We all have dreams of big beautiful plants; heavy laden with colas the size of your forearm, buds dense and heavy. The only problem is trying to fit that dream in a closet or closet-sized space.
The solution: put that dream on the shelf! It’s a nice vision, but not very realistic for most of us. So today we are going to take a different approach. An approach that, if executed correctly, will generally yield more harvests and better quality buds. I am talking about the Sea of Green (SoG) method, or it’s cousin the Screen of Green (ScroG) method.
The concept behind the Sea of Green method, which was created in Holland, is to take a space that would house 4 big plants and instead use that space more efficiently by adding a shelf and having 12 plants flowering on one shelf and 12 plants in the vegetative state on the other. The theory behind this being that twice the plants that are grown to half the size will fill the space twice as fast, there-by doubling the times you harvest over a year and ultimately increasing the smokable amount you harvest over a year by using the “Perpetual Harvest” technique.
The theory was correct.
The Sea of Green technique is not difficult to understand or execute. Let’s get growing.
The key here is using your space as effectively as possible. Since we all have different sized closets I’m going to explain using a 12 square foot closet, it makes the math easier. You will want, roughly, 1 square foot per plant on your flowering shelf. If you use 4” square containers you can fit 6 plants per square foot on your vegetative shelf, if your using 6” containers you can fit 4 plants. Thats either 72 or 48 vegetative plants respectively. Still with me? Now, you are only going to flower 12 plants at a time with this technique so you will want to pick your best growers out of your vegetative plants. These will also be the best plants to take clones from because they will be a genetic match with the parent plant and will have the same growing vigor. You will start the flowering process after 2-3 weeks. Since you have a dedicated vegetative and flowering area you will tend to harvest every 45-60 days. I recommend indica or indica dominant hybrids for their low grow profile in regards to total plant height and their tendency to get bushy when trained correctly.
A quick note on topping and pruning in the SoG Method
In the Sea of Green and Screen of Green methods it neither recommended nor required to “top” your plants. “Topping” stresses the plant and in doing so lengthens the total growing time. Instead you will “train” your plant. Take a plant tie, a bread bag twist tie will do, and wrap it around the top of the plant. You’ll then want to, very gently, pull the top over until it is 90-180 degrees and attach it to the main stem or the side of your planter. Be careful not to bend the stem so much that it cracks. Also, you can allow for the main stalk to lean. “Training” your plant like this effects the hormones in the side shoots causing them to grow up instead of out.
There will be minor pruning involved as your plants start to grow into a canopy blocking out the light for the leaves below. Removing these leaves also increases the air flow underneath the canopy helping to regulate temperature and encourage strong stalks. Don’t just throw these leaves away. Clone them. Cloning is very easy and these are good leaves to take for cloning being the most easy to root after the flowering process has been started.
Screen of Green
The Screen of Green method is in every way the same except you make a “screen” using twine to train your plants to grow along much like a trellis turned onto its side a few inches from the top of the planter with the plants poking up through the holes. Simple enough.
This is just a basic explanation of these techniques and growing the weed is only one part of what I call “The Whole Process.” You still have to pick it, prune it, cure it and package it correctly to ensure the quality isn’t negatively effected. I’ll be touching base on each of those subjects at a later time. Until then do a web search, Google can lead you to practically any information you might desire so arm yourself with knowledge and remember to live well.
The author of this article is Damien S. Wilhelmi. If you enjoyed this piece you can follow me on Twitter @CustParadigm. Then trimming your bud leaves, you can always eliminate the hassle of it by using an automated Bud Trimmer.