Small SOG - questions, help!

[jamstigator]

Okay, here's a pic of a SOG experiment. I normally use ScroG, but thought I'd play around some with a sea of green, see how it went. There are 24 plants in there (in a 46"x20" space, 3.75 plants per square foot). The strain is Nirvana AK-48 and it's on day 31 of flowering in this pic. They are in 24 separate 1/2-gallon square pots.

Question: is this normal? Look how freakin' big they are! I pulled out a ruler and measured last night, and they are about 33" tall, not counting the pot, about 38" tall with the pots - a bit over three feet.

Did I do something wrong? Is there something I should have done but didn't, or something I shouldn't have done but did? I didn't ever in my wildest imaginings expect them to get so huge in such tiny pots, all compressed into this limited space. It's not been a problem - they're quite healthy! Watering is a bit of a pain, but tolerable. Just curious if this is what a 'normal' SOG grow is like?

jamstigator Reviewed by jamstigator on 08-24-2007. Small SOG - questions, help! Okay, here's a pic of a SOG experiment. I normally use ScroG, but thought I'd play around some with a sea of green, see how it went. There are 24 plants in there (in a 46"x20" space, 3.75 plants per square foot). The strain is Nirvana AK-48 and it's on day 31 of flowering in this pic. They are in 24 separate 1/2-gallon square pots. Question: is this normal? Look how freakin' big they are! I pulled out a ruler and measured last night, and they are about 33" tall, not counting the pot, about Rating: 5

[razzapiggy]

Though I have never done a SOG, it's usually characterized by a short veg time, and lots of plants per square foot with just one main cola on top. Your plants are pretty damn big for a SOG, you have side shoots... and it looks pretty congested in there... keep a close eye for mold\mildew and maybe try to remove a bit of the growth on the bottom though if you are deep into flowering that might be more harm than it is help. Best of luck and remember you never "do anything wrong" if your results are on point with what you were looking for

[cture]

Jam, your plants are really stretched, and this is good you can make a lots of clones now! This light in your box can't handle more than the third of the plans you have now. You are supposed to have tiny christmas trees, but you will have big streched weed with small bud to plant ratio and your yield will fall.
First: put your lamp across the box (not along)
Second: add another hps to hit 800 watts of overal hps lighting
Third: cut down your bushes for clones and start your grow over.
And you will get yor sea of green christmas trees!

[jamstigator]

Lol, waaaay too much trouble. And 800 watts for 7 square feet would seem like overkill; that'd be 112 watts per square foot, or 16,000 lumens per square foot. These were started from clones, so I don't see why new clones of these clones would make any difference. I started the clones flowering 2 days after taking them out of the EZ-Cloner. Was the mistake that I let them expand their roots for those two days instead of flowering immediately? They were all 3" or 4" tall, at most, when I began flowering.

At this point, they're less than 4 weeks from being done, and I'm guessing they'll give me six-ish ounces of buds for smoking, plus some leaves and popcorn buds for cooking. I'd rather have that than nothing!

The question is, since these were all clones, and I flowered very quickly after taking them out of the cloning machine and putting them into pots, *why* did they get so big? I may try this SOG experiment again, with some NYC Diesel clones, but I think I'll probably just go back to ScroG -- easier to water/feed 2 or 3 plants than it is 24. Safer too, legal-wise.

I have six more of these clones in a 4'x4' box with a 1k light. They do have more room there, and they are more budded up because of that, but they're also quite large, not much different than these 24. And that's with those 6 clones sitting right under a 1k light. So, it's not the light levels being inadequate making them get so big, it's something else.

Could be that AK-48, or the phenotype I have of AK-48, is just not ideal for SOG-style grows.

[cture]

Jam, you are supposed to have at least 32PARwatts per ftsq.

This will prevent excessive stretching of internodes as all plants will be provided with sufficient light energy so plants will develop buds rather than growig tall.

hps light has 30%PAR efficency, so 1 sq ft must be lighted by 97watts hps. For best results you must goal for 42 PAR watts per sqft which is 126watts of hps light per sqft.

Your plants got streched because that light in the cupboard is insufficient for that qantity of plants, if you don't wish to improve lighting then you should consider growing 3-5 plants.

[jamstigator]

Huh, I'd never heard that you needed to use twice as much light as normal when using SOG; I wouldn't have started the experiment had I known that. I have gotten 12 ounces from the same light and space via 3-plant ScroG. I was under the impression that SOG might give comparable results. On the plus side, the plants that are further along, they look pretty good, reasonably hefty, maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of an ounce per plant. If these 24 even come close to that, I won't be at all unhappy!

That still doesn't quite explain why the six plants directly under and very close to the 1k light look the same as these. Those six are *surely* getting plenty of light. Their tips are less than 6" from an air-cooled reflector housing a 1k light. In other words, 7 inches closer and part of them would be *inside* the reflector (and burn to a crisp). Actually, *any* closer and they start to exhibit heat stress and burning.

Eh, guess I'll see what happens. Being less than 4 weeks from harvest, I might as well see it on through. It's gonna take me that long to veg some NYC Diesel clones to appropriate size for a ScroG anyway. And if I can get 12 ounces with a 400 watt light (plus a few CFLs on the sides), but it'd take me 800 watts to do the same thing with SOG, well, that puts SOG at a major disadvantage in comparison. In fact, I don't see any rationale for *ever* using SOG if ScroG produces twice the buds for the same power in the same space.

[smokinbuds21]

i dont think you need more light for sog i think maybe your strain your growing that could be the only thing unless your light was way far or not enough plants per square foot but ive donne read everything u can possibly read about sog and scrog growing and never heard needing more light for sog!!!!!!!

i thought that was why you put the plants so close together because you can use the same light and just get a shity load more plants?!

jam buddy i would def harvest that shit specaily for ak48 thats enough bud to go waste! i think its a good sog grow justa huge one fuck it smoke that shit and choke once for me!!!!!!!!!

[PharmaCan]

I've got a White Widow strain that grows like your plants. You can start with tiny clones and they still end up close to 48" at harvest. My WWs don't stretch anywhere near as bad as your plants did, but I usually top them when they are small and get them to grow nice and bushy. It's actually better to vedge them a while so they can be topped. Even though you start flowering with a slightly larger plant, it grows bushier.

I give a lot of my clones to friends who grow and I always warn them that this strain grows tall fast and they're always "yeah, yeah, yeah" until about five weeks later when they call, crying because they are about to run out of headroom in their grow op. (The point being, It's not me or the way I'm growing, it's the strain.

If you like that strain, you should try topping a few of your clones and see how they grow. You might be pleasantly surprised. :thumbsup:
JMO

PC :smokin:

[PharmaCan]

Hey Jamstigator - check out this thread.

http://boards.cannabis.com/growroom-...lbs-light.html

Tranoble got three pounds from essentially the same size grow as your 1000 watt set-up. (He had 4x1000w on an 8'x8' area for 12 pounds, but that's the same coverage as your 4'x4'.) Anyhoo, he pretty well has the SOG dialed in and his thread gives a lot of details, so it's a good read.

Good luck! :thumbsup:

PC :smokin:

[jamstigator]

Aha! Yeah, Tranoble's da man!

Tranoble: "I strip the bottom 7-8 branches off at 10 days into Bud. They are so close together that the bottom stuff doesn't get much light. It's also easier to water."

That was what I should have done, but didn't. That surely explains the dense jungle I have, and my difficulty watering (especially the back ones). Welp, now I know why it didn't go quite as planned. Thanks, Pharm!

But yeah, I'm not just chucking it; that'd seem mighty wasteful. I'm sure there'll be plenty of smokable stuff there when it's done. Waste not, want not!