2K, 4 plant, Vertical Scrog

Hello

Since there seems to be some interest in Vertical growing and this section has the best mods i'm going to throw up some pics of one of my vert systems. While we wait on maina to put up some more pics. Not really intended to be a journal but more of an example of a vert system. These 4 plants are in a living soil that I've been growing for about a year and half. Most of you know thats not a typo, I feel I've been growing that soil. The plants are a couple months old. They are in 5gal smart pots that sit atop 7 gal of 50/50 perlite and promix. The living soil mix itself is 35 to 40% perlite. That should be good enough on the organics end of it.
The first pic is when they are first going in to the bud room. not all screens are up yet.

 

I messed up already. I guess that pic was taken before they were set onto the promix.
As you can see this is set up with Cooltubes instead of bare bulbs. It can be done either way, both have their attributes and weaknesses. This is in a small room with an 8' ceiling so I went with cooltubes instead of barebulb. I also have a barebulb setup in a room with 10' ceilings.For me the jury is still out on which is better all round.
The screen is that green 2x2 plastic fencing from Lowes. Its hung from the ceiling with cable and hooks. I wove #6 wire through it at diferent heights so I could mold it to a half round shape. Because of the cooltubes I don't exchange air quite as much as you need to with a barebulb setup. This one is once every two minutes. Barebulbs work better at 2 to 3 times per minute.
Pic after putting it all together.

 

Heres a pic showing the effects of side lighting. Most all of those 12" to 16" long stems will become mini colas. With overhead lighting these would be mostly smaller nugs.

 

Here they are at end of stretch. Its hard to see but at this point they are lolipopped outward from the screen a couple or three nodes and all the buds forming on the backside of the screen get picked off.

 

This one shows them a little further into bud and the containers of promix I mentioned earlier.

 

This looks to be about 3weeks into bud and slowing down on the stretch

 

This one brings us up to date on this room. Harvest will be in 8 to 10 days.

 

Thats exactly whats happening. I tie the stalk and main branches to the screen. The plant still wants to grow towards the light, so like topping or LST the auxins go to the branches closest to the light. (Not up, like we all assumed in the past) So you are converting all the secondary branches into primary branches. In vertical this is every single branch. Each branch being about 12 to 18 inches long.Each plant in this has over 100 branches. Which brings us to the next advantage of vertical growing. The reason you can fit that many colas under 2 lights is because of the amount sqaure footage being lit. 2 lights horizontal cover 4x8 = 32 sq ft. This particular setup with 2 lights covers 60 sq ft.
I haven't talked about vegging yet, so heres the explaination. You veg with horizontal lighting in order to get the height needed to take full advantage of the effects and efficiency of vert budding. Auxins go toward the light.

 

The ones in these pics are Cooltubes by Sunlight. there are two in this room. The glass is 18" and the whole thing is 26", it holds one bulb. I've got a noise reduction clamp inbetween the two cooltubes. I found out that vibration will eventuaaly work them loose enough to fall, so I tape over it so nothing can fall. Hydrofarm makes a cooltube also. Its much shorter, can't measure now but I think its closer to a foot of glass and 18" total. I like the Sunlight version myself.
After saying I'm not sure if I like the Cooltube setup better than the barebulb. I took a look at all the pics and current grows. The bare bulb will produce more for sure no doubt. But the airflow and temps have to be handled just right. Looks you got the equip and space to do it right tho. You can expect a 5' tall plant going into bud to produce close to a pound conservativly. . I'm trying to beat 1.25 this time and looks very possible.

 

Yep that'll get you want and probably more. 5' x 4' at the flip should get that. I'm running mainly Sour D, not known for big production. You'll probably blow me away with those SSSDH. I know neither of us will be satisified until we can sell our stalks to the lumber mill. So you got some pics of these girls yet ?

That sounds really good. I'll be pulling up a chair for that one.