Thoughts on utilizing SCRoG or SOG with height limitations (4 ft vertically)

I was using notill in 4x4 bed or big pots, we moved and until the addition is finished I SHOULD grow in our “crawl space” under the house. It’s 4ft tall but very open horizontally. I have an HLG Scorpion R Spec LED, it covers a lot of area and is only 2.75in deep.

I’ve never done SOG but I have a plant growing (bodhi) as a potential mother if I went that route. I was thinking I’d rather have like 4 plants and just diligently LST them… Maby 6/8 tops per plant and could get little lights for side lighting.

I was thinking I could use like 10 gallon fabric pots and roll the sides down to save vertical space.. What do you suggest?

4ft in height is limited, especially accounting for the 1.5 ft of distance between the canopy and light. So, effectively only 2-2.5ft of vertical space.

If you flower your plants out when they're 1ft tall, they'll grow 2-2.5 ft tall and you'll be good to go.

I'm guessing plant count limits your ability to just take an army of clones and flower them out immediately? You could even use your same 4x4 bed from before. If not, 4-6 plants can fill a 4x4 space no problem. Less veg time with 6 as opposed to 4, of course. But I'm not sure of your plant limit.

More plants is best, if possible. Little to no veg time results in more harvests through the year, and more top nugs when harvesting.

All the best!

I followed a guy on IC long ago and he scrogger plants horizontally. I have done similar grows with old mothers that i just did not want to waste. So I have planted them sideways. You just have to bury the root ball and the plant adjusts. It does take work and some veg time.
This is a version, when I planted them sideways they were over 5.5 feet. I started bending them for a few weeks then planted them. If you start them going sideways under a scrog they will do fine. If you are on instagram there is a guy named northern scrogger. Look at his grows. 4' is a challenge but it you have the "layout space" and the climate control it can work. Although I have some hlg350r and they do get hotter than my Hortilux 350es bar lights. Good Luck.

What’s up Kratos, long time no see. I was doing notill in my 4x4 for awhile and was mainly on GC or reddit some.
I am not worried about plant numbers whatsoever! I keep bouncing back snd forth whether I should do SCROG or SOG, so I’ve just been growing this bodhi mother plant… I have some in-house going as well.

I was like 99% sure iI was going to SCROG, but now thinking I’ll SOG as I learned a lot about cloning. SOG can outperform SCROG you think?

When training/growing a mother plant intended for SOG, is there anything specific you should do? My mother had like 14 tops but I can keep bending shoots and get more tops.

I’d like to ask a few more questions after your reply, but what medium would you suggest if I did SOG? I’ve NEVER done hydro and only some coco once (it was pretty easy.) I don’t want to do soil SOG (unless in a bed,) as I don’t care for soil and bottled nutrients.

kratos015 said:

4ft in height is limited, especially accounting for the 1.5 ft of distance between the canopy and light. So, effectively only 2-2.5ft of vertical space.

If you flower your plants out when they're 1ft tall, they'll grow 2-2.5 ft tall and you'll be good to go.

I'm guessing plant count limits your ability to just take an army of clones and flower them out immediately? You could even use your same 4x4 bed from before. If not, 4-6 plants can fill a 4x4 space no problem. Less veg time with 6 as opposed to 4, of course. But I'm not sure of your plant limit.

More plants is best, if possible. Little to no veg time results in more harvests through the year, and more top nugs when harvesting.

All the best!

Click to expand...

Hahaha those plants are bent over pretty hardcore. If I was to do SCROG with my limited space, I’d probably start with clones or small plants and top them and get them bent over (LST) IMMEDIATELY. Maby 4-5 plants in extra short/extra wide fabric pots that have like 6-8 tops per plant.

I keep being indecisive whether to do SOG or SCROG though bud…. I have to choose within a week tops too.

ilovetoskiatalta said:

I followed a guy on IC long ago and he scrogger plants horizontally. I have done similar grows with old mothers that i just did not want to waste. So I have planted them sideways. You just have to bury the root ball and the plant adjusts. It does take work and some veg time.
This is a version, when I planted them sideways they were over 5.5 feet. I started bending them for a few weeks then planted them. If you start them going sideways under a scrog they will do fine. If you are on instagram there is a guy named northern scrogger. Look at his grows. 4' is a challenge but it you have the "layout space" and the climate control it can work. Although I have some hlg350r and they do get hotter than my Hortilux 350es bar lights. Good Luck.

View attachment 5109814

Click to expand...

Kind Sir said:

What’s up Kratos, long time no see. I was doing notill in my 4x4 for awhile and was mainly on GC or reddit some.
I am not worried about plant numbers whatsoever! I keep bouncing back snd forth whether I should do SCROG or SOG, so I’ve just been growing this bodhi mother plant… I have some in-house going as well.

I was like 99% sure iI was going to SCROG, but now thinking I’ll SOG as I learned a lot about cloning. SOG can outperform SCROG you think?

When training/growing a mother plant intended for SOG, is there anything specific you should do? My mother had like 14 tops but I can keep bending shoots and get more tops.

I’d like to ask a few more questions after your reply, but what medium would you suggest if I did SOG? I’ve NEVER done hydro and only some coco once (it was pretty easy.) I don’t want to do soil SOG (unless in a bed,) as I don’t care for soil and bottled nutrients.

Click to expand...

Hope all has been well with you too my man, good to see you.

Incredible news that you don't have to worry about plant counts, you'll be able to harvest so much more now. No veg means 1 extra harvest per year, on average. And the harvests from SOG are much heavier than SCroG if done properly.

For mothers, my first order of business is bending and training them to expose as many tops as possible. As you said, you can keep bending those shoots and getting more tops. You can even top the shoots, and double the tops in a few weeks veg time.

When you say you have mothers, I take it this means you have a dedicated veg room, yes? Sounds like you have everything you need to get rocking with a SOG grow. Take your clones 4-5 weeks prior to harvesting, every time. It takes 7-14 days to root, on average, leaving you with 2-3 weeks of vegging the clones in your veg room while you wait for your current 12/12 to finish. Then, upon harvest, take your clones and plant them in your 4x4 bed.

1 clone for every 1sqft, so for your 4x4 bed, 16 clones in total. Transplant the 16 new clones into your 4x4 bed after harvest, and keep things on 12/12 to trigger flower immediately. During the flower stretch, those 16 clones should result in a perfect canopy that covers every square inch of the 4x4 space. And, since they're only clones, they won't grow taller than 2-2.5 ft, perfect for situation.


Why does it outperform and outyield SCroG? A few reasons.

The biggest reason is veg time, or rather a lack of it. Vegging and flowering in the same room kills time. We spend 4-6 weeks on average vegging before 12/12, right? Making the average time for harvest 12-14 weeks (4 weeks veg, 8-10 weeks flower, strain dependent). For sake of example, lets assume 12 weeks, or 3 months. Done this way, we get 4 harvests per year.

And that is for non-SCroG grows. As we all know, doing SCroG adds another 4 weeks to veg time, if not longer. With a SCroG done in the above method, now we're done to 3 harvests per year instead of 4.

But, by growing SOG, cloning and vegging in a separate room, harvest only takes 8-10 weeks because we've eliminated veg entirely. Lets assume 9 weeks on average. 52 weeks in a year, right? Doing SOG, we get 6 harvests in 54 weeks, instead of 3-4.

Not only do we get more harvests, but the harvests themselves have more weight to them. Why? More main colas/tops with SOG than anything else. Instead of tons of tiny-medium sized buds, the bulk of the buds are now top buds, resulting in bigger yields on top of the fact we get 1-2 extra harvests in a year.

The main downside is you need either the same exact strain for all 16 clones, or strains that grow/stretch similar to one another. Don't want uneven canopies if you can avoid it.

SCroG is fun as hell, don't get me wrong. But ultimately, it isn't very efficient in terms of both time and yields. The main reason for people to go SCroG is due to plant count limits, many states only allow 4-6 per adult, so SCroG makes sense in these situations.

Like with any plant, more plants will always outyield a single plant vegged for a long time. Take tomatoes for instance. One tomato plant can grow into a monster. However, it would be much more efficient growing 4-6 tomatoes instead of one big one. The 4-6 plants will provide larger tomatoes than the single plant, and be less prone to stress, bugs, and diseases.

Hope that helps my man. You'll definitely love SOG once you get it dialed in.

All the best.

You’ve always been stupid informative bud, thank you. I have a few questions and i’ll put them as bullet points so it’s easier. My mother plant and 3 smaller plants are just in a small closet for now. I’m moving everything into my “crawl space” for now…

I’m unsure if I should buy a couple small tents or if it would work just as well building them. Wood prices are high, so maby I should just use thick foam and line it.

1. How deep would the soil be? The walls of my 4x4 bed is probably like 2ft, I guess I could just fold the walls down?

2. Regarding the mother plant, is there a # of shoots I should go for so I have a little less but stronger shoots? Besides silica (agsil16h,) what else can I do to ensure the shoots are perfect for cloning?

3. I havnt done much cloning, friend on GC showed me a great way to clone using. He uses 1 1/2in rockwool cubes, will those transplant well to the soil bed?

4. Lastly, do branches lower on the plant contain more hormones (better for cloning.) ?

kratos015 said:

Hope all has been well with you too my man, good to see you.

Incredible news that you don't have to worry about plant counts, you'll be able to harvest so much more now. No veg means 1 extra harvest per year, on average. And the harvests from SOG are much heavier than SCroG if done properly.

For mothers, my first order of business is bending and training them to expose as many tops as possible. As you said, you can keep bending those shoots and getting more tops. You can even top the shoots, and double the tops in a few weeks veg time.

When you say you have mothers, I take it this means you have a dedicated veg room, yes? Sounds like you have everything you need to get rocking with a SOG grow. Take your clones 4-5 weeks prior to harvesting, every time. It takes 7-14 days to root, on average, leaving you with 2-3 weeks of vegging the clones in your veg room while you wait for your current 12/12 to finish. Then, upon harvest, take your clones and plant them in your 4x4 bed.

1 clone for every 1sqft, so for your 4x4 bed, 16 clones in total. Transplant the 16 new clones into your 4x4 bed after harvest, and keep things on 12/12 to trigger flower immediately. During the flower stretch, those 16 clones should result in a perfect canopy that covers every square inch of the 4x4 space. And, since they're only clones, they won't grow taller than 2-2.5 ft, perfect for situation.


Why does it outperform and outyield SCroG? A few reasons.

The biggest reason is veg time, or rather a lack of it. Vegging and flowering in the same room kills time. We spend 4-6 weeks on average vegging before 12/12, right? Making the average time for harvest 12-14 weeks (4 weeks veg, 8-10 weeks flower, strain dependent). For sake of example, lets assume 12 weeks, or 3 months. Done this way, we get 4 harvests per year.

And that is for non-SCroG grows. As we all know, doing SCroG adds another 4 weeks to veg time, if not longer. With a SCroG done in the above method, now we're done to 3 harvests per year instead of 4.

But, by growing SOG, cloning and vegging in a separate room, harvest only takes 8-10 weeks because we've eliminated veg entirely. Lets assume 9 weeks on average. 52 weeks in a year, right? Doing SOG, we get 6 harvests in 54 weeks, instead of 3-4.

Not only do we get more harvests, but the harvests themselves have more weight to them. Why? More main colas/tops with SOG than anything else. Instead of tons of tiny-medium sized buds, the bulk of the buds are now top buds, resulting in bigger yields on top of the fact we get 1-2 extra harvests in a year.

The main downside is you need either the same exact strain for all 16 clones, or strains that grow/stretch similar to one another. Don't want uneven canopies if you can avoid it.

SCroG is fun as hell, don't get me wrong. But ultimately, it isn't very efficient in terms of both time and yields. The main reason for people to go SCroG is due to plant count limits, many states only allow 4-6 per adult, so SCroG makes sense in these situations.

Like with any plant, more plants will always outyield a single plant vegged for a long time. Take tomatoes for instance. One tomato plant can grow into a monster. However, it would be much more efficient growing 4-6 tomatoes instead of one big one. The 4-6 plants will provide larger tomatoes than the single plant, and be less prone to stress, bugs, and diseases.

Hope that helps my man. You'll definitely love SOG once you get it dialed in.

All the best.

Click to expand...

kratos015 said:

Hope all has been well with you too my man, good to see you.

Incredible news that you don't have to worry about plant counts, you'll be able to harvest so much more now. No veg means 1 extra harvest per year, on average. And the harvests from SOG are much heavier than SCroG if done properly.

For mothers, my first order of business is bending and training them to expose as many tops as possible. As you said, you can keep bending those shoots and getting more tops. You can even top the shoots, and double the tops in a few weeks veg time.

When you say you have mothers, I take it this means you have a dedicated veg room, yes? Sounds like you have everything you need to get rocking with a SOG grow. Take your clones 4-5 weeks prior to harvesting, every time. It takes 7-14 days to root, on average, leaving you with 2-3 weeks of vegging the clones in your veg room while you wait for your current 12/12 to finish. Then, upon harvest, take your clones and plant them in your 4x4 bed.

1 clone for every 1sqft, so for your 4x4 bed, 16 clones in total. Transplant the 16 new clones into your 4x4 bed after harvest, and keep things on 12/12 to trigger flower immediately. During the flower stretch, those 16 clones should result in a perfect canopy that covers every square inch of the 4x4 space. And, since they're only clones, they won't grow taller than 2-2.5 ft, perfect for situation.


Why does it outperform and outyield SCroG? A few reasons.

The biggest reason is veg time, or rather a lack of it. Vegging and flowering in the same room kills time. We spend 4-6 weeks on average vegging before 12/12, right? Making the average time for harvest 12-14 weeks (4 weeks veg, 8-10 weeks flower, strain dependent). For sake of example, lets assume 12 weeks, or 3 months. Done this way, we get 4 harvests per year.

And that is for non-SCroG grows. As we all know, doing SCroG adds another 4 weeks to veg time, if not longer. With a SCroG done in the above method, now we're done to 3 harvests per year instead of 4.

But, by growing SOG, cloning and vegging in a separate room, harvest only takes 8-10 weeks because we've eliminated veg entirely. Lets assume 9 weeks on average. 52 weeks in a year, right? Doing SOG, we get 6 harvests in 54 weeks, instead of 3-4.

Not only do we get more harvests, but the harvests themselves have more weight to them. Why? More main colas/tops with SOG than anything else. Instead of tons of tiny-medium sized buds, the bulk of the buds are now top buds, resulting in bigger yields on top of the fact we get 1-2 extra harvests in a year.

The main downside is you need either the same exact strain for all 16 clones, or strains that grow/stretch similar to one another. Don't want uneven canopies if you can avoid it.

SCroG is fun as hell, don't get me wrong. But ultimately, it isn't very efficient in terms of both time and yields. The main reason for people to go SCroG is due to plant count limits, many states only allow 4-6 per adult, so SCroG makes sense in these situations.

Like with any plant, more plants will always outyield a single plant vegged for a long time. Take tomatoes for instance. One tomato plant can grow into a monster. However, it would be much more efficient growing 4-6 tomatoes instead of one big one. The 4-6 plants will provide larger tomatoes than the single plant, and be less prone to stress, bugs, and diseases.

Hope that helps my man. You'll definitely love SOG once you get it dialed in.

All the best.

Click to expand...

This helped me thanks

Kind Sir said:

You’ve always been stupid informative bud, thank you. I have a few questions and i’ll put them as bullet points so it’s easier. My mother plant and 3 smaller plants are just in a small closet for now. I’m moving everything into my “crawl space” for now…

I’m unsure if I should buy a couple small tents or if it would work just as well building them. Wood prices are high, so maby I should just use thick foam and line it.

1. How deep would the soil be? The walls of my 4x4 bed is probably like 2ft, I guess I could just fold the walls down?

2. Regarding the mother plant, is there a # of shoots I should go for so I have a little less but stronger shoots? Besides silica (agsil16h,) what else can I do to ensure the shoots are perfect for cloning?

3. I havnt done much cloning, friend on GC showed me a great way to clone using. He uses 1 1/2in rockwool cubes, will those transplant well to the soil bed?

4. Lastly, do branches lower on the plant contain more hormones (better for cloning.) ?

Click to expand...

Happy to help, glad it was useful.

For veg, you technically don't even need a room so long as the ambient temps/humidity are up to snuff. So, a small closet will work just fine if your RH and temps are good. Mother plants don't need to be perfect, they just need to survive and produce clones. With what wood prices are, I definitely wouldn't mess with building a room, especially since tents can be had for ~$100.



1) That is up to you. That said, keeping the soil 2ft high is going to affect your vertical space. Rolling your 4x4 bed to be 6 inches tall would certainly be the sweet spot. Some quick math/numbers for your consideration.

1 cubic foot = 1ft height x 1ft length x 1ft width. 1 cubic foot = 7.5 gallons. For small 2ft tall plants, you definitely don't need 7.5 gallons of soil as your plants likely won't make use of all that soil without vegging them.

But, if we replaced the 1ft height with 1/2 ft (0.5) height, the equation then becomes: 0.5ft x 1ft x 1ft = 1/2 cubic foot, or ~3.75 gallons of soil per plant. Perfect amount.

So, too long didn't read/didn't math, if you roll the walls down to 1/2 ft tall, then each of your 16 plants would have ~3.75 gallons of soil, which is more than enough for a 12 inch clone to grow to 24-30 inches tall.


2) Train the plant. Tie them down, bend them, create as many "tops" as you can. Use Coconut water for this if you aren't already. Coconut water is amazing for increasing not only your amount of nodes, but also creates much tighter node spacing. Aloe vera will also work wonders, not just for foliage growth, but also root development. Implement aloe and coconut water into your grows if you haven't already. This will result in much more tops for you to clone.

Silica/Agsil is pretty much for combating stress. While it is important for the plant's development, its main purpose is mitigating stress, or acting as an emulsifier for Neem Oil and the like.


3) Everyone clones differently, I'll talk about how I personally do it in a bit. But my first bit of advice would be to just keep at it, and be willing to fuck it up. The more you fuck up, the more you learn, and the more you eliminate the fear of fucking up. That said, some plants clone better than others. I've had some strains that root in 4-5 days. I've also had strains that don't root for 14 to even 21 days. Its definitely strain dependent.

As for my method, I personally prefer peat pellets for cloning. That said, its personal preference. Nothing wrong with rockwool, whatever it takes to get a clone going. Whether it is rockwool, jiffy pellet, plug, or whatever, a clone is a clone. That said, what I would recommend, is putting the clones into solo cups prior to transplanting into the bed. Solo cups will build root mass, where as clones have little root mass. While you're flowering, you want to be vegging in solo cups. At transplant, your plants will be nearly rootbound in the solo cups and ~1ft tall. Root mass is more important than what you see above the ground.

Whatever method your friend has recommended, if it is working for you, don't change it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you can get good clones, that's that. Just try putting the clones into solo cups prior to putting them into your beds, see if you notice a difference.

4) I've heard that often, but my personal experience has shown otherwise. The tops provide for the best clones, bar none. The bottoms of the plants aren't good enough to take into flower, and are typically tossed into the top of the soil as mulch as opposed to cloned. I rarely take clones from the bottoms of the plants, they rarely ever come out. With clones, you want thick stems. You won't find thick stems at the bottoms of the plant, its on the tops.

Every time you "top" a plant, turn that top into a clone. You'll notice that the top roots much faster than anything from the bottom of the plant.

Hope that helped.

SteakBags said:

This helped me thanks

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Happy to hear! Happy growing, all the best!