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Transcript

Scrog Nets & Horizontal Support: Boost Yields Without Stakes · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp and today we're talking about netting and particularly
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  horizontal netting that you might put through your crop.
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  When it comes to things like cucumbers, hops, tomatoes,
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  they're grown up twine, vertical wire or what's the word material,
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  string that goes to the top of the the grow
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  room so that the vines can grow up them whereas today
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  we're talking about horizontal so like netting that plants can
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  grow through and then if they're going to fall they're
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  supported by the netting and this is common in a number of crops and it's something
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  you might want to consider if you're growing them rather than using stakes to
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  support the plants stakes are not great because often they fall over with the
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  weight of the plant and you damage can damage the root system as you put them
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  in and they can be a source of.
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  Infection and things like this and they can't support the
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  plant in all in more than one direction often so a
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  net is often a very good option obviously you're
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  not a fine net a very open net that the plants can
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  grow through and in they're used
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  in a number of different crops so let's have a look at them so
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  the most common one is in legal
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  cannabis where it's known as a scrognet and
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  this is attached to all the corners of
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  the grow room in legal cannabis and it
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  sort of supports itself and then as the plants the young
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  plants grow they grow through them it's called a scrognet because
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  it comes from the screen of green technique so this
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  doesn't this isn't just using the netting screen of
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  green involves pruning apical buds
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  and then the the shoot that emerge from that pruning technique are then trained
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  and manipulated to grow across the whole of the horizontal sort of dimension
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  in three in two dimensions so that you get an absolute screen of.
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  Flowers eventually when you flip them to flowering and so
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  each of the holes has its own stem going through
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  it so one plant produces multiple multiple stems and
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  they're all supported by the netting so they don't fall into each
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  other and there's lots of airflow you can also use a
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  scrognet if you're doing a sea of green or
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  a sog where loads of different plants
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  are grown in an array so
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  you might have nine by nine plants and you.
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  Don't prune them or manipulate them you just let them grow
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  up through the hole that should correspond with the
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  number of plants that you've got there so you can either make your own
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  scrognet to to make it
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  ideal for your situation or you can buy them already from
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  from the grow shop or wherever you buy them
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  from the advantage of making your own is that you if you've.
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  If you're doing something like the sea of green you've got nine plants you
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  can optimize where the strands are for the
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  netting based on how many plants you've got there so very
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  common option rather than just using loads of stakes is
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  a scrognet or a net in legal cannabis growing
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  the other advantage of not using canes is you're not going to poke your.
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  Eye out and loads of people poke their eyes with
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  canes all the time and you
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  can put toppers on them to stop you doing this but that
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  impedes light penetration into the grow room and stuff like
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  that so often the net is a lot easier it can
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  be removed a lot quickly so scrug nets
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  and then but it's not only that large commercial growers often
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  use horizontal netting as well for growing cut
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  flowers to support them make sure they grow vertically up
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  and they don't the the crop
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  doesn't collapse in on itself what we call lodging in
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  agriculture so particularly used
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  in chrysanthemum if you go to any commercial chrysanthemum grower you'll see
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  netting very similar to the scrug type nets we talked about
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  carnations as well and pinks very
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  similar related plants lisianthus or
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  eustoma is the actual scientific name for those plants very
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  interesting plants very very popular nowadays and snapdragons
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  so chrysanthemums carnations lisianthus snapdragons
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  they can all be used grown or are conventionally
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  grown using this sort of netting to prevent their the crop collapsing in on
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  itself and just to produce an even canopy that air can flow through and again
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  illegal cannabis but there it's referred to as a scrognet even if you're not
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  doing scrog techniques so it's not a great name is it scrog,
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  scrog and sog but that's what it is.
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  So a quick and quick impactful episode
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  for today as always thank you very much
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  for listening if you have found this useful and you
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  are going to take away some of the knowledge about scrognets then please could
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  you do me a favor and leave a review on apple podcasts because it helps us shoot
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  up the apple podcast charts and then more and more people will discover us once
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  we're at the very top some of the crops that you will have been used for netting
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  in the past but is not common,
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  strawberries just to keep them up and away from the soil or
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  the growing media so they don't get gray mold or
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  the horrible diseases keeping them up in the air raspberries blackberries
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  you might find a lot of squashes melons
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  might be the vines might be growing on a on a horizontal
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  net suspended above the the
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  growers in the greenhouse that's that's common but certainly
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  in some ornamental places you might
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  have a whole sort of like hammock that they
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  they sit on hops can be have a
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  horizontal net but it's normally twine so yeah very more
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  common in like i wouldn't do a pumpkin but some of those long funny gourds often
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  grown on net on netting what else is grown on netting let's say melons anything
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  where you don't want them to touch the soil so marrows and courgettes could
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  also be grown on a horizontal as well as a vertical net.
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  If you've got any other experience of using netting, whether it's horizontal
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  or vertical in hydroponics, then let me know.
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  And I'm more than happy to do a follow-up episode. If you think I've got anything
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  wrong, I'll also do a clarification.
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  My ego is not too big that I can't say I'm wrong every now and again.
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  Thank you very much for listening today, and I'll see you again tomorrow. Goodbye.