DWC & SCROG
simply incompatible?
A False Dichotomy
Covid lockdown prompted us to contemplate the perceived incompatibility of Deep Water Culture hydroponics and Screen of Green, two wildly popular cannabis growing methods. We were sure there was a solution waiting to be found, and so we set out to find it.
It would not take us long....
What is DWC?
In the field of indoor horticulture, when selecting a growth medium, growers are faced with a variety of choices.
Of all of these, Deep Water Culture Hydroponics, or DWC, is widely accepted as the most effective means of swiftly delivering explosive vegetative growth, followed by large and bountiful yields.
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All whilst using up to 90% less water than traditional soil methods.
How Does It Work?
DWC involves suspending the roots directly in a highly oxygenated, nutrient-rich-solution. This allows plants to easily access and absorb precisely what they need for growth, leading to faster growth rates and bigger yields.
But the choice of growing medium is not the only factor that can influence potential crop yield.
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For thousands of years, farmers have been pruning, training, and trellising plants, all in search of bigger fruit, and larger yields.
However, one of the most effective means of yield-enhancing plant manipulation ever known to man is a much younger concept.
SCROG, short for Screen of Green, is a plant-training technique that was developed as a means of lowering the legal jeopardy of cannabis growers in the USA.
Conceived in 1989, in the aftermath of the DEA’s Operation Green Merchant, Michael ‘Wolf’ Segal had the idea for SCROG whilst languishing in his prison cell following the raid. Segal had gained instant notoriety, along with a particularly heavy jail sentence, when arrested with over 12,000 cannabis plants in his possession.
A Legend is Born
Segal’s ingenious idea was to grow short, bushy plants, with longer vegetative cycles that were two to three times more productive than traditional growing methods. This method would allow Segal to have much bigger yields with lower plant counts.
Over the years, the method has grown wildly popular with cannabis growers. Segal has achieved legendary status. And rightly so.
The harvest of an expertly tended SCROG must sometimes be seen to be believed.
Decisions, Decisions
But as the technology advanced, fans of the SCROG process had a decision to make. Stick with the process? Or move with the times and embrace the wave of hydroponic fever sweeping the growing community?
Why not both? You ask.
If you want to know the answer, just ask anyone who has tried, without any special equipment, to gain maintenance access to the reservoir of a fully mature plant that has grown through a SCROG screen.
We tried it once. For science. Never again.
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Which brings us to...
