Indoor Growing Scrog

[FastPace]

If you're looking for pace, I'd recommend you to just go for autos straight away. Imo autos suit beginners well too, no reason be to be scared – you'll make mistakes and learn regardless of whether you pick photos or autos. Mind you autos also give you room for errors.

Keeping with the grow style of the thread I'd recommend considering the periodically top fertigated method with 70/30 coco and perlite (if you don't want rockwool). For example, you could do as @greenauto does with a big flood table and a reservoir.

And for some of the questions:

1. You can go 24/0 for vigorous growth.
2. No need for topping really, keeping the apical meristem (the main top) tied down by LST should be enough.
3. 7 gal would be plenty.
5. Depends on how big plants you'd want and your setup can handle.
6. Yes, silica from beginning. It will affect the sturdiness of stems but it won't hinder scrogging significantly.
8. Mykos can be placed in the substrate.
9. Yes TA (ex GHE) is a solid and tried option. @420autoflower has used the US equivalent version of NovaMax by TA. If you're set on going with coco you could also opt for their coco line. As for Pro Roots and Pro Bloom, TA says they are more unconventional in terms of their formulas compared to their Root Booster and Bloom Booster products – Pro Roots and Pro Bloom ofc are handy in that they are small packages.

But yeah, you can of course make the choices that suit you best. Something to consider is that scrogging multiple plants together can be difficult, especially for canopy maintenance.

Thank you very much for your input Growing autos would let me run multiple plants in the same room, no need for a seperate room for vegging plants. I was thinking about growing in 4x4 rock wool and later placing them in coco/perlite mix. I can get maximum 6x6 rockwool blocks. Is it enough to grow autos in them? I’m from EU so it’s hard to find bigger or I just don’t know where to find it. Also, thanks for input about the Pro Roots and Pro Bloom. So the grow would start like this:

Germinate in 1.5” rockwool cube pre-soaked in 250ppm at 6.0Ph. When it roots, put it in a 4x4 block that is pre-soaked in 650ppm at 6.0Ph. Later stack on a 6x6 block or on coco perlite pot(3gall pot?). Use drip irrigation 4-5 times a day. I’m going drain to the waist because I don’t want to fuck it up with the recirculating system as I’m the beginner. Schwazz and SCROG 3-5 days after I see first pistils?

As for drip irrigation, you let it drip on the top of the 4x4 block or stick the tube in the rock wool?

Really appreciate any input

 

[FastPace]

Hey! I made an account just so I can say THANK YOU for posting such valuable information online.

As someone who just recently switched to growing in Rockwool, there seems to be a huge lack of information available for rockwool growing (at least compared to soil).

Your "420autoflower scrog method" is easily the best training method I have seen for rockwool plants. I'm trying to implement it for my current grow and I'm already seeing a ton of tight internodal spacing and evenly spaced chutes. Thanks again! Attached some pics

I'm using plant wire instead of a coathanger, seems like it's working nicely so far.


I'm growing photos too. What are your questions?

These plants look healthy Do you use drip irrigation? I just grew first photoperiod in soil.

 

[LibreLoud]

These plants look healthy Do you use drip irrigation? I just grew first photoperiod in soil.

Thank you!

I use automated watering. Specifically, I'm pouring water on top of the blocks for increments of 10 seconds about 8 times a day, starting an hour after lights on ending an hour before lights off water shots once every 2-3 hours.
Grodan, the company that makes the rockwool cubes, hosts some documentation online that gives you instructions and formulas for how to calculate your ideal watering amounts. I started out by obsessing and calculating how many ML I'm giving per shot, but I've gotten a little more relaxed with it.
Here's some watering rules based on the Grodan documentation:

• During veg, you want short shots of water. If your plants are thirsty, add more shots instead of changing the shot size/duration
• During veg, you should aim for a little bit of runoff towards the middle/end of the day. Aim for 5%-10% of the block's volume as runoff
• During flower, you want long shots of water less often. You want to let the rockwool dry out a little more between waterings compared to veg
• During flower, you should be getting more runoff towards the middle/end of the day. Aim for 10%-25% of the block's volume as runoff.

Going over some of your other questions:

4x4 rockwool blocks + coco vs 6x6 rockwool blocks:

You can do either. If you get your watering automation locked down, you can get really big plants from tiny amounts of rockwool. This video is a good example of someone growing respectable sized plants in just 3 inch rockwool. My last grow was only using the 6x6 "hugo" blocks (unfortunately hadn't found the 420autoflower scrog method yet), I haven't harvested but my plants are just as big as when I was growing in 5Gal soil pots and I'm sure I could've gotten them bigger with a longer veg time.


With my newest run, I'm trying to do just 2 plants instead of 8, I'm gonna see how big they can get by being in 6x6 blocks stacked on top of the 8x8 blocks.

Germinate in 1.5” rockwool cube pre-soaked in 250ppm at 6.0Ph. When it roots, put it in a 4x4 block that is pre-soaked in 650ppm at 6.0Ph. Later stack on a 6x6 block or on coco perlite pot(3gall pot?). Use drip irrigation 4-5 times a day. I’m going drain to the waist because I don’t want to fuck it up with the recirculating system as I’m the beginner. Schwazz and SCROG 3-5 days after I see first pistils?

This should work out fine. Some people argue that you don't need to soak the original germination 1.5" cube in nutrients, just regular water, but I don't think it hurts to give them some feed right away.
PH doesn't need to be 6.0 exactly, I've been ranging my PH from 5.5 to 6.0 without much issue, usually I start and soak with 5.5
You can stack your 6x6 block onto coco or another 6x6 block, I'd recommend waiting until you see roots coming out the bottom of the top block and "transplant" by stacking and letting the top block dry out for a day while the bottom block is nice and wet. Afterwards, depending on whether you can see rooting in the bottom block/substrate you might want to continue watering from the top block for a week before you switch to only watering the bottom block and letting the roots wick up what they need into the top block.

Timeline based on previous posts in this thread:

• Around day 16 after germination you want to stake the main top down to allow the lower branches to catch up in height
• Keep the main top pinned down for a couple of weeks, adjusting the stake as needed
• The original instruction is the flatten the plants out and scrog about 5-7 days after seeing the first preflower pistils. Since we're growing photos, I'm not sure that this timing is as critical here, just make sure your plant doesn't get too tall for your space before you flip, you want to end up with enough "preflower stretch time" for the lower nodes to be able to hit and fill out your scrog net

As for drip irrigation, you let it drip on the top of the 4x4 block or stick the tube in the rock wool?

I've tried both without issue. According to Grodan, if you stick the tube into the rock wool, you want it to be emitting at a 0.5GPH flow or less, otherwise the water pressure will be too strong and "create channels in the rockwool". For watering on top of the cube, I think most of the people in this thread are using the FloraFlex FloraCaps which help redistribute water evenly when poured on top

Last note, for nutrients, I'd highly recommend CropSalts to anyone interested in new nutrients. I tried the GH Flora Trio for my first run, the feed chart had me running different ratios of their three bottles every week and I was constantly troubleshooting issues with my plants. I switched to CropSalts and I couldn't be happier. Same formula/ratio from seed to flower week 4, a different flower formula/ratio for flower week 4-8, and a third formula/ratio for the last weeks of flush. Also, my rez PH is a lot more stable compared to when I was using the GH flora trio. Super easy and has worked incredible for me in my first run with it

 

[Mongoose]

Hey my friends, can I please get some advice on light intensity and distance I should be with my 240watt LED fixture from my canopy for 420A's Scrog Method? It's a high intensity dimmable full spectrum LED.

- I'm at day 7 seedling stage and have real slow growth compared to where I think I should be. I've have had my 240Watt full spectrum LED 45cm from the canopy with roughly 12ish dli. After reading your post the other day, Mongoose, I seen you mentioned you have had your LED's at 15 - 20cm from your seedlings pushing 55dli. I've gone ahead and set mine to what you have going on and am monitoring. I'm assuming this is to push the seedlings hard for rapid growth? So yeah wondering whats the general consensus with that. Cheers all, I'll pop a picture up here so you can see the slow progress. No roots showing through the rockwool yet..

Feeding till runoff with Green Planet Duel Fuel + Vitathrive. pH @ 6.0, EC @ 0.8.
24hrs Lights on, 23 - 25 degrees C, 55 - 65%Humidity

Cheers All!
View attachment 1721495

Tristan, my plants are 5 inches ( 2.5 cm ) from the light: 250 watt, set at 40%, so using 100 watts. 640 ppfd, 55 dli, running 24/7. As I think I mentioned, most of the literature recommends a bit less at this stage of growth for ppfd, and quite a bit less for dli -- in the 30s range. Plants seem to be fine so far though. ( The two strains do have different overall leaf appearances, but I'm assuming that's all that is. ) ( Also recommend Photone and their recommended cosine clamp-on diffuser. Photo of the diffuser below. )

 

[FastPace]

Thank you!

I use automated watering. Specifically, I'm pouring water on top of the blocks for increments of 10 seconds about 8 times a day, starting an hour after lights on ending an hour before lights off water shots once every 2-3 hours.
Grodan, the company that makes the rockwool cubes, hosts some documentation online that gives you instructions and formulas for how to calculate your ideal watering amounts. I started out by obsessing and calculating how many ML I'm giving per shot, but I've gotten a little more relaxed with it.
Here's some watering rules based on the Grodan documentation:

• During veg, you want short shots of water. If your plants are thirsty, add more shots instead of changing the shot size/duration
• During veg, you should aim for a little bit of runoff towards the middle/end of the day. Aim for 5%-10% of the block's volume as runoff
• During flower, you want long shots of water less often. You want to let the rockwool dry out a little more between waterings compared to veg
• During flower, you should be getting more runoff towards the middle/end of the day. Aim for 10%-25% of the block's volume as runoff.

Going over some of your other questions:

You can do either. If you get your watering automation locked down, you can get really big plants from tiny amounts of rockwool. This video is a good example of someone growing respectable sized plants in just 3 inch rockwool. My last grow was only using the 6x6 "hugo" blocks (unfortunately hadn't found the 420autoflower scrog method yet), I haven't harvested but my plants are just as big as when I was growing in 5Gal soil pots and I'm sure I could've gotten them bigger with a longer veg time.
View attachment 1721518View attachment 1721519

With my newest run, I'm trying to do just 2 plants instead of 8, I'm gonna see how big they can get by being in 6x6 blocks stacked on top of the 8x8 blocks.



This should work out fine. Some people argue that you don't need to soak the original germination 1.5" cube in nutrients, just regular water, but I don't think it hurts to give them some feed right away.
PH doesn't need to be 6.0 exactly, I've been ranging my PH from 5.5 to 6.0 without much issue, usually I start and soak with 5.5
You can stack your 6x6 block onto coco or another 6x6 block, I'd recommend waiting until you see roots coming out the bottom of the top block and "transplant" by stacking and letting the top block dry out for a day while the bottom block is nice and wet. Afterwards, depending on whether you can see rooting in the bottom block/substrate you might want to continue watering from the top block for a week before you switch to only watering the bottom block and letting the roots wick up what they need into the top block.

Timeline based on previous posts in this thread:

• Around day 16 after germination you want to stake the main top down to allow the lower branches to catch up in height
• Keep the main top pinned down for a couple of weeks, adjusting the stake as needed
• The original instruction is the flatten the plants out and scrog about 5-7 days after seeing the first preflower pistils. Since we're growing photos, I'm not sure that this timing is as critical here, just make sure your plant doesn't get too tall for your space before you flip, you want to end up with enough "preflower stretch time" for the lower nodes to be able to hit and fill out your scrog net

I've tried both without issue. According to Grodan, if you stick the tube into the rock wool, you want it to be emitting at a 0.5GPH flow or less, otherwise the water pressure will be too strong and "create channels in the rockwool". For watering on top of the cube, I think most of the people in this thread are using the FloraFlex FloraCaps which help redistribute water evenly when poured on top

Last note, for nutrients, I'd highly recommend CropSalts to anyone interested in new nutrients. I tried the GH Flora Trio for my first run, the feed chart had me running different ratios of their three bottles every week and I was constantly troubleshooting issues with my plants. I switched to CropSalts and I couldn't be happier. Same formula/ratio from seed to flower week 4, a different flower formula/ratio for flower week 4-8, and a third formula/ratio for the last weeks of flush. Also, my rez PH is a lot more stable compared to when I was using the GH flora trio. Super easy and has worked incredible for me in my first run with it

Thanks a lot! These plants looks great! That’s some dope info you got. Saved your info for further studies. Do you run 18/6 lights in veg? I’ll need to dial the watering. What do you think about Terra Aquatica Maxi Grow and Bloom? You still need to add calmag? I used the GHE trio for my first grow. I can’t find CropSalts in the EU shops. Gotcha about Ph. Do you use any additives? I know I ask a lot of questions My buddy who has been growing for years used to share info but now when I started growing he stopped sharing

 

[LibreLoud]

Thanks a lot! These plants looks great! That’s some dope info you got. Saved your info for further studies. Do you run 18/6 lights in veg? I’ll need to dial the watering. What do you think about Terra Aquatica Maxi Grow and Bloom? You still need to add calmag? I used the GHE trio for my first grow. I can’t find CropSalts in the EU shops. Gotcha about Ph. Do you use any additives? I know I ask a lot of questions My buddy who has been growing for years used to share info but now when I started growing he stopped sharing

I run 18/6 lights all throughout veg and switch over to 12/12 for flower. There's debate online on whether 24hr lights are good for photos, some say it causes extra growth while others say the plants need the darkness to "sleep" and grow better. I figure the tradeoff of 6 less hours of light on my electric bill outweighs the potential slight benefit of 24 hour light growth. I'm sure for Autoflowers it's different though.

Unfortunately I'm not very familiar with Terra Aquatica nutrients and can't give you much advice there. One thing I'll say is that switching over to powder-based nutrients was a game changer, much cheaper and more stable in general compared to the pre-mixed bottles of nutrient solution I was getting from GH.
I add a little bit of calmag (like 1mg per gallon) every 2-3 weeks during veg but I don't think I need to, at this point I'm just doing it out of superstition lol..

In terms of additives, I've tried a few. These are mostly advertised as for soil, but I had some leftover and figured it couldn't hurt. Once every 1-2 weeks, when I'm refilling my rez, I'll fill my watering can + add an additive and manually hand feed my plants to make sure they get a good thorough soak.
My favorite one so far is Stash Blend, another one I've used is Growers Recharge. I've heard they're both similar but stash is supposed to be better, I haven't done any tests to see what difference these additives actually make so it could all be hocus pocus bro science. I have a gut feeling that the Stash makes my stems thicker and stronger, and the Recharge makes my roots spread and expand like crazy. Again, I could be totally wrong, I've also heard that using an inert substrate like rockwool means that microbes and bennies found in additives like stash and recharge don't live or survive or have effect.

This one is gonna sound crazy, but I also add 0.2ml/g unscented bleach to my water based on CropSalt recommendation. They use it as "the main source of ORP" in their formula. I'm not a scientist, my loose understanding is that the bleach helps keep the nutrient solution and your tubing "healthy"? It's probably directly undoing any benefits I'd get from using Stash and Recharge but everything's been working nicely for me so far ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[DOA]

Thanks a lot! These plants looks great! That’s some dope info you got. Saved your info for further studies. Do you run 18/6 lights in veg? I’ll need to dial the watering. What do you think about Terra Aquatica Maxi Grow and Bloom? You still need to add calmag? I used the GHE trio for my first grow. I can’t find CropSalts in the EU shops. Gotcha about Ph. Do you use any additives? I know I ask a lot of questions My buddy who has been growing for years used to share info but now when I started growing he stopped sharing

Terra Aquatic is the new name for General Hydroponics Maxi Grow etc, it's the stuff you want. This product also has Calcium and magnesium included so no need to add any extra calmag. When you see pistols switch to the Maxi Bloom and add an additional bllomer, something like Kool Bloom or Moster Bloom to reach your target EC/PPM.

Just run your lights 24/7 full blast, ph6 entire grow and keep your ec/ppm in range at the required times.

 

[FastPace]

Terra Aquatic is the new name for General Hydroponics Maxi Grow etc, it's the stuff you want. This product also has Calcium and magnesium included so no need to add any extra calmag. When you see pistols switch to the Maxi Bloom and add an additional bllomer, something like Kool Bloom or Moster Bloom to reach your target EC/PPM.

Just run your lights 24/7 full blast, ph6 entire grow and keep your ec/ppm in range at the required times.

Thank you for your guidance You two with 420autoflower are my studies Is it okay to pre-soak 1.5” in 250ppm or just give plain RO Ph’d water for a week?

 

[FastPace]

I run 18/6 lights all throughout veg and switch over to 12/12 for flower. There's debate online on whether 24hr lights are good for photos, some say it causes extra growth while others say the plants need the darkness to "sleep" and grow better. I figure the tradeoff of 6 less hours of light on my electric bill outweighs the potential slight benefit of 24 hour light growth. I'm sure for Autoflowers it's different though.

Unfortunately I'm not very familiar with Terra Aquatica nutrients and can't give you much advice there. One thing I'll say is that switching over to powder-based nutrients was a game changer, much cheaper and more stable in general compared to the pre-mixed bottles of nutrient solution I was getting from GH.
I add a little bit of calmag (like 1mg per gallon) every 2-3 weeks during veg but I don't think I need to, at this point I'm just doing it out of superstition lol..

In terms of additives, I've tried a few. These are mostly advertised as for soil, but I had some leftover and figured it couldn't hurt. Once every 1-2 weeks, when I'm refilling my rez, I'll fill my watering can + add an additive and manually hand feed my plants to make sure they get a good thorough soak.
My favorite one so far is Stash Blend, another one I've used is Growers Recharge. I've heard they're both similar but stash is supposed to be better, I haven't done any tests to see what difference these additives actually make so it could all be hocus pocus bro science. I have a gut feeling that the Stash makes my stems thicker and stronger, and the Recharge makes my roots spread and expand like crazy. Again, I could be totally wrong, I've also heard that using an inert substrate like rockwool means that microbes and bennies found in additives like stash and recharge don't live or survive or have effect.

This one is gonna sound crazy, but I also add 0.2ml/g unscented bleach to my water based on CropSalt recommendation. They use it as "the main source of ORP" in their formula. I'm not a scientist, my loose understanding is that the bleach helps keep the nutrient solution and your tubing "healthy"? It's probably directly undoing any benefits I'd get from using Stash and Recharge but everything's been working nicely for me so far ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you for your knowledge. I will plan my grow and possibly soon start it For cleaner system I could get Athena Cleanse. My guys that I buy said it will make it clean from clogging. Do you know this Athena brand? I see they charge some on it

 

[DOA]

Thank you for your guidance You two with 420autoflower are my studies Is it okay to pre-soak 1.5” in 250ppm or just give plain RO Ph’d water for a week?

Yeah just pre-soak it to 250. You can just add the Maxi Grow to the RO to make 350ppm or 0.7ec from day 4 or so by day 11 you want to be about 1.1ec.