Scrog trim job

[DirtySouthernAfficionado]

Oki, so I've never done a scrog before.
I've got this setup
50 gallon rubbermaid
I got 5 plants under the screen, about a month in.
I've been slowly trimming the bottom area up. Knocking out leaves and such, left the growth shoots to see if they would get to the screen. Most did. It would seem, as it is about a month into bloom, the stretch is fading and the bud is building. (YAY)
Question is: I got all this pesky leaf matter all over on the top by the buds and over some buds and such. Got a solid layer of foilage on the underside of the screen. Does anyone else trim up this top leaf a bit? Or completely?
I would think taking off ALL the extra leaf up top would be unwise, think layer of leaf on the screen or not. Just curious about anyone else's techniques on this matter.
Thanks champs
Peace

 

[Growdude]

Welcome

Its never a good idea to remove fan leaves.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

The fan leaves are the little power plants that turn sunlight, food, and CO2 into THC. I never cut any fan leaves.

 

[DirtySouthernAfficionado]

Hehe..
Goddess
Your one of the main ones I was reading on before I registered.
You definately got plenty of photo proof to show off the benefit of leaving those fan leaves alone.
I'm actually about to move a couple of little ones from the veg tub into my bloom tub. That would be the 50 gallon. The five in bloom already, I've trimmed the whole of the bottom area below the screen up. Perhaps the next five going in next to I shall leave them be and see what differences occur...
I do hate seeing all these small buds at the base of the screen overshadowed by a big fan leaf...
My bulbs need to come in....
That would help...
Anyways, I'll work on some pictures and setup of my scrog closet here soon. And I'll leave those girls alone this time around and see what a difference it can make.
Thanks

 

[Tater]

Ask yourself, have I ever seen an apple tree without leaves. When you think of the answer you'll have answered your own question. I'm all for trimming bud sites if you want to increase the size of your main cola's. Removing the flowering parts of a plant allows it to focus its energy and production on just one or two flower's rather than a lot of little ones. Its a technique used by pumpkin growers, tomato grower's etc that grow fruit to gargantuan sizes for competitions and what not. Don't remove leaves though because even if they aren't getting light the plant can and will cannabilize itself using the stored sugars in the leaf for food. It will fall off of its own accord when its good and ready. Trim your lower bud sites but leave the leaves alone.

 

[DirtySouthernAfficionado]

It's funny how just about everyone was for trimming leaves on Overgrow, and everyone here is adversed to it. Sound advice all around and thank you. Kinda wishing I hadn't trimmed some of them now, but they still look great.
Still waiting on those new 250 watt bulbs....
And I put another five in the bloom tub Sunday.
I'm interested in seeing the difference between them from the lack of trimming.

 

[DirtySouthernAfficionado]

Quick question here since I got the thread open :
In general
A good room temp and humidity range
range of temps for the water in a hydro system

Side note:
Lord it is amazing how thick the vegitation is especially all centered around the screen. Trimming leaves = bad....
but honestly, only because I am doing a closet grow, I can't imagine I would be able to trim up the lower bud sites beneath the screen much less see them if I hadn't trimmed the first few sets off.
I don't know.
I do however have another five ladies in the tub that I will not be trimming to see how much of a pain it may become.

 

[Tater]

A good room temp and humidity range
range of temps for the water in a hydro system

18-25 degrees Celsius
30-60 Relative humidity
16-21 degrees Celsius for the rez

Any higher in your rez and you lower the waters ability to hold oxygen and increase the likelihood for algae and other nasties. Lower than 16 you'll stunt the plants growth for a while. Won't kill them just slows them down.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Hey DSA, can you post us some pictures? I'd love to see your scrog o that didn't sound quite right did it )

 

[DirtySouthernAfficionado]

Oh well how could I refuse you.
Let's see what we got....

 

[DirtySouthernAfficionado]

This is a month in...
I unfortunately only got new bulbs a week ago. I don't think they are as fat as they could be at this point.
And only one bulb worked so I'm running one good and one shat.
It's been a day or two since I wove anything....
Got some work to do.

 

[zipflip]

Ask yourself, have I ever seen an apple tree without leaves. When you think of the answer you'll have answered your own question. I'm all for trimming bud sites if you want to increase the size of your main cola's. Removing the flowering parts of a plant allows it to focus its energy and production on just one or two flower's rather than a lot of little ones. Its a technique used by pumpkin growers, tomato grower's etc that grow fruit to gargantuan sizes for competitions and what not. Don't remove leaves though because even if they aren't getting light the plant can and will cannabilize itself using the stored sugars in the leaf for food. It will fall off of its own accord when its good and ready. Trim your lower bud sites but leave the leaves alone.

is this in general with any style grow wether LST topping watever... i mean really wat im wondering is do you suffer yeild really or does the quality of the remaining buds make up for the loss of the lil weaklings you may have clipped..?

 

[NYC_Diesel x Jack_Herer]

Now I am not sure about the unique techniques involved with a SCROG, but I can share something that I think might help. When I was in college me and a buddy Iwas living with one summer were growing a few plants in his basement. One evening while moving his plants out of the flowering room (they were one week in), he broke a fan leave off one of the lower branches of the plant. In most varieties I have seen the lower branches have one main fan leaf extending out from the main stalk just below the shoot. Well there was nothing we could do so using sterile scizzors we clipped off the broken fan leaf at the base of the shoot.....to make a long story short by the time the plant was done flowering the shot with the missing fan leaf only produced half as much dried bud as the identical shoot from the other side of the platn that stil had the initial fan leaf intact. The power of the fan leaves in producing large buds can not be overstated. Perhaps next grow you might want to space out the gaps in your Scrog or use a breed of plants that produce smaller fan leaves in the colas.

 

[BuddyLuv]

This thread was just on the History Channel

 

[seagull]

i was gonna try scrog, built a 3x3 pvc frame for a 4x4 area, and connected chickens wire to it, with zip ties, there it sits in the garage, waiting to go to the dump, i just prefer to do hst (high stress training) instead, i like to "smash" those suckers flat, its very thearaputic for me, im sure the scrog works well, i just dont like dorking around with it

 

[medicalGreenGrower]

I'm all for trimming bud sites if you want to increase the size of your main cola's. Removing the flowering parts of a plant allows it to focus its energy and production on just one or two flower's rather than a lot of little ones. Its a technique used by...

how do you go about doing this? do you just cut off the top of the branch below the flower? can i cut every small bud and just leave a few main ones, or is there a limit to the amount i can trim off? at what point should this be done? all at once or just as they grow in? thanks.

mG2