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Hey folks!
I do a screenless SCROG that uses the bucket to hold the stem horizontal and trained in a circle. As with a scrog only the branches and end colas stick up. It's simple low stress training but I haven't seen other people tying the stem to the bucket rim on this forum so I took the liberty of naming it Crop Circle Of Bud (CCOB). It's less effecient than a SCROG but I like the portability and the ability to easily run a perpetual grow.
I got into the method out of necessity, my first grow I vegged 12 sativas about 5 months and before I found out that they needed 12/12 to produce buds I had 6'-8' giants. Over 2 or 3 weeks I bent the stems horizontal and around the bucket rim in spirals to get the plants short enough that my 400W HPS could get to all the buds. I ended up with about 5 gallons (pickle jars) of bud, a nice save for my first grow.
These are two Strawberry Diesel grown with less than 6" height over the bucket rim. They each produced about 2 liters of cured bud.
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Top view. The buds seem to be bulging, about to explode.
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Sativa Pheno from the side, 18" colas
Sativa pheno, tallest colas 18".
I harvested a small Kali Mist tonight and wanted to have a picture before I chopped it. This one had two 18" colas, the main cola and the very bottom branch. I find that the bottom branches are often the best producers with CCOB. I bent these colas over because it the other plants were all 12" and less - it was giving me heat / light height problems. The bottom of the colas are suspended above the bucket rim, the plant can be grown less than 4" above the bucket rim. I doubt this little plant will produce more than 4 cups of cured bud, but it was fun and I got some Bubblegum out of the bucket too.
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From the top. It wasn't ripening, as soon as I bent the colas horizontal it started to turn amber. Perhaps coincidence.
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The Kali Mist from above was a small clone I threw in the bucket with a small Bubblegum clone, it didn't develop well. Here's a great Kali Mist about 4 weeks into flower, the ripe one from above is to the right.
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The Kali Mist (left) from above and a Bubblegum about 3 weeks into flower. The Bubblegum's branches didn't grow as tall as usual, I transplanted into flower from a 20 oz cup to a 5 gallon bucket. I usually do an transplant into 6" pots during veg, I find the better root ball gives a better harvest.
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A Flo (left) and a Bubblegum. The Flo has another week or three, the Bubblegum should harvest in the next week. The Flo is a knarly plant, twisty leaves, small hard buds. This is my second time around for the Flo, the last hermied and I burnt it with Dutch Passion Penetrator. The smoke was so beautiful I had to run it again, this time just a few pre flower pods and bananas on the lower nodes. I picked them off and the plant has been perfect since.
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The Bubblegum (right) is going to be my best producer ever, of Bubblegum. I should get 12+ cups of cured bud.
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A long and side view of my garden (8' x 3'), 11 x 5 gallon pots and 2 x 6" pots.
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I'm running a test with these two Pandora's Boxes, they're at 16" and 19". The pic is a few weeks old, I've got the taller PB's stem almost trained and the shorter is almost 20".
The topped plant will have stems that are bowed like a cowboys legs, cross the stems so they follow their natural curves when you bend them - right side stem circles the bucket rim counter clockwise, left clockwise.
This Bubblegum's stems weren't crossed and took over a week to train. If crossed I could have done it in a few hours.
This is a 1 stem Kali Mist at 35" and a 2 stem Flo (18" & 19"). The stem is much thicker and more difficult to bend and train. We need to get the stem around the 38" of the bucket rim to get as many branches as possible, so two thinner, shorter stems are much easier. The stems virtually stop growth and stretch when bent horizontal, many more branches than a vertical plant of the same stem length. The Flo trained in about 15 minutes and the Kali Mist took days.
Flo -
Kali Mist
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Flo
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Kali Mist
You need holes drilled in your bucket just below the rim, to anchor your stem tie downs. I drill a hole every 1", 38 around the bucket. Use 1' of twist tie and make a loose loop around a stiff part of the stem, probably 3"-6" from the end. Gently bend the stem in a semi circle - experience will tell you how far you can go each day, you are going to snap a few stems and will have to repair them. I use silicon tubing to protect the stem and duct tape around the tubing. When I started I snapped stems in two that were only held together with the skin and the stems healed. Tough plant. You'll find it easiest to use 3 or 4 training twist ties along the length of each stem, taking the slack off each after one is tightened.
This is a technique you should use out of desperation (my plants were too tall for my secret 4' room when I started growing) or on plants you can afford to throw away. If you don't have any extra clones around use your male plants for experimenting and learning, just put them back in veg so they don't mess up your females in flower. Great use for something you were going to chop and toss out, now you just toss them when you're done training and you know how far you can push your females.
It'll take a few days to train a mature plant, a skinny stemmed plant from a 20 oz cup can be trainned in about 15 minutes but the yield will be low. If you force the plant, or tighten more than once a day, you will crease or snap stems - tighten the twist ties once per day only even though they will feel loose hours after tightening. This is a procedure where you really need patience. Immediately after trainning your plants they'll look like these Jack The Ripper, Pandora's Box and Chemdog, it's normal.
After the stem is trained and held in place with twist ties you have to train the branches on long branched strains. On short branched strains you have an easier time, they almost train themselves, just need a little help. I start at the base of each stem and match branches from each node, connecting them in the middle by a short piece of twist tie. The idea now is to bring eveything towards the middle and to get the branches in order. After the branches of each node are connected with twist ties start from the bottom of the stems and line up each set of branches like a deck of cards that are fanned out - the branches will pull up towards the light. Give them a week or so for the branches to settle in that position and take the twist ties off. The branches have to be twisted slightly and arranged so the branch stems aren't crossed. In the end you should have the two sides of the nodes making a V with the branches that follows the stems like circular track. After a couple of weeks and some training you're plants will look like this Jilly Bean.
This is a Super Strawberry Diesel after trimming the leaves during hang dry. The tomato care ring I tied it to is 18" in diameter, it yielded just over 2 liters (9 cups) of 4 week cured bud.
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I've been improving my technique - now I train the individual branches so they get the most light. Training with twist ties and stacking the branches like a fanned deck of cards. The branches on trained plants grow in a V channel that spreads the buds out.
Another thing I've been thinking about is building an individual 1/2 V-screen to help organize the branches and to fully use all the space in the plant's light footprint. I've MacGivered one using chicken screen and a tomato cage, I'll get a picture in a bit. I have 18" x 16" for each plant (2 rows of six 5 gallon buckets, 8'x3').
The one thing holding me back on this method is that I like to rotate the plants a couple of times a day so light gets to all parts of the buds. With a stationary 1/2 V-screen that can't be rotated some buds would stay in the shade all the time. I think it's something I'll have to try and compare against an equal clone grown on the other side of the grow floor.
This is just a mock up, when I do a trial I'll use better screen.
If you folks were doing a single bucket scrog, as part of a multi bucket grow, how would you set it up? Thanks.
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https://www.rollitup.org/seed-strain-reviews/211186-pics-my-garden-ssd-km.html
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