SOG, SCROG or ? on a Commercial Scale

[Nagel420]

Yes, fans are high mounted on the all walls, low mounted on some walls (not the front walking wall / aisle), and even box hepa fans in various places on the floor (mostly in the walking aisle). TRULY a TON of air flow, even box fans that blow into ventilation tubes going above each row. To have the micro climates we get, with that much air moving, almost seems impossible. These are NOT small fans either!

Lots of issues that were present there a year ago have been corrected, and the yields have jumped nicely for those corrections. I have inquired about how to bring in a new strain, but thats still above my pay grade. Would love to bring Frankenstein to the grow I BET she’d put it that 5 g / sq ft over.

Its a balancing act at an MSO. We gotta make some targets for yields to request more equipment / pay raises, but we gotta do it with what we got… There are investors who vote on / control that kind of spending, but thankfully they invest… Lots of upgrades coming, and hoping to dial down the RH 10% for later flower to help things. I often wonder if the PM and its related stresses to the plant might be the difference of that 5g, without the PM would the unstressed plant yield more? How much does that PM affect yield? (we do get it under control but the point I want to get to is NO PM to need to control).

Sounds like SOG isn’t the best idea at the moment though…

[Kushking902]

Maybe try moving the the fans from the isles to under the benches/canopy, flowing in the opposite direction of the scrubbers/ exhaust on the ceiling. It’s free to try, just move if the fans to more critical positions

[Vagabond_Windy]

I can’t offer much advice but I will say, regardless of how dialed you can get VPD, never, I repeat, never slow down on IPM.
Your biggest suggestion to management should be to get the airflow/hvac dialed in. Gotta spend money to make money and it would suck to lose any of that canopy to rot or mold.
Good luck and congratulations!

[Weednerd.Anthony]

@Vagabond_Windy

never, I repeat, never slow down on IPM.

Wise words and I definitely agree, I’ve made that mistake a couple times and that’s when I’ve had to suffer a loss on harvest weight due to getting lazy over time etc

[Nagel420]

@Vagabond_Windy

never slow down on IPM.

We have an IPM department, and they are in each room, multiple times a day, looking for any signs of an issue even starting. Between changing scrubs, or tyvek suits, multiple times a day (cross contamination of any sort is a big concern all over the facility), I do not envy them. I am generally in the same room, maybe 2 at most, the whole day (only gotta change outta scrubs to leave the building). They are why we get PM under control quickly… Once more air handlers are added and we drop late flower RH a little, I think PM issues will be gone. But those guys (IPM department) know their shiznit (I’ve had some great conversations with them). They’ve been teaching me more than I teach them (and thats a good thing for a knowledge sponge like myself).

[GrouchyOldMan]

Greetings Nags,

I am wondering if your site uses actual ScrOG or just trellises as a technique?

Traditional Screen of Green (SCROG) involves tucking each branch underneath the screen for a nearly horizontal canopy. Trellises nets are typically hung above the plant simply to support heavily laden budding branches. (I know that you know this already).

The reason I ask is that Scrogging as I’ve understood it requires a ton of time and attention to daily adjustments during the entire stretch and it is hard to imagine that it would pay off in a production facility such as yours.

On the other hand, I bet you could use a very specific HST pruning method such as described in this thread to significantly increase yield in a cost effective manner?

Automatic Writing

My friend @bu2b coaxed almost a pound per plant out of his plants on a pretty regular basis with his program and all training is finished in just a few weeks when the plants are still small.

Regards,
-Grouchy

[Mithridate]

Microclimate pockets require microclimate solutions.

One thing I did when I encountered such a problem was to push air through perforated vinyl lines running through each rack to displace/dislodge trapped air.

If Marilyn was a plant

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/57/05/d3/5705d32b50981dd9ef0a20f5714f0bc1.gif(image larger than 700KB)

I’m a big advocate of adapt your methods to your plants not your plants to your methods.

The choice to scrog most/all is surprising to me, and I don’t doubt they thought things through but without converting the whole op to sog surely some would perform better.

Usually the advantages of scrog start and end at leveled canopy and height control… while losing the need/gift of light penetration.

One technique I use alot is to remove crown leaves from apical dominant shoots which will slow them while they rebuild their foliage, letting undercarriage catch up, leveling the canopy while keeping depth.

That’s what I got…

[Nagel420]

@GrouchyOldMan

I am wondering if your site uses actual ScrOG or just trellises

We do both. There’s 3 levels of scrog netting. The first is an actual scrog, and the 2nd and 3rd are more for trelissing and support.

We’ll put a team of 4-8 people in a room and go to town tucking and spreading out branches for that 1st level. To make it easy for newbies to understand the goal, I say use the 6"x6" layout of the scrog netting as a guide. Each plant should be centered in a 3x3 square (so 18x18") and bring the branches out to the 8 perimeter 6x6 squares opening up the middle / forming a vase. Definitely get a nice even canopy going across a 5x5 square area (30"x30") per plant. The next two nets are for support as we dont tuck anything on those levels.

I’ve inquired about HST / supercropping / FIMming, and they haven’t done much. I want to see what we could do with FIM in veg if we stick with scrogging. There’s still some screen that can fill out, but not much.

Thanks for the link, I’ll check out the link on the HST pruning method next…

[Nagel420]

@Mithridate

One thing I did when I encountered such a problem was to push air through perforated vinyl lines running through each rack to displace/dislodge trapped air.

We have these in the newer built rooms. They do seem to have a more consistent measurement in those rooms and I’ve mentioned that to the environmentals group. The “Over the plants / mounted to the rack” air tubes are almost like a 4" piece of pipe with 1/2" holes drilled like drainage pipe.

@Mithridate

The choice to scrog most/all is surprising to me

Same here, and why I am thinking hard on suggestions. There are a few strains that honestly, SCROG is a waste of time as they are so short and bushy, they might do better in a modified SOG as they will never spread out much in a SCROG (minimal stretch). There are some strains that are a friggen birdsnest in a scrog, but absolutely need to be scrogged and supported, and some that grow mainly a few larger branches that I dunno where I’d place them… To use the same technique on such variation doesn’t seem optimal to me really.

@Mithridate

One technique I use alot is to remove crown leaves from apical dominant shoots which will slow them while they rebuild their foliage, letting undercarriage catch up, leveling the canopy while keeping depth.

I’ll have to chat with the team in Veg and see just where they are topping / how. I haven’t worked in that deparment at all yet…

[sfzombie13]

i don’t think fimming would be a good fit for commercial ops. we do it in homegrows mainly to increase output while keeping plant count low. i may be mistaken about that, but if that is the case it would be offset by the amount of time it takes, the increased risk of contamination spreading, and all of it could be offset by just growing more plants. having said that, it couldn’t hurt to do a comparison on clones to see if it does make a difference.

[tamimes]

Sog all the way

[Smooth]

Quite impressive.

[tamimes]

Buy 1x (once) and make diy grow medium and it last atleast 3 years (huge savings)
(Soilless) ebb and flow also 1 fertilizer beginning till end
No pre grow 0 day to max 1 week thats it
Only problem its labor intensive
Sog system in overdrive😉
Working on a more commercial friendly setup at the moment

[tamimes]

[Dirt_Wizard]

Hey @Nagel420 our state ag school has an interesting paper about this:

Horizontal Air Flow is Best for Greenhouse Air Circulation

Edit: a few more

Providing Sufficient Airflow for Plant Growth Environments

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302972809_A_CFD_study_on_improving_air_flow_uniformity_in_indoor_plant_factory_system

Cannabis Grow Facility Design 101, Part 3: HVACD and Air Distribution

[leetdood]

I agree with @Kushking902 genetics are a big factor especially with your environment not being dialed in.

You would want, in a huge commercial grow, high yielding mold resistant strains with high thc% and bag appeal. You can do this with modern genetics but you either need to buy expensive clones or pheno hunt in-house.

[Wojak]

Wow, that looks a phenomenal yield for such small pots. Mad respect !

[BackyardBoogie420]

Ive done my fair share of commercial SOG. It works wonders, as long as you know how to clone/keep moms well.

[Nagel420]

Our moms and propagation department makes several hundred, if not thousands a month for sure. I think RH might be a concern for a SOG setup currently. Trying to convince them to run a certain bushy strain we have in a modified SOG, maybe double the plant count, and eliminate the scrog netting (they get so bushy and stay shorter). A true SOG would be 10x the plant count for sure with our spacing, and I can see RH being problematic at that density right now. Since that one strain grows like a beachball, increasing the density might let them support themselves if needed, and still keep airflow up and RH down.

[Boozer]

this is what I did this year. It worked better than not having it but next year I’m doing two layers