SCROG vs SOG vs Manifolds

[Pmr]

I’ve got a few grows in and have tried a few things. Some fairly simple and some quite scientific. I’m just goofing around for the most part and trying to find the best way for me to grow but I’m just me and might be duplicating my own mistakes over and over.

My experiments with nutrients have been fairly scientific and I think I’ve come up with a pretty good routine. Though kind of a pain in the butt, it’s proven to me to be the most effective for me.

But training and pruning are still a giant pain to me. Not the act of it, but figuring out the best method. Again, this is for me but we’re all growing the same plant (basically) and some methods will carry over from grower to grower.

My first grow was an indica forward strain and was a sloppy ScrOG but had a surprisingly good outcome. Second grow the same. 3rd and 4th were the same technique but on slightly more hybridized strains and were what I’d call less successful.

I’ve done a SOG once and was extremely pleased with the results. Though it wasn’t a traditional SOG because I didn’t allow side growth at all as some descriptions call for just letting the plant do it’s thing. I had a single top cola that was enormous.

I’ve now grown 4 separate manifolds and am left wondering if it’s worth it. I followed Nebula Haze’s basic idea and left some side growth on the 8 tops to allow for fuller plants. But they ended up too packed in and resulted in a more ScrOG look. They had a very Even canopy though with very little effort which is great. I also followed Nugbucket’s basic idea and kept only the 8 top colas. A bit more work and quite sad to constantly cut my girls that looked so good. And the delay of waiting after the pruning was done to allow healing was tedious.

My overall impression is that the overall yield wasn’t dramatically different. There were pluses and minuses to each. But the care and time involved in mainlining was much higher than any of the others. The possibility of a mistake is higher with a manifold than with other methods as well in my opinion.

One key thing that I came up with very clearly is that a single plant can and fill a 3x3 space in 2 months with manifolding. Don’t overplant. 3 plants vs 7 plants yields the same basic amount in weight though the size of the nuggets is different.

My main reason for posting my thoughts is maybe other folks can join in with their experience. I’m still learning so I’m hopeful to pick up an idea or two. And to learn any mistakes I might be making.

So please feel free to chime in and discuss!

[SilvaBack203]

New to this… here for the discussions.
Thank you for sharing your experience

[Covertgrower]

@Pmr

One key thing that I came up with very clearly is that a single plant can and fill a 3x3 space in 2 months with manifolding. Don’t overplant. 3 plants vs 7 plants yields the same basic amount in weight though the size of the nuggets is different.

This is a main point we make with growers in general. You can have 20 plants in X space, flip them sooner and harvest sooner.
Planting 1 huge plant, extended veg times, takes longer to train, and then finally flower.

I can grow more plants in one space, and flip sooner than I can one plant. Benefits of this is, variety, faster return, and less electricity spent growing same plants.
All of these variables combined brings cost down with each grow cycle.

Now if you’re doing a certain grow style for a challenge, or experience, then the above point is just that. Nothing wrong with growing a certain style for the challenge or experience. It’s still growing…

[Pmr]

Excellent point about the time it takes as a benefit! Also, if something goes wrong, you’ve got less time invested if you’re growing more plants and flipping sooner.

Thanks for adding!

[Nicky]

What covert said is what I was going to say.

[Pmr]

To clarify my first post, when I said don’t overplant I meant to avoid growing too many larger plants trying to pack them out and grow them into huge plants.

[Hellraiser]

I think manifolding adds too much veg time without a much larger yield to make it worth it. Looks cool though.

I’ve tried many grow styles over the years and find SOG with clones the most efficient and least time wasted, also no surprises with clones, you know exactly what you are going to get.

With seed grows, I just top them once, clean up the bottom third (or a little more) of the plants to keep low larfy buds to a minimum. With seed grows I’m just pheno hunting - looking for the next clone mother to add to my stable.

[Pmr]

Awesome information! Thanks!

[Budz]

Yup. They got you covered. Believe it or not both these (same plant, clones) had pretty short veg times. She just grows like mad. This was done on the first one with just flattening her out after 48h dark. First thing when she woke up for flip. Everyone finds their own way to grow. I don’t see a reason to waste veg time with a main line besides to show off.

Clone

None of my training slows growth.