LST & SCROG: growing marijuana in a smart way
Two very useful techniques for maximizing micro-growing yields
Cannabis plants tends to grow straight up, sometimes reaching 3 meters in height and taking on a “Christmas tree” shape: not exactly the ideal shape for a plant to grow indoors, especially if Christmas is months away.
Aesthetics and clutter aside, over the years (in some cases millennia) growers have been finding techniques to overcome the above problems and greatly increase productivity in indoor (and outdoor) crops.
Let’s begin to explore in more depth the best growing techniques for micro-growers. Let’s start with kindness.
Low Stress Training
The purpose of this technique is to gently educate the plant (by causing little stress) to grow in such a way to take advantage as much as possible of the light it receives, thus increasing the yield.
It’s an antique technique, which dates back to the ancient Egyptians and exploits the stubborn tendency of plants to grow towards the sun (or the source of light they have available). If we bend a branch and force it (gently) to grow horizontally, we will expand the plant’s surface exposed to light and increase production.
Low Stress Training can be used profitably with outdoor plants but is the ideal technique to use indoors with grow boxes like Linfa and others micro-growing environments.
Tutorial:
Royal Queen seeds has a complete and informative guide about this technique.
Another very complete article on the subject is the one published on 2fast4bud’s blog, suggested by Polibio, a member of our community welovegrowingcannabis.com.
For those who prefer video tutorials, Hemp In A Pot has posted a very comprehensive one:
Oh by the way, which one’s SCROG?
Another low-stress training technique is SCROG, which stands for SCReen Of Green. Also, this technique aims to maximize the horizontal exposure of the plant to improve light exposure and promote the development and growth of abundant inflorescences. Scrogging will improve the quality of your cannabis plants and increase yields.
It is fundamental to have an appropriate net to implement this technique and know some simple rules that allow obtaining excellent results.
Tutorial:
An excellent introductory guide is the one published by Leafly.
And here is another, very detailed tutorial by GrowWeedEasy.
Also for this technique, the good people of Hemp in a Pot made an interesting video tutorial.
Linfa, the SCROG-Box
Linfa, our reference grow box, was born with SCROG in its DNA, as it is equipped with a net allowing an easy implementation of this technique as you can see in this video.
The very shape of the grow box has been designed to maximize plant growth through the use of SCROG.
We will never cease to appreciate the simplicity and ease of use of Linfa, and the rich harvests it allows.
In a future post we’ll talk about some techniques to increase plant productivity that are a bit more stressful for plants.
For now, practice these two ancient techniques well and you may even double your harvest!
