Get a Harvest Every 2 Weeks

[Al B. Fuct]

This style of op is known as 'Sea of Green' or SoG.

You can build this op in any scale you like, from a single mother and just one plant put in to the flowering area every two weeks up to as big as your needs require.

The idea is to grow only the top cola of a naturally growing plant with none of the lower branches and the small buds those branches produce. All branching, pretty much everything on the lower 1/3 of the plant, is snipped off in about wk 2 & 3.

Plant at 6 wks flowering, note lower branching is removed

The method of putting clones in to flower with no vegging time keeps plants relatively short, to about 36-40" (1 metre), which better suits artificial lighting.

Even powerful HPS lighting can only penetrate foliage so deeply, so a metre tall is just about right. I find that big lights give better bud density, so I use two 1000W HPS, one over each pair of 4' x 4' flood trays.

The mums are maintained under 24 hour 400W HPS. The clonebox has 6x 18W fluoro tubes (24"), usually on 24/7 but shut off for the first 6-8 hours after doing a new batch of cuttings.

Clones go straight from the clonebox into the flowering trays- no vegging required. They grow a little bit vegetatively for the first 3-4 weeks but then stop getting taller and start making bud weight after then.

I keep about 6-8 mothers and do about 30 cuttings every 2 weeks from them. I choose the best 20-23 clones to be put in the 4-tray flowering area.

Leftover clones become replacement mothers or are discarded. Mothers are replaced one by one, about every 4-8 weeks as needed.

As each batch of clones goes in to tray #1, a batch comes out of tray #4 to be harvested, every 2 weeks.

The mother vegging area is in the same room with the flowering plants, but has a lightproof curtain to prevent interrupting the flowering plants' light cycle and has its own ventilation system as well. Each tray in both the veg & flower areas has its own pump, reservoir tank and timer, allowing the watering rate and nute mix to be tailored to the plant for vegging as well as during each 2 week phase of flowering.

See my gallery for pics of the op in action as well as pix of clones in rockwool cubes and clonebox details.



*************************************

ERRATA:

I have not had to use imperial figures in many years. When I wrote this post, I estimated the size of the flood trays as 4'x4'. I estimated WRRRONG! They are actually 900x900mm or about 35.4" square.

Somewhere in this thread I also estimate that the pots used are 8" dia- wrong again. They are 175mm top diameter, 130mm bottom dia and 175mm tall. They hold approximately 4L of media.

Despite our traditional love of pounds and ounces, cannabis growers should learn to love the metric system. It is infinitely easier to manage litres and ml than it is to deal with gallons, ounces and worst, teaspoons, the size of which changes from country to country.

*************************************

 

[ablazed blunt]

Around how many grams do you get every 2 weeks? Very nice setup.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Thanks for the compliment. The op makes 13-16oz every 2 weeks, sometimes more if all is going well. I guess that's 360-450g+ every 2 wks.

 

[stinky]

me like.....

 

[ablazed blunt]

There is 16ozs in a pound right? Yeah, so you get around a pound every two weeks. Thats two pounds a month. I don't know about you but thats alot of weed to me. You should start a grow journal. I would like to keep up with the grow. Goodluck and happy growing.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

There is 16ozs in a pound right? Yeah, so you get around a pound every two weeks. Thats two pounds a month.

Yep, that's about right.

I don't know about you but thats alot of weed to me.

That's a lot of weed for anyone. Figure that the entire grow op fits in a cramped and tiny 7' tall x 8' wide x 9' long space. High weed density growing.

You should start a grow journal. I would like to keep up with the grow. Goodluck and happy growing.

I don't know if I want to do a running journal- the op does the same thing all the time... and I AM a fricken lazy stoner.

I will add some pics of the mums when they are next ready for cuttings and also the clones as they set root. I've just rebuilt the op so the 4th table (for wks 6-8 ) is not presently installed, so I could do some pix of that when it goes in as well.

Thanks for your interest. I'm happy to answer queries about the op. Anyone should be able to duplicate this op and its performance.

 

[ablazed blunt]

I don't know if I want to do a running journal- the op does the same thing all the time...

You could do a a two week journal? What kind of plants are you growing?

I think you have six mothers? Well when you take 30 clones from them how long does it take for more to grow back. I know it has to be least then two weeks. I read about your kind of setup before in a book I got but I have never seen anyone really do it. Your grow beds, its soil right? No kind of hydroponics or anything? Well dam, your doing very good for yourself. Keep up the nice work. Happy growing.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

You could do a a two week journal?

sounds like work.

What kind of plants are you growing?

Sweet Tooth #4 from Spice of Life Seeds

I think you have six mothers? Well when you take 30 clones from them how long does it take for more to grow back. I know it has to be least then two weeks.

Takes almost exactly 15 days for the mums to regrow. They'll have new material about 20" tall in that time. I raise MUCH more mum material than I need. I compost about 2/3 of the new material from each mum each time I do a pass of cuttings. However, overgrowing the mums this way, I am assured of healthy, thick stems for top performing clones. The fatter the better.

I read about your kind of setup before in a book I got but I have never seen anyone really do it.

I'm sure there's nothing new under the sun (or the lights). Everyone has probably tried everything once. I just happened on this arrangement through necessity. I wanted buds every 2 weeks- and the op just followed suit.

Your grow beds, its soil right? No kind of hydroponics or anything? Well dam, your doing very good for yourself. Keep up the nice work. Happy growing.

It is a flood hydro system, even for the mums. 5 trays total, 5 tanks. Cuttings are rooted in rockwool cubes. I use 8" plastic pots stuffed with loose rockwool for raising plants. See pics in my gallery. No soil- no thanks.

 

[akidynoken]

are you growing in dirt or hydro, sorry first post i grow in hydro dwc at the moment, have been looking for someone with sog experience to get some info on it for next grow. Right now I have six plants about 3 week into flower 3 northern lights and 3 ppp. been wanting to do a sog for a while but havent found the right info, I built an aero setup but can scrap that for the right sog info, any help would be apprecieated, thanks

 

[Al B. Fuct]

are you growing in dirt or hydro,

see immediately previous post.

 

[akidynoken]

ok sorry about missing that one, but do you have a seperate res for each table, what kind of nutes are you using, I'm using flora nova grow/bloom with overdrive at the last three weeks of bloom. because I could setup a flood and drain very easily but just need o know about the res and a few other variables, thank you for you quick response, very much apprecieated.

 

[videoman40]

I know a little about this, probably like everyone else, I've read a bit on it.
In fact, this is exactly what NGT and I were talking about a while back, except tailored to soil, I think you could get by with 6" square pots using soil, which would give you 4 plants per sq ft.
You know, from where I sit, the square pots are hard to find. I may go to home depot today and look. I know htg dosent have them.
I think I messed up by not taking cuttings earlier in my grow, so now i have to do another grow, and take cuttings earlier, so I can maintain a mother.
I wonder using this method, and a 430 watt hps if I could maintain 16 plants? 4 plants at each interval, and I could harvest a qp every two weeks?
Of course if that works, I'd end up needing to improve on it too! lol
Peace.

 

[akidynoken]

kind of what I was thinking was to build 4 separate f@d tables all with the same size lid and just swap the lids to each table every two weeks, do you think that would work with say four to six plants?

 

[ChillWill151]

Hey i was thinking of cloning my plants too, but i was wondering if u need to give the mothers any special treatment after u cut them?

 

[mogie]

Be careful crowding your plants invites disease. Keeping your envirnoment sterile is very important. That includes all items used like mositure wands, scissors, etc. This is meant for all of us. I am sure we could all do better when it comes to a clean grow area.

 

[akidynoken]

even still this is one of the most informative posts i've read on all the forums out there, cant say for o.g. because I was never on that forum but I do check with pretty much all of them, been laid off for two months have had a lot of time on my hands, but even for such a short thread it is very informative. Thanks all

 

[cali-high]

how many plants do you have at one time?


i was planning on doing something simular to this

 

[akidynoken]

well normally between 6 and 8 in a dwc but I built an aero setup that I was planning to use next grow but undecided about doing a sog or doing an aero grow next, have been wanting to do a sog for a long time but hesitating to do a sog because of no experience with it and would hate to have a fucked up grow possibly, times with no weed suck, only thing making me want to do it this time is I'm probably going to get a good yeild this round, plus I also grow at my neighbors place as he wanted a setup, believe it or not I grow better at his place, cant figure that out, we dont fuck with the plants there as much as I do at my place and the yeilds we get off those plants(PPP) are just unreal, I dont know what I'm going to do next grow but whatever it is I really appreciate all the info on this thread

 

[Al B. Fuct]

ok sorry about missing that one, but do you have a seperate res for each table,

Yes, 1 tank per tray. Each tray is about 4' square, holds ~20 8" dia pots. Trays flood to about 3" (150mm) deep. Each tray does have its own tank so the nute mix can be suited to a plant in a specific 2-week time band in the flowering cycle. Tank/tray 1 is mixed for just-rooted cuttings, from week 0-2. Tank/tray 2 is for week 2-4 and gets a slightly stronger mix than #1. Also gets a dose of Canna PK-13-14 in wk 3.

Tanks are a little bigger than they actually have to be to keep the pumps submerged while flooding the trays (could probably be as small as about 70 litres) but I use 125 litre tanks, just plain old plastic storage containers.

The mothers are in a very small tray (about 1' x 4') with a 35-40 litre tank.

what kind of nutes are you using,

Canna Vega Substra for the mothers, Canna Flores Substra for flowering, Canna PK-13-14 phosphorus additive in wk 3-4. Pathogen control with hydrogen peroxide (50% strength) @ 1ml/litre every 3-4 days when topping up tanks with plain tap water... and nothing else. No wacky magic sauces, no crazy beeswax and brewers yeast additives or other silliness.

I even find I have no general need to adjust pH after mixing up with Canna nutes- pH is always right on 5.6. pH may bump a little after a couple of top-ups but rarely goes above 5.8.

Not mentioned in my setup data is the ventilation system. Veg and flower have independent air systems which can change the whole air volume in each every 2-3 mins. With 2kW of lights in the flowering area, this is about the minimum needed to keep temps stable without using aircon.

There's oscillating circ fans in every corner of the flowering area and a fluorsescent UV ioniser (with light trap) which runs 30min on/30min off all hours- keeps scent and mould well in check. A second ioniser in the area outside the room istelf guarantees no stray scents escape.

 

[akidynoken]

yes my flower area is about 34" deep by 49" wide by about 5 1/2feet tall and my veg area is same but diff height, if I was to do a sog do you think that there is enough room to do it perpetually? if so how many plants per harvest? Dont like to ask so many questions but other than trial and ERROR thats the best way to learn