or so. I had 4' of height and that was enough. I'm thinking that I had the screen about 12-15" off the top of the tote. I used chicken wire and I think larger holes would have been better. I think that 2 x 2 will work great--for the way mine grew, I think that 4 x 4 would have been too large. Being a plumber, I built my frame from PVC also and did like Hushpuppy, not gluing it together. I tried a string screen once, but didn't like it. It was hard to get the string taut enough. I put the screen over the plants as soon as they got to where I could start bending them over. This way, I could guide the growing tips to where I wanted them to try and fill the screen evenly. For a small grow, I really think this is a great way to grow. I've got some pics in my scrog thread in my sig.