Dear Dan, Is there any other good ways to prop up my plants apart from ScrOG or is that the best method? I am growing in soil-less mix and plants have multiple colas (tops) so not too sure about canes or where exactly to place them if they were an option. Please help! – Mac in Scotland
Dear Mac,
ScrOG, or Screen of Green, is an excellent option for trellising your plants but there are several others. When “ScrOGging,” growers place horizontal chicken wire or other sort of netting, at the level of the plant canopy and then train the branches to fit in under the netting while aiming the growing shoots to fill in the open holes in the wire. This increases your canopy at optimal light levels and certainly accounts for bigger yields when done properly. It’s usually something that’s done late in the vegetative stage or early in the flowering stage so you may have missed the window to do it right.
Other growers use stakes, (which I’m assuming you mean by “canes.” The stakes must be securely fastened to something so they don’t fall down due to the weight of the buds and the branches must also be securely attached to the stakes. Some people dig the stakes right down into their soil but you should be careful not to damage any roots this way. I’ve even seen situations where the growers have secured lines to their light reflectors or ceiling and tied the plant tops to them but it seems unnecessarily complicated and unwieldy to me.
The important thing to note is that any branches that hang way down or are shadowed by other plant growth will not fill out to their full potential and your yield will certainly suffer. Standing up branches by using ScrOG or any other effective trellising technique can increase your harvest exponentially, so get on it!
