Help me figure out growroom so I can sleep again

[bazooka]

Newb needs help setting up scrog(s) in 9x9 grow room

What I have for lights:
1 400 watt hps
1 250 watt hps
bunch of t10 and t5 fl in 2' and 4' lengths

my grow room:
is 9'x9'
have curtain down middle to optionally separate it into 2 9'x4.5' spaces
and a 29"x15"x32" cabinet that I can use for clone/veg
total of 3 separate growing areas

I have 4 metal shelving units that are 3'x1.5'x6' each and are good for holding plant/screen and hanging light.

Being my first grow I don't know anything about timing which makes it hard to plan out your growroom.

My first thought was to have 2 alternating flowering chambers. One a 3'x3' scrog w/ the 400w and the other a 3'x1.5' scrog w/ the 250w. So right before I put one into 12/12 I take cuttings for the other flowering chamber. So I am always cloning/vegging w/ 2 2' t5's in the cabinet then vegging on the scrog for a short time.

Now I am thinking of putting the 2 scrogs/lights together for one 3'x4.5' scrog under a combined 650w. But would I have to take clones from flowering plants to make this work? I could do the perpetual harvest to avoid taking clones from flowering plants. But I wouldn't be able to veg under the screen - would that be a problem?

So many combinations I lay in bed going back and forth on these decisions. I was just going to try one out but after seeing how long of a process growing is a year could go by before I find a good setup.

I don't want to deal w/ a mother plant - just take cuttings from clones.

Please help me sleep at night.

thx

the cabinet


right grow area (w/ clones in pic - from 15 cuttings only 2 are growing)



left grow area and 1 shelving unit



first plants from seed under 400w



curtain pulled half way

 

[Guest]

Thats a bigass room for that little bit of light you have... do you plan on buying more lamps?

 

[Guest]

Sounds like you have some great ideas already........

Sounds like you have some great ideas already........

Indi-sat is kind of right. That was my first thought too, but after reading your ideas, they made sense. I am assuming you are going to contain all supplies, ballasts, reservoir, etc. in the room.

First if you put it all into growing you would definately have too little light. But if you break it down into 3 areas with panels and walkways between your areas I think it will be just right. You have planty of light for the pod areas you are talking about.

I would use the florescents for cloning and short vegging like you said in the shelves with some light flaps built in. You should be fine taking clones from the clones just prior to putting in the flowering pods. I have been doing this for years and works like a charm. I wouldn't take clones after flowering due to the change to alternating nodes and this cuts the branching in half which is essential in a SCROG.

The sizes of the areas you have will work great for SCROG. The 3x3 will be just under 50w per ft2 that it should be min. but for a start that is fine. For SCROG it is best if you have 2-3 sides that can be accessed so keep that in mind. The lights will need to stay close to the tops so a cooled hood would be good but not essential. Light control will have to be exact if your are going to clone and veg in the same proximity and only visit in the lights on time of the flowering plants. The light control in the pics is terrible, all the light that is going out could be producing growth. Would enclose much better. The reflective material does not look like mylar? Mylar is great but a pain in the ass. If it is not kept exactly flat it will cause hot spots. The next best and cheapest is flat white. I got tired of the mylar so went to white. Nothing goes into my room that is not painted white. Between grows I just repaint. I also dump a small amount of broad spectrum fungicide, bacteriacide, insecticide, liquid into the paint. Never had problems with any.

Hope that helps to get started. Once you set it up, run a couple of days just like there were plants. The dry run helps eliminate the last minute bugs and makes you feel better. I make that a rule. On the first grow you will always be fine tuning the room. By the second grow you will have many things to work out. The room is a work of art but think of it as a process not a finished product.

Peace

 

[bazooka]

So - 1 large scrog or 2 alternating scrogs????

Bree - Help me w/ the time line. I take cuttings before i go 12/12 w/ scrog. From what I've read they flower for 2 months. Isn't that too long for the cuttings -> clones -> veg process?

 

[bazooka]

 

[Guest]

Both would work.... depends on the time you want to spend.

Both would work.... depends on the time you want to spend.

The single large SCROG... or the two flowering areas flowering at the same time will be less tinkering. You are right about the time table on that. The 2 months are a long rooting time. If they get too big just clone the clones. I built a large aero cloner and do a clone veg in it. My strain is a short flower... 40-50 days. I find it is sl. long but ok. I just add some nutrients when they have plenty of roots and keep the floros 1/2 in about. Makes for tight nodes. When the harvest is done I place in flower room and 12/12 within a week of the move.

The two seperate flowers would work too and provided multi harvest. This would be good to keep supply to self more constant. The only down side is keeping everything on schedule and almost double the tinkering factor. With those areas either way once you get the hang of it you will have plenty on hand to keep you happy and maybe a friend or two but be careful about that. I prefer less tinkering due to I might

Question for you? How did you paste that time line diagram in here. I can't seem to do it unless I up load a pic of it. I would like to do a thread on a cheap and secure way to CO2 small areas but I can't copy and paste?

Peace

 

[Guest]

bazooka, the clones will take between 10 and 14 days to root in the average situation. so thatsabout 2 weeks out of your 8. that leave you 6 weeks of veg. If you're SCROGing that really shouldn't be too much time. You might have to do a bit of extra trimming/topping, but all that will do is let the branches that you do have grow taller and make the traing easier later. If you're really worried about it you can always make a small mother plant. I'm lookin forward to seeing this come together

 

[Jesusbuiltmygro]

keep it simple

keep it simple

You need mothers. If you clone clones you will reduce the quality of your genetics with each new clone generation. Cloning indefinately is a bad idea. Plus it's just a matter of time until you lose your strain like this.


Do you have to do scrog? It will be a lot of extra work and not much extra yield.

Also keep in mind you can take cuttings and store them in the fridge for 2 months or more. Just put them in a freezer bag with their ends in water and they should stay good.

You should be able to get your setup down to only needing something like 2 weeks of veg. Then throw them all in bloom and do a SOG. You are likely to get better yields and you are guaranteed to do a lot less work. I find the amount of work I have to do reflects my yield. The more work I HAVE to do in maintanence like screen training the less time I have to diagnose nutrient deficiencies and such.

I would one big SOG and use the cabinet or a rubbermaid for the clones. Use smaller pots and then transplant to your 3 gallon containers when you go to bloom.

Why use scrog unless you really have to? You want to hit something like 45 watts per sq foot. with 9x9 You'll need a hell of a lot more light to use up all that space effectively. So cut down the bloom chamber, throw in the your HPS lights totaling 650 watts. That should light a room roughtly 4x4 though it wont hurt for your room to big bigger. You just might have airey buds as you get too far from the lights.

You technically might yield slightly better with a perpetual veg/flower room, but you shouldn't make yourself a lot more work for a little more yield. You want to think about the long term of keeping this thing going potentially for years.

Plants don't need much vegging time. Most veteran growers use 1 month or less veg time and rely on the bloom cycle to do the rest.

SOG is the highest yielding and most practical grow style. I prefer tree grows myself. I like the lower plant numbers especially when you consider you clones will be counted against you, but more so I prefer the lower maintanence and smaller amount of clones.

Flourescents are all you need for veg. Panda film is the perfect materal for seperating grow spaces. It's light proof, durable and white on one side. They even make zippers you can add to your enclosure.

With scrog you especially need nearly no veg time. Running two flower chambers will just add uncessary complications and costs and without the benefit of extra yield. With the small amout of light you have, elaborate plans to divide the room are likely to reduce yield if anything. SCROG is especially useful when you can get your lights very close to the plants or when you have less than 3-4 feet of grow height.

There are many more elaborate ways to get a higher yield from your space, but you simply don't have the lights to do it at this point.

The way your growing now is basically SOG. That metal shelf is just taking up space really, but if you have to use it then you have to use it.

So if I had that space and resources. I would simply run a mother plant to make things easier and safer and ensure your genetics are not being degraded over time. Then you just take the cuttings when you want them instead of letting cuttings dictate your entire grow. Now you've alieviated most of your orginal problems simply by having a mom tucked in a corner or cabinet somewhere. Plus your genetics are more well guarded. You can also experiement with putting cuttings in stasis in the fridge like I suggested. Now you don't have to worry about your clones constnatly out growing their space and you can use a smaller space for the clones. Moms sound like a pain at first, but ultimately they make your life easier. Like I said I would put the cuttings in smaller containers and then transplant them when your ready.

This way the grow goes at your pace instead of dictating a pace.

 

[bazooka]

Question for you? How did you paste that time line diagram in here. I can't seem to do it unless I up load a pic of it. I would like to do a thread on a cheap and secure way to CO2 small areas but I can't copy and paste?

Peace

I did it in Open Office then took a screen shot of it and posted a picture

 

[bazooka]

Jesusbuiltmygro and others - You are absolutely right, a mother would fix all my timing worries. So I reveg the first 3 plants and build a cab for them. For some reason I thought maintaining a mother would be more work so I ruled it out from the beginning. As far as the scrog vs sog - I am really caught up in all this screen fanfare so I want to start w/ that even though I don't have the height/space restrictions. I could easily see myself in the future not wanting to spend as much time on my farm as I do now and switch to sog/tree.

What size container would you use to grow them to 8-10 inches before transplant to 3 gal for flower? 4"?

In summary - one 3'x4.5' scrog w/ 650w, one mother cab and one clone/veg cab.

Thx for all your help. I can sleep now.